I know that the conventional wisdom is that in answering last night’s question from CNN’s John King, about whether he had asked his then-wife to enter into an open marriage, Newt Gingrich “hit it out of the park.” He certainly brought the GOP audience to its feet. He’s winning praise from all sides for how he turned the question into an assault on the mainstream media.
I accept the fact that Gingrich helped himself politically with his answer. He may even win the South Carolina primary tomorrow. (Indeed, I think it’s quite likely that will occur.) But I do think that it’s useful to excerpt the debate transcript and analyze what it might tell us.
Here’s how the exchange went:
MR. KING: As you know, your ex-wife gave an interview to ABC News and another interview with The Washington Post, and this story has now gone viral on the Internet. In it, she says that you came to her in 1999, at a time when you were having an affair. She says you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage. Would you like to take some time to respond to that?
MR. GINGRICH: No — but I will. (Cheers, applause.) I think — I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that. (Cheers, applause.)
MR. KING: Is that all you want to say, sir?
MR. GINGRICH: Let me finish.
MR. KING: Please. (Boos, cheers, applause.)
MR. GINGRICH: Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things. To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine. (Cheers, applause.) My — my two daughters, my two daughters wrote the head of ABC, and made the point that it was wrong, that they should pull it. And I am frankly astounded that CNN would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate. (Cheers, applause.)
The language Gingrich used to describe the media – “destructive,” “vicious,” “negative,” and guilty of reporting “trash” — is typical of the understatement we’ve come to expect from him. But I want to focus on Mr. Gingrich’s claim that to report this story two days before the South Carolina primary is “as close to despicable as anything I can imagine.”
Really? Anything Mr. Gingrich can imagine? More despicable than, say, rape? Or murder? Or genocide? Or – just to pull an example out of mid-air — serially cheating on your wives? And to do so when you’re, say, Speaker of the House? During the impeachment of Bill Clinton over crimes that grew out of an affair with an intern? Reporting that story was more despicable than any of these things?
I’m sorry, Gingrich supporters throughout the land, but words have meaning. And for Mr. Gingrich to make the claim he did – and to win thunderous applause for it – is both amazing and somewhat dispiriting.
My guess is that Mr. Gingrich’s words were completely heartfelt. It’s not that what he said was in any sense objectively true; it’s that from his perspective, they are true. Given his absolute certitude in his own greatness – he is, after all, the man who once told a reporter that it’s people like him who “stand between us and Auschwitz” – Gingrich believes any charge against him is a dagger aimed at the heart of Western civilization.
It was quite revealing to me that Mr. Gingrich, in his answer, didn’t show any contrition or remorse. Instead, he reacted with indignant self-righteousness. So think about this: Mr. Gingrich, a candidate for the presidency, is enraged because the press interviewed his ex-wife and, in the process, has drawn attention to his own infidelity and mistreatment of his ex-wife, which no one disputes. And in all of this the injured party isn’t Marianne Gingrich but rather Newt Gingrich. The offending party isn’t the former speaker; it’s the press for daring to raise this matter.
For the record, I believe in, and have written often about, liberal bias in the news media. I also think Mr. Gingrich is a man in possession of some very impressive political talents, some of which have been on display during the last week. He ranks as one of the more significant conservative political figures in the last several decades. He’s capable of offering piercing insights. And he’s a person of almost supernatural resilience. But he’s also a man of flawed character and temperamentally unequipped to be president. Time and again he’s shown himself to be erratic and alarmingly undisciplined. And the fact that his answer last night – which I will concede worked brilliantly for him – brought a conservative audience to its feet was not one of the conservative movement’s finest hours.
Gingrich is a self-important gas bag. That South Carolina's famously "socially conservative values voters" think it's terrible for a reporter to ask about his serial infidelities tells us more about the degredation of "values" in American society than you would learn by observing the liberal denizens of Cambridge, Massachusetts. n nAll in all, a really revolting display. Life in "upstate" Carolina must have become pretty trashy. Maybe it's all those "evangelical" preachers who keep getting caught sleeping with the penitents.
I think that Gingrich was more than right. He was totally correct in taking down the reporter from that scam called CNN. We, the people, do not want to get into the bedrooms of candidates or anyone for that matter. It stinks. Gingrich's wife has fully justified his apparent dislike of a marriage to her. What idiot would want a wife like that? Which brings me to the 'social' issues in this campaign. Why does the GOP want the government, with their guns and police, to get involved with sex? Particularly abortion, since that is a religious issue. And stem cell research? That is a moral issue that we should pursue – stem cell research is a pro-life issue. That's where I would fault Gingrich and the entire bunch of GOP candidates. But I am too pro-Israel, so I will vote for any of them. Particularly Gingrich. And I didn't like Reagan and thought he was miserable for Israel with a stooge like Buchanan in his nest.
