[Vision2020] Gingrich Admits Affair During Lewinsky Sandal

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (March 9, 2007) Spokesman Review -

"Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as
a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity."

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WASHINGTON - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich 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.

"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 today, 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."

Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a
hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity.

"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. 

Gingrich has said he is waiting to see how the Republican field shapes up
before deciding in the fall whether to run for president.

Reports of extramarital affairs have dogged him for years as a result of two
messy divorces, but he has refused to discuss them publicly.
 
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.

His first marriage, to his former high school geometry teacher, Jackie
Battley, ended in divorce in 1981. Battley has said Gingrich discussed
divorce terms with her while she was recuperating from cancer surgery. 

"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.

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This is the same Gingrich who divorced his wife while she was in the
hospital with cancer.  We can assume that family values will not be a chief
topic during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

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"Sins can be committed in ignorance, and the fact that they were committed
in ignorance doesn't cause the sin to just disappear . . . "

- Princess Sushitushi (September 10, 2006)

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