Marianne, who was married to the lawmaker from 1981 to 2000, unloaded to ABC News, telling the network that when the former House Speaker admitted to having a 6-year affair with his current wife, Callista, he asked if she would be okay with the arrangement. "And I just stared at him and he said, 'Callista doesn't care what I do,'" Marianne Gingrich told ABC News. "He wanted an open marriage and I refused."
Marianne says Newt "carried on the affair" with Calista in Marianne and Newt's bedroom.
Gingrich thinks his daughters will save him. He's referring all questions to them. Why? They are his daughters with Wife #1, how would they know what happened? They don't. According to Newt's website, one is an expert in "brand optimization, credentialing, and marketing" and the other is "Known for her ability to synthesize major news events and ordinary life happenings into a unique perspective that rings with authenticity."
What part are America's Republicans least likely to accept? They may think the open marriage bit is manufactured sour grapes, but Newt himself may have already confirmed it. According to this sourced article and Esquire:
During the divorce proceedings, Congressman Gingrich refused to participate in the discovery process and finally claimed that he and Marianne had an "understanding" about his affairs. Marianne denied this claim, and in a subsequent interview stated that she could end Newt's political career in a single interview.
And what about the duplicity involved in carrying on a six year affair while married and at the same time campaigning on family values? Or ridiculing others in Congress caught having affairs while he was doing the same thing?
From The Washington Post: Settled . . .But Not Over; The Gingrich Divorce and Its Repercussions on the Right,December 18, 1999:
For six years, Gingrich, 56, two-timed his wife with a blonded-up, French-horn-playing Agriculture Committee staffer. His thing with Callista Bisek, now 33, was going strong through the Gingrich Revolution of 1994 that turned the Congress over to Republican majorities. It kept up through the Republicans' "Contract With America," Gingrich's 10-point plan to turn America to the right values. It steamed along during his ascendancy to speaker, when he gestured toward his proud wife in the balcony and called her his "best friend and closest adviser," adding, "If I listened to her 20 percent more, I'd get in a lot less trouble."
On it played through 1996, when Marianne campaigned vigorously for her husband, beamed from his side and shook countless hands. It stood strong while Marianne underwent the trauma and disappointment of unsuccessful in-vitro fertilization. While Gingrich lambasted the president at every opportunity for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, while he successfully orchestrated the first presidential impeachment in a century, he was committing adultery himself.
Other good reads: This 1995 Vanity Fair interview with Newt and various members of his family and of course the Esquire article.
It's always dangerous when a public official thinks the rules apply to everyone but him, and that's exactly what Gingrich has done throughout his political career.
Newt Gingrich has as much chance of becoming President of the United States as the man in the moon.
