Surprise: Megyn Kelly gives Hillary Clinton a birthday present

Can we call Megyn Kelly’s total obliteration of Newt Gingrich on live television the kick off to Hillary Clinton’s 69th birthday celebration?

I hope so, because it was awesome.

So awesome I wish I had seen it live. But, 

A: I don’t watch Fox News since I was shadow-banned from appearing on air in 2009 or 2010 for questioning the sincerity of a certain host, and,   

B: The World Series was on. 

{mosads}Granted the Indians blowout of the Cubs was painfully boring. Not only that the torture of Joe Buck’s commentary-laden play-by-play forced me to add the hashtag #shutupjoebuck to all my tweets about the game. Thank God for YouTube and Megyn Kelly. Kelly’s emasculation of Newt was as complete as anything the nation has seen since Hillary’s destruction of former Republican presidential hopeful Donald J. Trump in first, second and third debates.

What really stood out was Kelly’s calm as Gingrich interrupted, cajoled and insulted her. Gingrich’s arrogance was on display from the moment Kelly opened the interview and pitched his book “Treason.”

It didn’t take long for him to throw a bomb at the woman who has become a constant target of Donald Trump’s apparent misogyny.  

“I mean, you want to go back through the tapes of your show recently, you are fascinated with sex, and you don’t care about public policy.”

Kelly shot back, “Me? Really?”

The fact that Newt would throw that insult out, while Donald Trump was the man who bragged about grabbing women by the genitals, illustrates as well as anything the absolute certainty that the election is over.

Want to give Hillary Clinton a real present today? Get President Obama to call off the election. It’s over. It’s as cooked as last Thanksgiving’s turkey. We’ll save time and money by just installing Madame President in the White House on Jan. 20. Because at this point the 2016 presidential election is a charade. 

Not rigged. Just over. If Trump’s threatened lawsuits against his accusers don’t make it plain enough, Gingrich’s bizarre rant against Megyn Kelly sure does.

By the way Washington Post critic Richard Lopez actually read Gingrich’s book and came away with this opinion: “To say that the characters in this dud of a novel are cardboard would be an insult to boxes.”

Can’t say it’s going to be high on my holiday reading list.

Anyway, Gingrich is not alone in his desperation. Listen to right-wing talk radio or follow certain hosts on Twitter so see how debased the rhetoric has become in the past 48 hours. Sadly, journalists like Kelly have become targets in this environment. Hell deputies in L.A. cuffed and detained a well-known radio reporter Tuesday. There is a strong anti-press bias among conservatives and it’s rearing its ugly head as this ugly election year winds down.

Fortunately Kelly had the perfect sign off. A birthday gift if you will.

It’s a line Clinton can roll out on Nov. 8, because as we know there will be no concession speech from her opponent.

“You can take your anger issues and spend some time working on them … Thanks for being here.”

Girardot is an award-winning former editor and columnist with the Los Angeles News Group. He is co-author of true crime tales “A Taste For Murder” and the soon-to-be released “Betrayal in Blue: The Shocking Memoir of the Scandal that Rocked the NYPD.” Follow him on Twitter @FrankGirardot 

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