Why this double standard? Dare I say it has to do with Newt’s unattractiveness? Of course, I dare! This is Prowess, not some self-censoring sissy site. Former Speaker Gingrich is a brilliant man and adept historian, but that can’t make up for the fact that he’s a pudgy professor with a nerdy, non-resonant voice. The disgust over his affair is not so much moral outrage, but the kind of nausea we get when we imagine any overstuffed, saggy Washington insider having sex. We, the shallow, seem more willing to let slide affairs and multiple marriages when the offenders are better looking. When someone like former Speaker Gingrich is involved in sexual misconduct, on the other hand, we just grimace and wonder “Why?, How?, Eww, nevermind! ” For someone so blessed with a creative mind, it is difficult to find a redeeming quality in Newt’s physicality. It’s not in his nasal tone and certainly not in his name.
"I am not a stud."
The harsh, unfair reality of the video media world and E! TV culture is that homely candidates for office only go so far, especially in presidential races. It’s one reason Governor George Walker Bush beat Senator John McCain in the 2000 primaries and why JFK made it, RFK would have, and Teddy never did.
Newt was a great fighting dog in Congress and hopefully will continue to be a strong behind-the-scenes player and thinker in the conservative movement, but he is no more ready for his close-up now than he was in 1994.
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Giuliani also benefits, at least to those who paid attention during his second divorce as it played out, from his spouse's media access and position during the estrangement and eventual separation, as compared to the status of Gingrich's wives during his divorces.
Newt's wives were seen as being in a powerless position -- certainly it's hard to get more powerless than being in the hospital undergoing cancer treatments when you're served with divorce papers, as he did with his first wife -- and that he was tossing them crumbs with his settlement offers. Rudy's divorce situation with his first wife was not played out in public (the fact that they were second cousins is probably more of a long-term problem for Giulani's campaign than the divorce itself is). The second was, but his wife, Donna Hanover, was one of the news anchors on WPIX in New York, with the salary and perks that job entailed. She later seen giving Rudy as good as she got in the split up by working through her media contacts, and though things like appearing in "The Vagina Monologues", while the divorce was in progress.
That doesn't make the divorces a plus for Giuliani, since his affair seems to be at the heart of the initial break-up of Marriage No. 2. But having a wife that can strike back by appearing in an off-Broadway feminist production that receives scads of media attention makes it appear that Rudy wasn't in a position of total control over Hannover that Gingrich was over his wife, when he instituted divorce proceedings.
Newt is why God made cabinet posts.
I'm just listening to a podcast of Medved's show earlier this week and he's explaining the cancer thing, in a way I've never heard before: that his wife asked him to send the papers to the hospital because she was convinced she was dying and didn't want anything left undone.
Which sounds perfectly plausible. We're still left with the possibly fraudulent Gail Sheehey story that Newt informed one wife that "she wasn't pretty enough to be First Lady."
As for Rudy, I still want to smash his son's face in for ruining his inaugural :-)
Ah, the cheaters. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the top runners in the Republican Party. That's what I love about this side of the isle, no matter which one of these men wins, I'm satisfied. I prefer Mitt Romney though. The whole commitment to his wife thing is a major factor. Especially since he's a Mormon. They can marry more than one partner, right? Oh well, I do look forward to a debate with my leftist friends over adultery. Better yet, they probably won't want to debate adultery. That's a scandal the Dems will tolerate if not endorse
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