<p><a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070309/ap_on_go_co/gingrich_affair[/url]”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070309/ap_on_go_co/gingrich_affair</a></p>
<p>He drew a line in the sand and of course he was on the other side of the line from Clinton.</p>
<p>I draw a line in the sand and find that Gingrich is a scumbag.</p>
<p>If Gingrich was a scumbag for having an affair, then you must agree that Pres. Clinton was a scumbag for having an affair? Right? Go ahead and say it – Pres. Clinton is a scumbag.</p>
<p>Of course, there is a difference you ignore. Clinton knowingly lied about his affair under oath for which he was punished. Gingrich freely discusses his affair and admits it was not up to his standards.</p>
<p>The time to talk freely was 9 years ago.</p>
<p>“Gingrich freely discusses his affair and admits it was not up to his standards.”</p>
<p>And his standards are pretty low to begin with.</p>
<p>“Of course, there is a difference you ignore.”</p>
<p>Clinton also apologized to the Irish. I pretty sure Newt never apologized in Ireland.</p>
<p><a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost;
<p>WASHINGTON ? 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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton’s infidelity.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Reports of extramarital affairs have dogged him for years as a result of two messy divorces, but he has refused to discuss them publicly.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Gingrich married Marianne months after the divorce.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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 political goals.</p>
<p>oppps another thread started…</p>
<p>the whole thing is just so bizarre…and who did he fool around with? ewwwww</p>
<p>Actually, Newt is popular in the South and with Republicans. It’s all about likeability. He’s a likable sort. I don’t think he will go anywhere but he may have some delegates to pass on at the convention.It would be so nice to have one of those old fashioned conventions again. You know, the kind where the ticket wasn’t decided before the convention and there was suspense and excitment. And the media was there to cover it and had not dictated it already. Ah, the good old days.
It’s at times like this I feel I must leave C.C…I’m too old, it’s time to move on.</p>
<p>“If Gingrich was a scumbag for having an affair, then you must agree that Pres. Clinton was a scumbag for having an affair? Right? Go ahead and say it – Pres. Clinton is a scumbag.”</p>
<p>There are BIG differences. Gingrich was running around with his next squeeze while his first wife was recovering from cancer. And left her. Then he turned around and did it again 20 years later. In the middle of all of this, was the aforementioned affair.</p>
<p>Just more from the Party of Appeasement and Family Values.</p>
<p>(Clinton lies about the WMDs to cover up his crimes against humanity were far, far worse than anything Gingrich ever contemplated, and he should have spent more time with Monicas.)</p>
<p>Mini, Clinton wasn’t far enough to the left for you?</p>
<p>It isn’t a matter of left or right. It is a matter of who commits genocide (and is open about it), and who doesn’t.</p>
<p>But, yes, when it comes to NAFTA/CAFTA,WTO, Clinton’s policies have led to mass immiseration outside the U.S. (why do you think folks from southern Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador are streaming across the border?), environmental degradation (and global warming) on a scale previously unknown in human history, and mass migration of U.S. jobs abroad. In global terms, he was/is well, well to the right of center, and always was.</p>
<p>“In global terms, he was/is well, well to the right of center, and always was.”</p>
<p>Yet, the right wing hates his guts. Must be the genocide. ;)</p>
<p>Right-wing hates his guts because he was able to do things (in so-called “free” trade, etc.) that they could only dream about. He was a master of what Dick Morris called ‘triangulation’ and just completely took the wind out of their sails.</p>
<p>For him, (as for Idi Amin, who killed far, far fewer) the genocide was just a side issue, until he had to cover it up in 1998, and got George Tenet to do it for him.</p>
<p>I hope he runs…see how they handle it…would be fun watching that…well, if you are a republican you can cheat, but if you are a democrat…nope…and so long as God fergives ya…</p>
<p>please please please run, Newt…i want to see what happens</p>
<p>^ The righties will think nothing of voting for a person who completely violates their stated morals (as well as other “principles”). They have already proven themselves to be complete hypocrites. It’s all about power and pushing their agenda on the American people. (That agenda being primarily about ensuring that the very wealthy grow even richer.)</p>
<p>From Digby, at the blog Hullabaloo–</p>
<p>A new word for the lexicon:</p>
<p>typocrite ('tip-uh-krit noun): A typical Republican hypocrite.</p>
<p>1 : a typical Republican who fakes good by putting on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2 : a typical Republican who fakes good but acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
3 : a typical Republican whose need for self-gratificaton extends to the public sphere</p>
<p>Clinton and Gingrich, for better or worse, were the two most important American political figures of the 90s. It’s a sad commentary on our weird political discourse that anyone cares whom either of them was shtupping. Politicians can be hypocritical? Gee, that’s news. It doesn’t diminish the importance of their ideas or their official actions, and God help us if our support for our leaders depends on our faith in their personal character rather than agreement with their ideas and official conduct. Mini is harsh, but he’s right to focus on what matters.</p>
<p>Also, I would note that Gingrich basically lost his authority with his caucus during this period, resigned the Speakership and didn’t stand for re-election. Who knows how much this affair figured into those things? I think I remember it being discussed by others at the time. So, of course it was a completely scummy personal thing to do to his second wife (but what goes around . . .), but I’m not sure he didn’t do the right thing institutionally. (OK, maybe he did have sex with a staff member, which is a no-no in most places, but whom do you want powerful Congressmen to have illicit sex with? Lobbyists? Executive officials? Judges? There are problems everywhere.)</p>
<p>ya but Rudy beats them in the low-class nasty divorce race.
Good morals are not a republican virtue or a democratic one. </p>
<p>Anyone have a light and the time to search for an honest citizen to run this country?<br>
step one - if they want it, they shouldn’t be given it.</p>
<p>It’s my worst fear. There’ll be a knock on the door and I’ll have to go to Washington and run the country. (All because I’ve done my own housework and haven’t had a substance abuse problem - ironically, both things that would likely change overnight if I had to run the country.)</p>
<p>“Gingrich was running around with his next squeeze while his first wife was recovering from cancer.”</p>
<p>Yes, but remember that as a man, Gingrich is biologically programmed to go out and hunt giraffes. So none of this is his fault.</p>