Democratic Conversation

In a cynical pre-entry into the 2008 Republican-party presidential-nomination race, Newt Gingrich wore hypocrisy like a laurel leaf crown. With typical conservative-republican pandering to the religious right—the lowest-common-values factor that now strangles the United States’ political, social, and cultural arenas—Mr. Gingrich offered up his soul for pontification to James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” radio program listeners. If Focus on the Family means airing out past soiled laundry, then most of the American South can have that in spades. I, for one, see all that Mr. Gingrich said as simple subtext.
On Mr. Dobson’s radio program, Gingrich “explained” why he cheated on his two previous wives. His first wife, Jackie Battley—also his former high school geometry teacher—was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery when Gingrich asked her for a divorce. Mr. Gingrich cheated on his second wife with a 20-something-year-old former congressional aide during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings.

“There were times when I was praying and when I felt I was doing things that were wrong. But I was still doing them,” Gingrich said during the interview. “I look back on those as periods of weakness and periods that I’m not only not proud of, but I would deeply urge my children and grandchildren not to follow in my footsteps.”

These are easy words for a hypocrite and political panderer: “I’m human, I sin, I ask forgiveness. Ergo … you should appreciate my honesty and vote for me on election day.” Already one listener has bought this cynical approach to political rise from the depths of obscurity: Jerry Falwell, who said he appreciated Mr. Gingrich’s candor. Had Bill Clinton did so much back in 1996, does anyone think Mr. Falwell would have been as forgiving? Anyway, back to Newt: Is there anything worse than hearing a politician say such drivel simply to garner sympathy? This is the kind of trick that Greek lawyers used to use 3,000 years ago … and where and why lawyers first began to get a bad rep. Naturally, politicians have offered themselves like this for millennia: from Roman senators and Jew-bating Nazis, to Bill Clinton’s hypocritical “I feel your pain” and George W. Bush’s “Let’s not wait for a mushroom cloud over American” before he attacked Iraq. Right. Thanks. Now please take your hand out of my pocket.

I could not care less about Mr. Gingrich’s personal life. He’s right: he is human, and as animals with higher brain powers but the same base instincts, humans cheat on their wives and husbands, humans are envious, humans naturally want power and will do just about anything to achieve any or all of these goals. Shakespeare wrote brilliantly about all human baseness more than 400 years ago. Do you think things have changed? Do you think religion has or ever will make people change?

Mr. Gingrich is indeed human, but he’s also proven himself to be a particular kind of cad, just as many men—and cheating women—have done over and over. We find it in history, in art, in politics, and in our neighborhoods. What may be more revealing than human frailty itself is how religion has given such people an out, leaving their sins to be confessed, talked through with a pastor, forgiven by a congregation. Isn’t there a three-strikes rule in there somewhere? How many passes does a philanderer get before people can call a spade a spade? Does anyone think Mr. Gingrich has learned any lessons, or perhaps loves his present wife any more now than he did his first wife whom he divorced as she lay dying of cancer? This is not cynicism talking, it’s logic by way of the evidence. Should any of us care either way?

In fact, yes, we all should care a great deal. Mr. Gingrich is not just any Joe on the street whom we can pity or vilify based on our personal set of values. Mr. Gingrich is a former U.S. Senator, who may now be looking to capture votes he desperately needs to win himself into the White House. (Why else would he bother bringing up old news?) He should be held to a higher standard, as is the cliché of our times. Of course he’ll say anything, just as Hillary, Obama, McCain, and the others already have thus far. In this respect, we need to turn Mr. Gingrich’s “appeal” around here, to look inside his confession and find truth, or consequences.

First of all, none of Mr. Gingrich’s confession is news. Newspapers have reported on Mr. Gingrich’s private life as soon as it has made itself public. So why bring out his dirty laundry to wash afresh? Could Mr. Gingrich trying to head off information about his past by going to the very people who could lift him into presidential contender strata? Of course he is. And we should see this ploy for what it is.

The American public, if it had wished to at the time, could have brought all this up during the Clinton impeachment. To show the hypocrisy between the Republican “Family Values” platform and just what people such as Mr. Gingrich were up to in their private lives. More publicly, there is also the hypocrisy that conservative groups such as Focus on the Family, who claim they focus on family values, but then don’t say anything when Republican government sets to allow polluting companies to further pollute, to strip environmental protections, to send young men and women off to their deaths in unjust wars. Isn’t all that part of family values, too? Between the rhetoric of politicians and social groups, and the performance of government for the people, something went terribly wrong. Some media did report these activities and anomalies to purported social platforms, and many continue to do so today.

Of course, Mr. Gingrich is a citizen of the USA, and as he is without a felony criminal record, he can enter any political race he wants to enter. The people who may become his constituents, however—in this case all US citizens—should take a much closer look at this man’s record, his personal life, and the corporations and social networks who would help him get into the White House. Only when all of these have been illuminated can we discover if a candidate is capable of governing well for 300 million people. I’ve looked at some obvious problems with Mr. Gingrich’s veracity and personal values system. So let us look at his association with one particular private social group. Here I think I can articulate one basic truth: if Mr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family had interviewed a Democratic presidential hopeful, do you think he would not have hesitated to say straightaway that, because of such personal transgressions—cheating on wives, marrying a woman 30 years his junior, DIVORCE—the interviewee was not worthy of being a president of the United States, much less suitable to run for nomination.

Did Mr. Dobson deny the Republican Mr. Gingrich his ability to run? No. Did Mr. Gingrich use his interview time to pander to Mr. Dobson’s religious followers? Yes. Do you see anything wrong here?