Jim Newell

Salon: MSM Debate Moderators Allow GOPers to Blast ‘Stealth Liberal Agenda’ As Audiences ‘Hoot and Holler’ Approvingly
By Tom Johnson | May 17, 2015 | 5:22 PM EDT

In the wake of the furor over his gifts to the Clinton Foundation, George Stephanopoulos has taken himself out of the running to moderate a Republican presidential debate set to air on ABC next February. That development gave Salon’s Jim Newell a peg for his Friday argument that GOPers are off-base in their recent push for conservatives (or at least non-liberals) to moderate their party’s debates.

“The mainstream media moderator serves a useful function in Republican presidential debates,” wrote Newell. “If [he or she] asks a difficult or uncomfortable question, the Republican candidate can simply badger the moderator for pursuing a stealth liberal agenda. Whenever the candidate is on the verge of embarrassing him or herself, he or she can lash out at the moderator for trying to embarrass the cause of conservatism as a whole. All of the Republican voters in the audience are conditioned to hoot and holler with approval whenever this happens.” Newell added that if the moderator is a bona fide righty, however, “it eliminates [the candidates’] escape hatch. It’s much harder to yell at a Fox News host or a Hugh Hewitt about how they’re protecting Democrats.”

Current, Former Salon Writers Ponder Ben Carson’s ‘Ridiculous Thoughts’ and ‘Crazy Things That He Says’
By Tom Johnson | May 4, 2015 | 9:18 PM EDT

Salon’s Jim Newell doesn’t think Ben Carson will be the 2016 Republican presidential nominee, but he doesn’t see him as a garden-variety wanna-be. Rather, Newell believes that Carson is likely to incur one “spectacular humiliation” after another on the campaign trail. In a Monday article, Newell contended that the “free-flowing style [Carson] showed at the [2013] National Prayer Breakfast has been subject to diminishing returns in the last two years. The novelty is wearing off, and now he’s in a position where he makes a fool of himself just about every time his mouth opens.”

Also on Monday, Steve Benen, a former Salon and Washington Monthly blogger who’s now a producer for MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, opined on the show’s blog, "As a candidate for national office, [Carson is] likely to keep sharing ridiculous thoughts, which may endear him to some GOP factions, but which probably creates a ceiling for his presidential ambitions.”

Salon: ‘Odious’ Laura Ingraham Won’t Run For Congress; She’s More Interested in ‘Demagoguery’ Than Governing
By Tom Johnson | July 30, 2014 | 4:18 PM EDT

A few months ago, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) announced he would leave the House after the current session to host a radio talk show. But what about a talk host running for Congress? In a Tuesday piece, Salon’s Jim Newell wondered about the possibility that conservative talkers such as Laura Ingraham would take the plunge.

Newell mentioned Ingraham’s vigorous support for Cantor-slayer Dave Brat and noted that Ingraham recently said she’s “keeping an open mind about running for office in the future.” That said, he concluded she won’t run since it would mean a massive reduction in her income and influence. He added that in a campaign, she would face questions about “decades and decades of [her] hateful comments directed at more or less every person and demographic.” From Newell’s piece (emphasis added):