Marianne Gingrich and Her Would-be-President Ex

No man is a hero to his valet--or ex-wife. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

These two aphorisms explain why Noman won't be watching the Newt Gingrich hit piece video that ABC has taped with Marianne Gingrich, his former wife of 18 years, in anticipation of the all-important South Carolina primary.

Since its inception in 1980, no Republican candidate has ever won the Party's presidential nomination without first winning the SC primary. Newt is in the running, and closing fast on front-runner Mitt Romney.

Laughably, the headlines concern ABC's qualms about running the interview before the primary vote. Wasn't that the point? If ABC had moral qualms about allowing itself to be used to exact vengeance on the eve of a make-or-break election, it wouldn't have taped the interview in the first place.

Newt is a Republican, and he'll be treated accordingly. ABC will run the video before the vote, and at the moment calculated to inflict maximum damage on Gingrich and the Republican Party.

Democrats get a different standard, which was applied to Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial. NBC sat on an exclusive interview of Juanita Broaddrick, an ex-campaign worker who accused the President of raping her when he was the attorney general of Arkansas, until after the Senate had voted to acquit him.

Even if Marianne Gingrich could successfully run the media gauntlet that would form to protect any Democratic President or candidate--which she couldn't--can you imagine her getting through a President Clinton's, say, bimbo eruption unit? Like Kathleen Willey, she would soon discover her cat missing, and be asked about it by an anonymous jogger who mentioned her children by name.

Were Marianne to offer dirt on a Democratic hopeful, she would be vilified like Linda Tripp, and hounded to get plastic surgery. There is no stigma, however, attached to slinging mud on a Republican.

Marianne Gingrich has aired her grievances before. With Newt's ascent in the polls, she is back in the limelight.

[quote] "He believes that what he says in public and how he lives don't have to be connected," Marianne Gingrich, Newt's wife of 18 years, explained to ESQUIRE last year. [end quote]

Headline: "Newt is human." Does that make it advisable to vote for someone else?

If this story is true, Newt has imbibed the Lefty zeitigeist. Liberals' fiercely maintain that one might flagellate his goldfish in a leather teddy for kicks, but that it has absolutely nothing to do with the person he is once he steps outside of the naughty room.

Every Democrat stands for the platitude--practically, if not outspokenly--that what a man is bears no relation to what he does, let alone to the difference between that and what he says. We are all bombarded by this siren's song, which is near and dear to the heart of President Obama, President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, et al. and their Party.

Granting the worst about Newt, ad arguendo, why then should it be the decisive factor in any race between him and any of them? At least with President Gingrich, the nation wouldn't have to check every 60 seconds to see if a new czar had been appointed, a new law passed or regulation adopted to curtail American freedom.

Newt is not Noman's man; Rick Santorum is. But, he deserves better than this shabby airing of his domestic disputes when he's trying to finish the serious political business he started in 1994.

Marianne's taking Newt out of the running--should the public be so manipulable as to let her--might be a blessing in disguise. The disgust factor might drive people further away from the Democratic Party and its leering media.

On a different note, Jack Abramoff indicates a different reason in "Capitol Punishment" for why Newt might not be the most effective antidote to four years of Obama poisoning: he is a know-it-all. Abramoff tells the story of his initial lobbying efforts on behalf of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

He was retained to prevent Congress from imposing a 30% tax on the Indians' gaming revenues, which would have cost the tribal government budgets tens-of-billiions of dollars over the ensuing decade. Abramoff was able to cast their position as a tax issue and to win the support of Grover Norquist at Americans for Tax Reform, Majority Whip Tom Delay, and Majority Leader Dick Armey.

[quote] "Yes, I know about the tax. You know what" I was flying last week and sitting right there, in first class, was an Indian. Where do you think they're getting that kind of money" They need to be taxed like everyone else."

I couldn't believe me ears. "Newt, what? You're kidding, right?" He wasn't kidding. He felt that the tribes had a sweetheart deal with their untaxed casinos. It wasn't fair.

I wanted to ask him whether he thought it was fair that the Indian nation made treaties with our country and had every one of them broken, often accompanied by mass slaughter of that tribe? Was it fair that we made agreements with the Indian nations and later decided that the land we gave them was too valuable, so we moved them to swamps and bogs? Was any of that fair? But, I kept quiet.

There's no sense arguing with Newt Gingrich. He is always right (emphasis added). [end quote]

We've already got a President like that. And, unlike President Bush who preceded him, President Obama is never chided by the talking heads for not entertaining doubts about the course he is setting the nation on.