Newts what you call a tubby little whiny B****….Dudes more of a narcissist the Obama! The fact that he went after Clinton while he was having an affair and asking for an open marriage and the so called conservatives are rallying behind him, I can't understand that. And you got these CONSERVATIVE Pundits that are shoving him down their listeners throats everyday and defending everything he's ever done (IE Talk radio windbags Laura Ingram and Mike Gallagher. You should hear them, it's disgusting). I'm tired of all these Washington politicians. Romney the guy for that simple fact.
Come on Peter, in recent memory there has not been a president (or cabinet secretary or presidential advisor) with flawed character or questionable temperament? n nWith all that we now know about Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, etc, none has shown himself to be erratic and/or alarmingly undisciplined either in public, or in private actions that are, unfortunately, revealed years later? n nI believe that your criticism of Gingrich is unfair, and that your view of the presidency is unrealistic. I would also like to hear you speak extemporaneously, before a nationwide audience, about the skeletons in your closet. None of us is perfect!
Gingrich's is self evident now.
What Gingrich did and said about the media is something every GOP candidate for high office should start doing, because we have reached a point where the media is nothing more than a glorified PAC for Democrats and the liberal agenda. Since CNN and other media outlets weren't interested in reporting FRESH news about John Edwards and his marital problems while he was an active candidate for the White House four years ago but instead covered for him, and since they were all apologetic and angry about having to report Bill Clinton's problems in 1992, I think Gingrich had every right to simply throw their standards of what was and what wasn't important to start a Presidential debate right back in their faces.
Since you read the transcript of the you might also want to go to the source of the exchange as well. The Nightline interview with Marianne Gingrich was a carefully organized hit piece by ABC. None of her statements were questioned and her statements about Newt instigating the divorce after she told him she had MS is contradictory to information put out previously. Further an <a href-"http://hotair.com/archives/2011/12/16/wapos-hit-job-on-gingrich/">FBI document states that Marianne Gingrich said “her relationship with her husband was purely a relationship of convenience,” She told that she needed her husband for economic reasons, and that he needed to keep her close because she knew of all his ‘skeletons.’ n nIn such circumstances,an unbiased press should never have released this bogus interview. What doi you think the ex-Mrs. Gingrich's fee was?
oh Newt…what to say? <heavy sigh> n njeburke's "self important gas bag" is the second-best description of Newt I've read. (the first is "angry badger.") and I, like him/her, am surprised that conservatives are defending Newt on this. Rush read a letter on his show where someone actually suggested that Newt, by being honest with his wife about wanting an "open marriage," was actually "showing his character." if this is what we've come to in this country, where honest infidelity is a mark of character, well, then I fear for the Republic. n nseems like I'm writing that a lot these days. n nit's a little disingenuous for anyone to say that "we the people" don't want to get into the candidates' bedrooms. after all, someone was sufficiently interested in bedrooms to impeach Bill Clinton. we seem to want to know all the dirt about our enemies, but we excuse our allies. hey, that's life, that's politics. n nthe problem with Newt Gingrich is Newt. he's an unpleasant, smarmy little man and he's done his best to destroy Romney, who we all know is going to end up the nominee. so he's hurting the party for his own ego; he might as well go work for Obama. n nnow having said all that, I love many of the things Newt has said. (I also find that if I READ his words rather than hear him speak them, I like them much better.) he was 100% right about the invented Palestinians. and the media RICHLY deserve what they got from him. but that doesn't make him presidential material. our current disaster of a "Commander and Chief" is also a brilliant speaker and debater with a huge ego. do we really need another one of those?
Oh, please. This ABC story was old news, intended solely as a hit piece on Gingrich. If political opponents want to use his past infidelities as a a line of attack, that's one thing. But what, precisely, was the news value of the ABC story? Gingrich was quite right to stuff that question down John King's throat. And I say this as someone who is far from convinced that the former Speaker would be the GOP's best choice to oppose Obama.
@ztrakyga72p n nYou confuse Mr. Wehner's argument. He does not argue that any one of us is perfectly temperate or possesses an infallible character; rather, he clearly and succinctly demonstrates that Gingrich is quite far from those characteristics. Whether or not other presidents possessed some character deficiency, the particular of which you have not specified in your post (I assume you also mean marital infidelity, otherwise you'd be bringing erroneous evidence into this argument) is not at issue here. Instead we are confronted with Gingrich's poor response to a rather simple question of marital fidelity; a question of simple, yet crucial importance to voters who ought to champion the values they claim to support. The fact that Gingrich did not address this issue, or his near-perfect track record of marital INfidelity, is very alarming. And that should give us all pause.
