and they both have such nice hair. Don't get me wrong, I like Newt: very thoughtful and well spoken- with some great ideas.
Posted on 03/08/2007 10:53:12 PM PST by Luis Gonzalez
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.
"The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards."
Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity.
"The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge," the former Georgia congressman said of Clinton's 1998 House impeachment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. "I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept ... perjury in your highest officials."
Widely considered a mastermind of the Republican revolution that swept Congress in the 1994 elections, Gingrich remains wildly popular among many conservatives. He has repeatedly placed near the top of Republican presidential polls recently, even though he has not formed a campaign.
Gingrich has said he is waiting to see how the Republican field shapes up before deciding in the fall whether to run.
Reports of extramarital affairs have dogged him for years as a result of two messy divorces, but he has refused to discuss them publicly.
Gingrich, who frequently campaigned on family values issues, divorced his second wife, Marianne, in 2000 after his attorneys acknowledged Gingrich's relationship with his current wife, Callista Bisek, a former congressional aide more than 20 years younger than he is.
His first marriage, to his former high school geometry teacher, Jackie Battley, ended in divorce in 1981. Although Gingrich has said he doesn't remember it, Battley has said Gingrich discussed divorce terms with her while she was recuperating in the hospital from cancer surgery.
Gingrich married Marianne months after the divorce.
"There were times when I was praying and when I felt I was doing things that were wrong. But I was still doing them," he said in the interview. "I look back on those as periods of weakness and periods that I'm ... not proud of."
Gingrich's congressional career ended in 1998 when he abruptly resigned from Congress after poor showings from Republicans in elections and after being reprimanded by the House ethics panel over charges that he used tax-exempt funding to advance his
already posted
My goodness, this is horrible!
He may be run out of office for this!
Oh, wait a minute...
There's something disturbing about the title of the article -- especially the last words.
We knew this years ago, didn't we. Isn't this why he left office? Smacked too much of hypocrisy, even tough, with clinton it was really about perjury, but dems tried to spin it about it being about his personal life.
I did a search and nothing came up...I asked the Admin to remove it.
good boy
He left office because of a scandal involving a book.
He was being challenged for the leadership position, wasn't he? And he just quit, the end.
Not true at all...
"Reports of extramarital affairs have dogged him for years as a result of two messy divorces, but he has refused to discuss them publicly."
He just openly admitted to this, and that's news.
Did Newt ever have police escort a potential rape victim to his room where he dropped his pants and said "kiss it"?
Did Newt ever receive oral sex while deploying troops on the phone?
Bill Clinton lied under oath and bought off the testimony of others to hide the fact that he sexually harassed women at work, engaged in workplace sexual affairs, and tried to deny one of his victims her day in court.
Pictures needed!
So affairs are OK as long as they stay within your accepted parameters?
And I should care about this because?
I don't know...why did you read the article?
Or should we be limited to posting only those articles that you care about?
There's a difference here.
If Newt is truly considering making a run at the White House, he needed to neutralize this story.
That's why he owned up to it while being interviewed by James Dobson.
Purely a political move by Newt's team.
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