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
Condescending jerk.
noooo...more like he'll have to go to R-E-H-A-B.....
This is old news, regurgitated by muck diving sewer rats laying like cockroaches under the liberal Maim Stream Medias bed and the fact that he voluteered to talk about it with James Hobson!
There fixed!!!!!
It's always thoughtful when someone (like you) proves my point.
Newt Gingrich is already wildly disliked by the left and center of this country.
Read the above quote again. Now imagine that line used like a sledgehammer, 24/7 with Gingrich and Hillary heading towards Nov 08. Despite all of the word parsing and nuance tending that is already cropping up on this thread, the average voter would see Newt not only as unlikeable, but a complete hypocrite.
You can't ride in to town on a socially conservative high horse with this kind of history. Not without adopting a Clintonesque defense that the voters would find, ironic, to say the least.
If God has forgiven him maybe you could also consider it.
I forgive him, but I won't vote for him for President.
I wasn't aware that Newt was the one that "brought it to the public's attention".
Doesn't look like he had any other choice than "own up".
WEll well well...you mean he's not perfect? WHere are the Guiliani haters? I'd like to hear them in here.
So, that would make Newt himself a muck diving sewer rat for bringing it up this garbage voluntarily!
How dare he!?
The author of this hit piece is trying to draw equivalence between the two adulterers.
Bill Clinton was not hounded while in office because he was merely an adulterer. In an age of political correctness and even having sex with a willing secretary has been frowned upon for decades, it seems odd that the Left would say that it is "no big deal" (only because as NOW admitted, he had the "right", politically correct, position on abortion so he got a pass, "the first grope is free").
If the affairs of Newt and Rudy are going to be top issues (and not just issues designed to turn off the conservative base), then the press must also be willing to hold Mrs. Clinton's feet to the fire and expose her open marriage.
Hillary said in the 1992 election that she wasn't just some little woman standing by her man, implying that she would not tolerate him "cheating" on her. It isn't cheating if it is already an open marriage.
She expected us to believe that she really was in the dark about Bill's affair with Monica until shortly before he went on tv to confirm the event to the American audience.
She said that President Bush lied to her on Saddam's weapons program too.
She seems gulible, always falling for a false bill of goods. Or maybe she isn't so dumb after all and is just telling the public what they want to hear.
At any rate, is this the issue that the 2008 election should come down to? Adultery? If it is, then all of the candidates in all of the parties should be made to take a stand on the issue of extramarital affairs, not just in the workplace.
I've known married couples that have cheated on their spouses, and then married their lovers. It is uniformly a bad idea. While I have no respect for the sham marriage that the Clintons maintain, which is clearly free of love or forgiveness, I can't say that Newt is really any more honorable or smart in his business.
I mean, it's nice that he's coming clean 10 years later, and with a Presidential election that he may run in looming. It just feels a little contrived. If he were an "I don't care what you do in your off time so long as you do good work" kind of guy, this would have no traction. As it is, he happens to be Newt Gingrich. I don't think that the public is going to overlook that.
The lying under oath was Clinton's crime. So Gingrich is correct three.
When did Gingrich "frequently campaign" on family values issues? He had a Contract with America. So?
The AP is trying to spin this into a hit piece on Newt. He's the new punching bag dujour.
CONSERVATIVES, FIGHT BACK, DAMMIT!
The problem here for Newt is that conservatives are supposed to believe in moral standards. Newt was head guy in the conservative revolution and he couldn't even control himself while in position of leadership as Speaker with all the media spotlight while Clintoon was being impeached in what the public thought and continues to think is a 'sex scandal'. So though Newt is trying to 'neutralize' it, this does not bode well for him being presented to the public as a possible GOP nominee. The public knows him and has never liked him. He is a victim of his own stupidity due to his actions. And this wasn't his first failed marriage on the part of adultery. Conservatives DO NOT get away with this so this argument that Clintoon did it, why can't Newt be forgiven does not hold up. And will not as it is seen for hypocrisy and agaiinst what conservatives are supposedly for.
Does anyone think the fat ankled broom rider would ever allow an interview like this? Fat chance! She admits to nothing. She has never done anything wrong.
Likewise.
Actually, I think a complicated marital history on both sides of the ticket would negate the entire thing as a campaign issue. No one would be in a position to make a "first strike".
Rudy isn't putting himself forward as socially conservative. It's obvious that he is far from it so it doesn't come off as the hypocrisy that comes from Newt. The American people have and never will like Newt. He blew his chance by this foolishness.
You're forgetting that conservatives embrace moral standards. That DOES NOT negate anything. And it is hypocrisy. I mean, Newt couldn't control himself as Speaker and knowing the media scrutiny and how unpopular he already was?!
Looks more and more like politics on Newt's part. He had two marriages end due to adultery on his part. And the one spoken about here happen during his tenure as Republican pushing the conservative agenda. This is Newt's doing and he couldn't control himself then and is only pandering now.
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