You blithely overlook, for example, obama's embrace of a racist, anti-semitic "man of cloth", and obama's deliberate refusal to discuss that individual's preaching. I do not believe that Gingrich's past marriage is nearly as important as the failure of the leader of 300 million people to unambiguously disavow, and denounce, hated spewing forth from obama's own church. After all, Brian, this country does include white, and Jewish, citizens whose self-esteem, and security, is no less important than the creature who was (and probably still is) obama's spiritual advisor.
I'm sorry, ztrakyga, but I did not blithely overlook anything in my post. Mr. Obama's affiliation with your purported "man of cloth" is not the subject of my or (I believe) Mr. Wehner's post (although I do agree that said affiliation is troubling). That said, I don't quite care whether Gingrich's infidelity is "nearly as" important as Obama's affiliation to the preacher, but I do very much care that his infidelity is, plain and simple, "important" in our discussion of character and ethics in, as you put it, the potential "leader of 300 million people." Call me crazy, but character counts, period.
Peter, this response deeply resonates with me due to its independent reasoning and courage. I agree with all of your remarks and I would like to add that other Republican pundits who have backed Gingrich lack long-term foresight. Surely they realize that America will be harder to convince than a South Carolina Republican debate audience. ____They've been so seduced by Gingrich's rebuttal involving the euphoria inducing catchphrase "biased liberal media", that they have lost track of what they stand for, all the core principles of conservatism, and even the crucial demand of being treated equitably in political discourse. They've shown they are commensurate to the double standard on the left, by taking unholy interest in the sex life of a Democratic president, but not the sex life of a Republican candidate. ____It's undeniable that Gingrich has a talent for delivering stirring, ebullient remarks but in the case of complex issues, they are also too short to be truthful. And in Gingrich's case, however masterful he looked at that debate, the scope of his character flaws doesn't end at serial adulterey, it begins there. He is serially immoral, showing rash disconcern for human carnage.
And that is something that rediscovering Catholocism will not cure. n nAt this point, Republicans who are crying out at the liberal media are crying wolf. In the future, the profusion of Gingrich's flaws are going to cost him the election, and I'd rather it be the primary. And Republicans are doing themselves dubious credit by not scrutinizing what he has to say. Including the specious claim that he is the true consevative. He once supported the cap and trade policy, and he once supported a national healthcare mandate. Both are tantamount to fascism. His tirade against Romney's involvement in Bain capital amount to an attack on the free market, a pillar of Conservativism. Additionally, serial adulterey is not consistent with social conservatism? And why is he allowed to criticize his opponents virulently, while his past, current, and future indiscretions are somehow beyond the pale of discourse? He's just a hypocrite.
Newt Gingrich rediscovered Christianity, not "Catholicism". There is no such thing as "Catholicism". The Church of Rome, aka the Roman Catholic Church, is but one of a number of Christian denominations, like the Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant, Evangelical, and Apostolic denominations.
I'd also like to say that the antipathy of the John Edwards affair flared in response the outrageousness of conducting it while his wife suffered from terminal cancer. Gingrich. He left last wife in the midst of multiple sclerosis, and the first one in the midst of cancer. As for the ludicrous notion that he has ever repented, he is presently married to the homewrecker of his last marriage. Repentance in those situations can't be handled by a reversion to Catholocism, but by addressing the human cost of reprehensible conduct, a position that is mutually exclusive to his current marriage partner. Remember McCain, the tortured war hero sayiing his greatest moral failure was dissolving his first marriage? Where's the similar tone of apology in any of Gingrich's responses. All I hear is indignancy, and the upsidedowness of claiming to be a victim.
Wasn't his second wife the homewrecker of the marriage before that?
I'd also like all of the Sean Hannity's of the world who didn't have pre-marital sex (like I ddint') to acknowledge that the breakdown of the nuclear family is a problem on the same level of atrocity as the economy. The American defining value of marital fidelity and self-accountability is atrophying by moment. Republican pundits are participating in that breakdown by condoning Gingrich. Never again will they sound truthful when they decry it. Additionally, Gingrich's current atrocious reaction to the controversy is fair game even if his past behaviour was unfairly rehashed. To review, he used his daughters as human shields to deflect his own conduct. He just claimed moral virtue by pretending to be one of the decent person that the media is putting down. If that's not an inspiring statement, what is, considering his utter decorum regarding Romney who was faithful to his wife, and just as vacillating in his positions. n nUgh, what a loathsome hypocrite. And rememeber how he led the impeachment against Clinton for sexual misconduct?
