What great timing. Last week, thrice married Newt Gingrich was one of the first right-wingers to trash the Prop. 8 decision. It was the height of hypocrisy.
Then, this week, Esquire printed a profile of Newt Gingrich, complete with some revelations from his second wife, Marianne. She talked about their divorce for the first time:
She kind of guessed it, of course. Women usually do. But did she know the woman was in her apartment, eating off her plates, sleeping in her bed?
She called a minister they both trusted. He came over to the house the next day and worked with them the whole weekend, but Gingrich just kept saying she was a Jaguar and all he wanted was a Chevrolet. ” ‘I can’t handle a Jaguar right now.’ He said that many times. ‘All I want is a Chevrolet.’ “
He asked her to just tolerate the affair, an offer she refused.
He’d just returned from Erie, Pennsylvania, where he’d given a speech full of high sentiments about compassion and family values.
The next night, they sat talking out on their back patio in Georgia. She said, “How do you give that speech and do what you’re doing?”
“It doesn’t matter what I do,” he answered. “People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”
Newt’s a Catholic now. He had both previous marriages annulled in order to marry the woman, Calista (a.k.a. “The Chevrolet”) with whom he was having the affair when married to Marianne.
So, I particularly enjoyed Marianne’s comments on Newt’s Catholicism:
When asked about his conversion, Marianne laughs.
Why is that funny?
“It has no meaning.”
It has no meaning?
“It’s hysterical. I got a notice that they wanted to nullify my marriage. They’re making jokes about it on local radio. The minute he got married, divorced, married, divorced — what does the Catholic Church say about this?”
It doesn’t matter what Newt does or how he lives his life. It’s what he says. That will make a great slogan for his presidential campaign.