Noman's hope for a President Gingrich, should it come to pass, is that he would have the sense to surround himself with intelligent, passionate people who challenge his assumptions and conclusions. Unlike the present occupant of the Oval Office, Newt doesn't need a phalanx of sycophants and adorers for validation.

He can repent of the sins visited upon his ex-wife before and after making a good confession to a priest, or in purgatory. But, America is too far down the road of family destruction, sexual chaos and political defilement to deny anyone the nomination on the grounds that his ex-wife hates his guts.

“In reality, the public and the private are not separate but proceed in tandem. For example, when half of America in 1998-99 embraced the idea that President Clinton’s behavior was OK because “everyone does it” (i.e., all Americans including all past American presidents have been energetic adulterers), that wasn’t just a statement (a ridiculously false and scandalous statement) about our public life and our history as a nation; it had enormous effect on people’s attitudes and the whole culture and helped feed our cultural collapse and ongoing abandonment of standards. Oral sex—promiscuous oral sex—among teens greatly increased in the years after the Lewinsky affair.

Now let us imagine the path not taken. If instead of accepting and excusing Clinton’s behavior, America had, as it should have done, risen up and said that a president who had shown such contempt for his high position by receiving serial blow jobs in the Oval Office, cannot remain in office, because it would degrade the presidency and thereby degrade us as a people; and if they had then forced him out of office over his transgressions, that would have had the opposite effect on American morality than the excusing of him had.

Remember federal prosecutor John Doar’s definition of an impeachable offense before the Congress in summer 1974: “behavior that is grossly incompatible with the nature and function of the office.” Without even touching on the perjury aspect of the case, Clinton’s sexual escapades with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office was behavior grossly incompatible with the nature and function of the presidency, and he should have been forced out of office over it.

To return to Gingrich, the idea that having as First Lady a woman who was sleeping with Gingrich all through his four years as Speaker of the House, when he was married and constantly appearing with and referring to his wife Marianne, would have no effect on Americans’ private sense of what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior, is an off-the-planet fantasy that only a libertarian could credit. If you want to say that morality is dead and doesn’t matter any more, and therefore it doesn’t matter what we approve and accept in our public life because only the economy and national defense matter, then say it. But please don’t insult our intelligence by claiming that having as president of man of Gingrich’s character and background would not be very damaging to whatever remains of our moral culture.”

“In reality, the public and the private are not separate but proceed in tandem...”

Amen.

“Now let us imagine the path not taken...”

Amen.

“Remember federal prosecutor John Doar’s definition...”

Amen.

“...is an off-the-planet fantasy that only a libertarian could credit.”

I’m not a libertarian. And, Santorum is my man—despite my misgivings concerning some of his economics—for reasons including his moral rectitude.

I simply don’t appreciate having Pavlovian responses forced on me by a media that lacks moral authority to do so, and am therefore defending Gingrich.

“If you want to say that morality is dead and doesn’t matter any more”

I wouldn’t go anywhere near that far. But, the sexual-impropriety horse is already out of the barn. I don’t see Newt’s candidacy, especially at this moment in time, as the apposite place to begin corralling it again by forcing him out of the race.

“...and therefore it doesn’t matter what we approve and accept in our public life because only the economy and national defense matter, then say it.”

You needn’t erect a straw man. Morality does matter, critically. As you point out, however, we have approved and accepted far worse than Gingrich already. Historical context matters. After blow jobs in the Oval Office and semen-stained dresses (not to mention gay bordellos run out of congressmen’s apartments) we are already desensitized.

“But please don’t insult our intelligence”

Nothing could be further from my intention.

“by claiming that having as president of man of Gingrich’s character and background would not be very damaging to whatever remains of our moral culture.”

If he repents of his past sins, and is sincere in his resolve to right his disordered past to the extent possible, he could be salutary to our moral culture and perhaps even be what it needs to begin corralling that horse again.

I’m not so quick to condemn his character, though I have my doubts. He has converted to Roman Catholicism, confessed his sins, received absolution, and presumably lived a monogamous life with his third wife. He appears to be trying to heal, rather than indulge in his appetites. We have seen far worse in our public life.

“This Noman dude is basing his screed on the opinion of psychopathic crook Jack Abramoff.”

“This Noman dude” is reading Abramoff’s political confession because I’m interested in knowing more about him, and the ways of DC. I read a lot of books on lots of topics.

What I wrote was not a screed against Newt Gingrich. Quite the contrary.

Neither was it based on Jack Abramoff’s opinion of Newt. The anecdote was simply a reading reference that shed some light. That’s why I read.

Additionally, I share these references—as I have in many posts—to better remember what I read.

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