Newt Gingrich lost it the other night during the GOP presidential primary debate in South Carolina when asked by CNN's John King about reports that Gingrich had asked his first wife, Marianne, for an open marriage while he was secretly having sex with a 33 year old Hill aide. Watch the Gingrich meltdown, then a few words from me:
Amanda Terkel at HuffPost has the transcript:
"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," he said.It's wrong? So Gingrich didn't ask his second wife (who was his mistress during his first marriage) for permission to keep having sex with his new mistress who then became his third wife. Okay. Maybe. But it's not wrong that Gingrich was having the affair, again. It's really not salient whether he asked permission to do what he was already doing, having his own little open marriage. Free love was already the Gingrich way.
The audience gave Gingrich a standing ovation.
When King asked if he was finished, Gingrich said he would like to be allowed to continue:
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.
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.
But getting away from that for a moment. Why is it not okay to discuss Gingrich's promiscuity and disrespect for the sanctity of marriage publicly? After all, wasn't it Newt Gingrich himself who made the sanctity of marriage a campaign issue just a month or so ago in Iowa?
And wasn't it Newt Gingrich who suggested that Obama should be impeached for refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court?
So it's destructive, vicious and negative to ask Newt Gingrich about his three marriages and multiple adultery, but it's presidential for Newt Gingrich to attack the marriages of gays and lesbians.
Then again, we already know that the notion of fidelity in marriage is something Newt isn't a fan of, so maybe he's not a fan of gays trying to settle down either.
