Newt Gingrich’s endorsement by the New Hampshire Union Leader today is a hot topic on the Sunday talk shows (except “Face the Nation” which was not live but instead was a conversation with best-selling authors, including Condoleezza Rice whose No Higher Honor is #5 this week). The second part of a two-part interview with the former Secretary of State was also to run on CNN’s “State of the Union with Candy Crowley” but the segment was shelved as Crowley interviewed the Union-Leader’s Editorial Page editor Drew Cline. The first part of Rice’s interview, which was taped Nov. 18, aired last Sunday.
In 1999, the Union-Leader endorsed Steve Forbes for president. As Playbook points out this morning, publisher Joseph McQuaid told Howard Kurtz at the time that George W. Bush was an “empty suit.”