Marianne Gingrich and Her Would-be-President Ex

No man is a hero to his valet--or ex-wife. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

These two aphorisms explain why Noman won't be watching the Newt Gingrich hit piece video that ABC has taped with Marianne Gingrich, his former wife of 18 years, in anticipation of the all-important South Carolina primary.

Since its inception in 1980, no Republican candidate has ever won the Party's presidential nomination without first winning the SC primary.  Newt is in the running, and closing fast on front-runner Mitt Romney.

Laughably, the headlines concern ABC's qualms about running the interview before the primary vote. Wasn't that the point?  If ABC had moral qualms about allowing itself to be used to exact vengeance on the eve of a make-or-break election, it wouldn't have taped the interview in the first place.

Newt is a Republican, and he'll be treated accordingly.  ABC will run the video before the vote, and at the moment calculated to inflict maximum damage on Gingrich and the Republican Party.  

Democrats get a different standard, which was applied to Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial.  NBC sat on an exclusive interview of Juanita Broaddrick, an ex-campaign worker who accused the President of raping her when he was the attorney general of Arkansas, until after the Senate had voted to acquit him.

Even if Marianne Gingrich could successfully run the media gauntlet that would form to protect any Democratic President or candidate--which she couldn't--can you imagine her getting through a President Clinton's, say, bimbo eruption unit?  Like Kathleen Willey, she would soon discover her cat missing, and be asked about it by an anonymous jogger who mentioned her children by name.

Were Marianne to offer dirt on a Democratic hopeful, she would be vilified like Linda Tripp, and hounded to get plastic surgery.  There is no stigma, however, attached to slinging mud on a Republican.

Quite the contrary, the emoluments are extraordinary.  Just ask Sharon Bialek.

Marianne Gingrich has aired her grievances before.  With Newt's ascent in the polls, she is back in the limelight.

"He believes that what he says in public and how he lives don't have to be connected," Marianne Gingrich, Newt's wife of 18 years, explained to ESQUIRE last year.

That doesn't sound good.  But, it does sound familiar.

Headline: "Newt is human."  Does that make it advisable to vote for someone else?

If this story is true, Newt has imbibed the Lefty zeitigeist.  Liberals' fiercely maintain that one might flagellate his goldfish in a leather teddy for kicks, but that it has absolutely nothing to do with the person he is once he steps outside of the naughty room.

Every Democrat stands for the platitude--practically, if not outspokenly--that what a man is bears no relation to what he does, let alone to the difference between that and what he says.  We are all bombarded by this siren's song, which is near and dear to the heart of President Obama, President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, et al. and their Party.

Granting the worst about Newt, ad arguendo, why then should it be the decisive factor in any race between him and any of them?  At least with President Gingrich, the nation wouldn't have to check every 60 seconds to see if a new czar had been appointed, a new law passed or regulation adopted to curtail American freedom.

Newt is not Noman's man; Rick Santorum is.  But, he deserves better than this shabby airing of his domestic disputes when he's trying to finish the serious political business he started in 1994.

Marianne's taking Newt out of the running--should the public be so manipulable as to let her--might be a blessing in disguise.  The disgust factor might drive people further away from the Democratic Party and its leering media.

On a different note, Jack Abramoff indicates a different reason in "Capitol Punishment" for why Newt might not be the most effective antidote to four years of Obama poisoning: he is a know-it-all.  Abramoff tells the story of his initial lobbying efforts on behalf of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

He was retained to prevent Congress from imposing a 30% tax on the Indians' gaming revenues, which would have cost the tribal government budgets tens-of-billiions of dollars over the ensuing decade.  Abramoff was able to cast their position as a tax issue and to win the support of Grover Norquist at Americans for Tax Reform, Majority Whip Tom Delay, and Majority Leader Dick Armey.

He describes Speaker Gingrich's reaction to his pitch:

"Yes, I know about the tax.  You know what" I was flying last week and sitting right there, in first class, was an Indian.  Where do you think they're getting that kind of money"  They need to be taxed like everyone else." 

I couldn't believe me ears.  "Newt, what? You're kidding, right?" 

He wasn't kidding.  He felt that the tribes had a sweetheart deal with their untaxed casinos.  It wasn't fair. 

I wanted to ask him whether he thought it was fair that the Indian nation made treaties with our country and had every one of them broken, often accompanied by mass slaughter of that tribe?  Was it fair that we made agreements with the Indian nations and later decided that the land we gave them was too valuable, so we moved them to swamps and bogs?  Was any of that fair?  But, I kept quiet. 

There's no sense arguing with Newt Gingrich.  He is always right (emphasis added).

We've already got a President like that.  And, unlike President Bush who preceded him, President Obama is never chided by the talking heads for not entertaining doubts about the course he is setting the nation on.

Noman's hope for a President Gingrich, should it come to pass, is that he would have the sense to surround himself with intelligent, passionate people who challenge his assumptions and conclusions.  Unlike the present occupant of the Oval Office, Newt doesn't need a phalanx of sycophants and adorers for validation.

He can repent of the sins visited upon his ex-wife before and after making a good confession to a priest, or in purgatory.  But, America is too far down the road of family destruction, sexual chaos and political defilement to deny anyone the nomination on the grounds that his ex-wife hates his guts.