Sarah Palin: Newt Gingrich fell into ‘lamestream media’ trap

Newt Gingrich’s misstep this week was actually a double fault in Sarah Palin’s eyes. Not only did he attack his own party’s proposal to reshape Medicare, but he did so while appearing on the oh-so-dreaded “lamestream media.”

Palin offered her diagnosis on a pair of Fox cable shows Wednesday and used Gingrich’s latest woes as an example of why Republican presidential hopefuls should avoid the traditional media.

“There’s got to be the preparation on all the candidates’ parts for those gotchas. That’s what the lamestream media is known for nowadays is the gotcha trip-up questions,” she told Sean Hannity on his Fox News Channel show Wednesday

She took Gingrich at his word when he told NBC’s David Gregory that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s proposal to overhaul Medicare was “right-wing social engineering,” an assessment she called terribly wrong. But that doesn’t mean he should have apologized for it.

“I don’t know why politicians feel that they have to apologize for something that they said just because they’ve gone through a 24-hour cycle of the lamestream media giving them a hard time,” she said. “If Newt Gingrich believes that it’s right-wing social engineering to undo Obamacare and reform Medicare … then say so. But don’t apologize later just because the media has dinged you on what you said.”

Though Palin faulted the media for playing the “gotcha” game, Gingrich’s response since his “Meet the Press” appearance was driven by the wave of outrage from conservatives themselves. He said he actually supported Ryan’s plan but was tripped up by adversarial questioning on the show.

In another appearance on the Fox Business Network, Palin called Ryan’s plan “courageous” and “fiscally sound.”

She also said she wouldn’t allow the “media-dictated deadlines” to guide her decision on whether she’d run for president.

“We have to have faith that the Republican Party will allow to surface the right candidate to take on President Obama, to defeat President Obama because our country is on the road to bankruptcy,” she said.

michael.memoli@latimes.com