But the question becomes whether or not the voters of South Carolina care, given that Newt is doing such a good job of feeding them the red meat they crave. TPM reporter Evan McMorris-Santoro is on the ground in Beaufort, SC reporting that...not so much.
Voters here in coastal South Carolina don’t seem too bothered with the salacious “bombshell” stories Marianne Gingrich is expected to tell on Nightline on Thursday night. They may not all vote for Newt Gingrich, but they all agree that voters here won’t be moved by stories of a 68 year-old former House Speaker’s sex life.
Here's what one woman - who identified herself as an "evangelical" - told him.
“I’m a Christian and I believe that that’s not my job, to judge someone on their past behavior,” Deeni Everly told me. She said she’s been following his career from the beginning (“when I was a teenager”) and doesn’t think it’s her place to question his personal behavior.
“He’s asked for forgiveness, he’s received forgiveness from God so he’s received my forgiveness,” she said.
Given how many of these same voters are more than willing to applaud the red meat of racism Gingrich has been throwing at them, when I read this I couldn't help but think about this scene from one of my favorite movies - The Big Chill.
So Newt wanted an "open marriage." That's not really news to folks who have been paying attention. Back in August 2010, Marianne Gingrich was interviewed by Esquire and told basically the same story.
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."
Perhaps people can look past the sex and affairs. That's their business. But the problem is with what he said there at the end. We can't tolerate a sociopath in the White House.
“I’m a Christian and I believe that that’s not my job, to judge someone on their past behavior,”
ReplyDeleteExcept fags, of course. Them they judge.
“He’s asked for forgiveness, he’s received forgiveness from God so he’s received my forgiveness,” she said.
And there's their twisted morality in a nutshell. It's not her business (or God's) to forgive him, because it wasn't against her (or God) that he transgressed -- it was against his wife. Only his wife can forgive him. The relevance of his behavior to voters isn't whether they choose to forgive him or not -- it's the object lesson that he's willing, in an important sphere of life, to flagrantly violate his own declared principles. If he'll do that in this case, where else might he do it?
It's amazing that they're so obtuse as to not grasp this.