Actually Johnson said “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”, not nearly as lyrical as “Patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings”.
Reinterpreted, for sure, but borrowed? Not exactly. The sentiment surely. Bob said it better and deserves the credit for doing so, in my opinion.
But thanks for playing!
And also evidence that he’s too lazy to work hard like a whit–, er, like Newt.
Seriously though, is that not the best excuse for fucking around on your wife ever?
Yeah, except for one little flaw - my wife would never buy it.
Well there’s never going to be an excuse your wife is going to buy, so you might as well score some creativity points, plus some extra credit for loving America The Beautiful too damn much. <sheds single tear> From sea to shining sea…
Shouldn’t that be…
‘From she to shining she…’?
Notice that the little shit didn’t say he did anything wrong, but just that
The mistress fell right out of the sky. What was he to do?
BTW, divorces due to overwork happen - but it seems Newt had enough time to take off from his patriotic duties to step out with a mistress. Well, he has never diddled pages, so I suppose that makes him a respectable Republican, relatively speaking.
So Newt was like the kid in Animal House who had a girl fly right into his room during the chaos – “Thank you, God!”
A page out of the ol Gipper playbook: Mistakes were made.
So… he so focused on loving America, he didn’t realize that the woman he was fucking wasn’t his wife? Classy.
Especially when she landed vagina down right on his erect penis like that. Wasn’t his fault. He was already horny for America. (to borrow from the Wonkette)
Nevermind, Jenaroph beat me to it.
I thought that was Tricky Dick.
There’s the irony, huh? You love America so much you cheat on your wife. And then when she finds out, she’s so mad you have to flee the country.
He’s definitely going to make a presidential run. He’s claiming he hasn’t made the final decision yet. But he’s already decided when and where he’ll make his announcement and who’ll be his campaign manager “if” he decides to run.
The thing that really bugs me about Gingrich’s comments even more than his laughable attempt to blame patriotism for his adultery is that he’s also shielding himself behind religion. This is something that actually bugs me about a lot of scumbags who become religious converts - this notion that they have sought “God’s forgiveness,” so now it’s like all their previous assholery never happened and no one can criticize them for it. It ignores the people they victimized and cuts them out of the equation. It’s self-absolution. It’s bullshit. It’s his wives whose forgiveness he needs to beg for, not God.
He’s also glossing the real cruelty with which he treated his first two wives. He didn’t just cheat on them, he callously dumped both of them when they got sick - serving his first wife with divorce papers while she was in the hospital with cancer, then dumping his second wife for another woman after he found out she’s been diagnosed with MS.
Also, as has been noted, he employs the characteristic narcissist’s use of the passive voice. Not, “I did something wrong,” but, “Inappropriate things happened.” As if he was an innocent bystander and not active in his own decisions. There is no remorse in this guy, nor is he psychologically capable of it. He has become a born-again Catholic not from any genuine religious feeling or sense of repentance, but as a political move designed to serve as a prophylactic against the beating he knows he is vulnerable to on his personal moral character. He will now react to any and all questions about his truly beastly treatment of two wives - treatment that is far meaner than anything Bill Clinton did, or even John Edwards (not that Edwards was exactly exemplary, but he didn’t abandon his wife like garbage, and he was at her side when she died) - with anger and indignation about people “digging up the past,” or “trying to change the subject,” that he made mistakes (or should I say, “mistakes were made”), but an invisible man in the sky has forgiven him, so now it’s a non-issue and how dare anybody bring it up.
This guy has balls like churchbells. A truly staggering ego. He’s the Charlie Sheen of politics.
I wouldn’t vote for Newt for dogcatcher if he was the only one running.
But…
This is behavior characteristic of almost all Pols. Remember the Lewinsky affair? Did Bill ever say he was sorry? I heard he didn’t have sex with that woman. And during his time of trouble, he called in Jesse Jackson as his “spiritual advisor” to counsel him on his infidelity. Of course, Jackson was photographed visiting the White House during that time with his mistress of the moment with whom he fathered an illegitimate child. Some spiritual advisor there.
And who can forget the charming John Edwards, banging Rielle as he campaigned for Prez while his wife campaigned for him and had breast cancer?
To sum up, most of them are dirtbags. Somehow we manage to select the worst and the dullest when we should elevate the best and the brightest.
There’s nothing special about Newt’s dirtbaggery; in fact, it’s all too common amongst all of our pols.
If you cheat on your wife, will she buy that line about patriotism being the cause?
I bet that man has a red penis, white cum and blue balls.
… [DEL]Christine O’Donnell[/DEL] a witch!