WASHINGTON (ABP) — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) chose one of the nation's most popular evangelical radio programs March 9 to admit he had an extramarital affair while pursuing impeachment charges against former President Bill Clinton.
The admission came in the second part of a two-day interview on James Dobson's “Focus on the Family” broadcast. Some political observers surmised that Gingrich — by choosing Dobson's show for his forum and making the admission early in the 2008 presidential election cycle — is fishing for GOP nomination support from conservative evangelical Christians.
“The honest answer is, 'Yes,'” Gingrich said when Dobson asked him if he had the affair. Gingrich admitted he was cheating on his second wife even while he pushed Clinton's impeachment during the 1998 sex-and-perjury scandal.
“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 and my neighbors' standards,” he continued.
However, Gingrich drew a distinction between his affair — which ultimately led to the disintegration of his second marriage — and the acts for which the House impeached Clinton. The impeachment charges faulted Clinton for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky in testimony about a sexual-harassment lawsuit.
“The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge,” Gingrich said. “The challenge I was faced with wasn't about judging Bill Clinton as a person. I'm not going to cast the first stone.”
But, he continued, “I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed and … even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept felonies, and you cannot accept perjury in your highest officials.'”
While the House voted to impeach Clinton, the Senate acquitted him. In the 1998 midterm congressional elections, Republicans lost several House seats. Polls at the time suggested that voters believed Gingrich and other Clinton antagonists had gone too far in trying to unseat a popular president.
Blame for the Republican losses and an ethical scandal forced Gingrich to step down as speaker.
Gingrich, who said he was raised Lutheran, became Southern Baptist while in graduate school. At the time of his affair, he belonged to a Southern Baptist congregation in suburban Atlanta.
During the interview, Dobson pointedly asked Gingrich if he had repented of his failings.
“I believe deeply that people fall short and that people have to recognize that they have to turn to God for forgiveness and to seek mercy,” the former speaker responded.
While Dobson referred to Gingrich's “multiple marriages,” he did not press the politician on details of how his first two marriages ended. His marriage to his first wife, Jacqueline Battley, ended in 1981. She has said he discussed divorce details with her as she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. Gingrich has said he does not recall whether that happened.
Gingrich married his second wife, Marianne Gingrich, just months after his first marriage ended. That marriage ended in 2000, after he acknowledged an affair with Callista Bisek, a congressional aide who was more than 20 years his junior. He soon married Bisek.
Craig Crawford, a writer for Congressional Quarterly, said in a March 9 post on the publication's website that the admission is the strongest evidence that Gingrich is courting religious conservatives in a bid for the GOP nomination.
“When politicians confess embarrassing details of their personal lives when they really don't have to do so, usually it means they are up to something,” he wrote. “Why do this now? A bit of early spring cleaning will help keep the issue off the front page once, as is widely expected, Gingrich officially unveils a White House bid in the fall.”
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“Focus on the Family” interview with Newt Gingrich (3/9/2007)