The News Of …

Christine O’Donnell (former Delaware GOP Senate candidate) walked off the set of CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” Wednesday when asked about her views on sexual abstinence and gay marriage.
“I’m not talking about policies. I’m not running for office” – O’Donnell said. “Ask Michele Bachmann what she thinks.”
When Morgan asked her why she was being “weird” about answering questions on her own statements, as well as issues she addresses in her new book (“Troublemaker”), O’Donnell fired back, saying she only wanted to talk about tea party principles outlined in her book.
“That’s why I agreed to come on your show. That’s what I want to talk about” – O’Donnell said. “I’m not being weird. You’re being a little rude.”
O’Donnell made national headlines in 2010 when she denied in a TV ad that she was a witch, responding to comments she made a decade earlier on a TV show saying she had “dabbled in witchcraft.”
During her Senate campaign, O’Donnell ran as a tea party darling and social conservative. She said she hopes her new book will be an inspirational tool to the grassroots conservative movement.
But when asked about issues from her book and her campaign Wednesday, O’Donnell walked away from the interview, upset that Morgan wasn’t not talking about the things she wished to address.

Christine O'Donnell.

O’Donnell (a tea party favorite) is best known in Delaware for defeating the heavily favored nine-termCongressman and former governor Michael Castle in the state’s September 2010 Republican Senate primary. She lost in the general election to Democrat Chris Coons.
Outside of Delaware, she is perhaps most famous for her claim to have once “dabbled into witchcraft,” and her subsequent ad in which she disclaimed possessing supernatural abilities.
Before coming on Morgan’s show, she had already told Good Morning America that she regretted the “I’m not a witch” campaign ad. She said experts told her to do the ad, but that she has since learned to “trust your gut.”
The trouble started when Morgan asked O’Donnell about a part of her book that discussed gay marriage. That’s when O’Donnell accused him of “borderline being a little bit rude.”
O’Donnell repeatedly urged Morgan to drop the topic of gay rights, but Morgan would not back down, asking another question about the Pentagon’s repeal of its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
Morgan at one point looked as though he was trying to hold back a smile, and insisted: “I think I’m being rather charming and respectful.”
O’Donnell said the gay marriage issue is not relevant or what she is championing, saying the book is meant to inspire the tea party movement to “bring America back to the second American revolution.”
O’Donnell began looking off camera while asserting that Morgan should only ask her what she told him she wanted to talk about. At that point O’Donnell claimed she was being pulled away, as a handler tried to block the camera.
Morgan, for his part, didn’t look particularly invested or bothered when he asked: “Where are you going? You’re leaving?”
As O’Donnell removed her microphone she asked Morgan if he’d read the book, to which he said: “Yes, but these issues are in your book. That’s my point. You do talk about them.”
Then O’Donnell ended the interview.

That is part of the reason Morgan says he was so baffled by her reaction.
“From an interviewing standpoint, I don’t think there was anything that would constitute rudeness” – he said. “The issue of gay marriage is clearly significant in the wake of (the popularity of) Michelle Bachmann. I wasn’t asking about to it to be outrageous, I just assumed she would have a standard answer for it since she wrote about it in her book. It was bizarre.”
And Morgan had some choice words for O’Donnell’s assertion that Morgan should not have asked her about it in the first place.
“I can’t believe she can think – as not at all a frontline politician – that she can dictate to CNN the terms of an interview” – he said.
Morgan says that he will invite her back for a live appearance on Thursday’s show. And while he doesn’t expect her to say yes, he is hopeful.
“I’ve learned never to be surprised. I would if I were her. I think she will watch it back and be embarrassed.”
Morgan says that while he doesn’t think it was a publicity stunt by O’Donnell to sell books (“I didn’t get that feeling but you never know” – he said), he knows the sure-to-be-viral video should be good for his own show.
“Of course!” he acknowledges. “I’m not complaining!”