I hate to confuse anyone with the facts, but Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath. n nNothing more, nothing less — the perjury involve his sexual relations with Moncia L, but it could just as well have been if he drinks Coke or Pepsi. n nFacts do matter….
Newt Gingrich ia man with many good ideas,who knows how to deal with the other side of the aisle,and get what we want.Romney is an innefectual leader,who is pandering to the GOP base,and will change the moment he gets elected,guarenteed.He did the same thing in Massechusets.I find it dumfounding that people would even consider Romney,who invented Obamacare,and passed a litany of liberal legislation,and signed laws that would be offensive to most Republicans.Once he gets in a s President,he will pander to the left,and ensure his reelection.Romney has repeatedly shown himself to be a moderate Republican,once being elected.and actually leans to the left once heavily.We tried McCain,who was more conservative than Romney,and lost,and even if we win,we lose with Romney.Gingrich has some warts,however he has always espoused a conservative viewpoint,and put it in practice often,while Romney did the opposite whenever elected.Gingrich is a known commodity that can be trusted,while Romney has shown himself to be an oppurtunist,who will take up liberal causes,if he thinks that is politicall expedient.
The charges of being a racist, or a sexist, or a Nazi sympathizer at one time could be leveled with great affect, but returning again and again to those charges made them less and less potent when used to silence and intimidate any who dare disagree. Same with claims of media bias. Republicans attending the debates seem to be enjoying and looking for opportunities to cheer attacks on the media irregardless of the context. Given the media coverage of the interview with Gingrich's former wife, I thought the question to be predictable, and obviously Newt Gingrich was prepared so he thought so too. When the impeachment proceedings of Nixon were looking clearly imminent, Congressional Republicans went to meet with him to let him know they wouldn't be supporting him. That meeting was central in his choice to resign. The contrast between that and the behavior of Democrats during the Clinton impeachment process is lost when Republicans cheer for Gingrich.
"But he’s also a man of flawed character and temperamentally unequipped to be president. Time and again he’s shown himself to be erratic and alarmingly undisciplined." n nSo Peter, and those of you who use "poor character" as a dis-qualifier for being President, I will just ask you–Who are you? Who are you to cast qualifiers, from what moral high-ground do you reside? n nWe all–everyone–me and you included, the rich the poor the powerful have issues of which we should wish to have a do-over. The question is: Have you made the necessary changes of correction or are you still headed in the same path–Newt has said he has changed, and only time will tell…compare that with those who like a Gerbil in a cage, go round and round with same bad behaivor–getting nowhere, offering nothing–hopeless–Progressive Wing of the DEMOCRAT party. n nNewt is worth a second look.
Unfortunately, the republican field is filled with flawed candidates however, I am getting tired of bloggers claiming anybody but Romney is unfit or unelectable. Do I wish we had better choices, most certainly yes. Do I pine for a brokered convention and a miraculous drafting of a Mitch Daniels, yes! But until then we have to resign ourselves to the group we have to choose from. So here is my take:_Romney is a chameleon that lacks a color of his own therefore, he will be decimated in a general election. He is the republican version of John Kerry. I will vote for him in a general if I must, but I won't work for him or financially support his campaign._Ron Paul is a nut. Even his comments about the founder's intent is wrong. He is taking the Jefferson side of the Jefferson-Hamilton argument however, even Jefferson advocated a robust foreign policy._Rick Santorum would get rolled in a general. He lacks the experience, money or following to get elected. He also wants to use the government to legislate morality; that would severely damage the republican brand for a generation. nNewt is arrogant, tempremental and full of himself. So was Churchill. Newt also has the baggage of his past infidelities. However, when I ask myself which one I want as president during a crisis (such as in the middle east) or, who I trust of this group to appoint a strong supreme court judge, I keep coming back to Newt. I'll say again, I would rather have different choices in this cycle but if this is what I have to choose from, I'll pick the flawed guy with a history of taking the battle to his adversaries every time.
Words have meaning, indeed. So do actions, Mr. Wehner. A $16 trillion debt , the Dem proposal for a reasonable profits board, every unconstitutional power grab like ObamaCare, and the destruction of our economy and national security by a Marxist jackwagon, all have meaning, n nWhen a a hack journalist tries to distract attention away from current issues to rehash a FALSE open marriage story that ended years ago, you know that it also has meaning. The Left is still functioning as Obama's campaign wing. Nice try, Wehner. n