The Huffington Post ran an op-ed by communication professor and Norman Lear Center Director Marty Kaplan about police officers spraying Occupy protesters with pepper spray and Newt Gingrich's harsh comments aimed at protesters. Kaplan said the officers who sprayed UC Davis students didn't see them as human being, they saw them as "disgusting bugs who deserved what they got." And Gingrich does not feel much differently, calling the protesters "lazy thieving self-righteous hypocrites, and instructing them to 'go get a job right after you take a bath.'" "What the pepper-spraying cops and the contempt-spewing candidate have in common is how easily they demonize American kids who want only to exercise their right to free assembly in order to swing the spotlight from Ashton and Demi to the unfairness and unaccountability that is ravaging our nation," Kaplan said. He is concerned Gingrich has pulled ahead of Mitt Romney in recent polls and that Americans support his dehumanizing position. Read the op-ed here.