Newt Gingrich joins CNN revival of 'Crossfire'
Newt Gingrich had an affair with Senate staffer Callista Bisek in the 1990s. He left his wife and married her. (April 19, 2012) Credit: Getty Images
As expected, CNN will revive "Crossfire" this fall; not quite as expected: Newt Gingrich will be one of the co-hosts.
The network announced this morning that it would relaunch the revival with a four-person format, with Gingrich and MSNBC contributor S.E. Cupp as his co-rightie; and Stephanie Cutter, a political consultant, with Van Jones, a founder of Rebuild the Dream, as her co-leftie.
Yes, you are correct: The panel is pretty much massively imbalanced, as Gingrich is the only household name here and an extremely well-traveled TV personality already.
"Crossfire" was a true CNN original and one of the network's signature programs, airing from just after launch, in 1982, to 2005, when a former CNN president made the unusual decision of agreeing with Jon Stewart — that the show was a huge waste of air and did more damage than good. In fact, ratings had dribbled away and the decision was a relatively easy one to make.
But in retrospect, it's clear that CNN had given up a piece of its heritage without so much as a fight to try to improve it, or at least make it relevant in an era when whole networks were (and are) engineered around political viewpoints.
Here's the CNN release:
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