I think you’re missing the fact that he promotes family values all the time. He just doesn’t live them. I really believe that family values groups aren’t concerned about his behavior, as long as he continues fighting for their issues. It’s not even hypocrisy on their part. They really do want to go back to a Mad Men society.
If you ever have been a husband of a woman with cancer, and then ditched her to be someone else, I have a very hard time sympathizing with you.
Really, that is about as unethical as it gets.
As a man who stood by his wife for 14 years of chemotherapy, I can say this without prejudice.
Scum.
Bottom-feeding scum!
I wish there was a liberal media like the conservatives keep claiming. I want someone to ask Newt “So who are you cheating on Callista with right now?”
Or better yet, ask her how she will feel when Newt divorces her for a younger woman
I wasn’t a fan of the Clinton witch hunt, but the above is hardly the whole story.
Clinton, like all politicians, went out of his way to portray himself as a happily-married family man and regularly put his wife and child in front of the cameras.
Now, no he didn’t talk about family values to the extent that the Gores did, but all politicians to one extent or another tout famly values.
Why else do you think they always drag their wives/husbands along the campaign trail and put their kids on the platform with them.
NIce try. Conservatives have always had a corner on the sanctimonious, holier-than-liberals market. Everybody expects Democrats to be immoral; Republicans hold themselves up as paragons for children to emulate. Newt deserves to twist slowly in the wind on this one.
I’ll grant that part-
But that’s simply not true. Just about every politician tries to present a particular image of their moral personal life, although they don’t all do it to the same extent. Plenty of people It’s not as if nobody cared about the Clinton or Edwards scandals. I’ll put Spitzer and Weiner in separate categories because of the lawbreaking and public humiliation issues involved.
Sure, if someone like the CEO of Diebold had said something like, “I am committed to helping the US deliver it’s electoral votes to Obama next year.” Sure would generate some sympathy, with evidence like that!
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.–Henry Kissinger
“Deserves to” is the operative phrase here. It’s likely that a good portion of the “Family Values” crowd and Religious Right will still support Gingrich without hesitation. Those people who do this, incidentally, should automatically forfeit their right to speak about matters of morality without being met by a chorus of loud guffaws.
I am more concerned with how you retcon reality.
If you honestly don’t believe democrats don’t do that just as much as the Republicans then either you haven’t been paying much attention to politics or you’ve allowed your political beliefs to cloud your objectivity.
You’ll notice that all politicians use their wives and kids as props and most love to tell stories of their upbringing or personal tragedies they’ve suffered to explain why they deserve to be elected to high office.
To use three obvious examples, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and John Edwards.
Help me out here–why is it the open marriage request, not the cheating, that’s the problem? From my perspective, asking for an open marriage is at least an honest thing to do; it gives his wife the chance to make an informed decision about staying married to him despite his lack of monogamy. But cheating is dishonest, and denies her the power to make an informed decision.
I’ve heard it argued that Newt is a man of greater character and honesty than Bill Clinton because he at least asked his wife for an open marriage, which Clinton never did before cheating on his wife/committing perjury/getting disbarred. 
And of course family values voters are going to support a candidate who espouses those values even if he falls short of them himself in one way or another. Would you be dissmissive of Arnold Swarzenegger as a spokesman for healthy lifestyles simply because he smokes the occasional cigar? Positive lifestyles, be they family values or exercise and diet, are still worthy goals even if their champions sometimes fall short. No one is perfect, and it’s better to have a flawed evangelist fighting for healthy values than to have no one at all. This isn’t rocket science.
I agree. It’s odd that people are focusing on the phrase “open marriage,” which was her paraphrase of the situation and not what Gingrich is actually supposed to have said to her. The gist of her claim is that he wanted her to look the other way while he continued his affair. Theoretically, saying ‘I want an open marriage’ is a suggestion up for discussion and it applies to both spouses. ‘I want to keep cheating’ is a different story.
And thus “Do as I say, not as I do” is passed to another generation. I understand your point, but the people who support these ‘flawed evangelists’ have a habit of assuming people will pay attention to what the evangelists say and fail to notice that they fail to live up to those values.
I say I don’t know how much this stuff should really matter, but every time I read about either Gingrich’s behavior during the Clinton impeachment or his own statements on the campaign trail over the years, I can’t help thinking that this is something he should get tough questions about because he made it an issue himself.
I think by and large people do pay attention attention. Take the Schwarzenegger analogy for example. People recognize the truth in the heathy lifestyle he promotes even if he doesn’t adhere to it all the time himself. Same with Newt. Besides, I don’t think Newt is so much trying to persuade nonbelievers of the benefit of family values as he is promising those who already believe in them that he will strive to promote those values in office once he’s elected.
I think Gingrich is a fundamentally profound jackass, but I’ll agree with you here. He couldn’t have answered it any better.
If you think walking out on stage with your kids is the same as the family values plank in the Republican Party platform, you are beyond reasonable debate.
And they should believe he supports marriage, because he has had more of them than any other candidate!
That’s the difference between a general lifestyle like “eat healthy and exercise” and specific promises like “I won’t cheat on my wife.”
Right, and I agree his supporters think he’d promote those values. He just hasn’t had much interest in them himself, and that would tend to undermine his public support for them.