Neutralizing Newt

It's ugly out there.

It's only 2007 and it seems like we're in the desperate final stretch of Election 2008.

The opposition research teams are working overtime.

Embarrassing tidbits are surfacing in the media about the candidates' finances, their marriages, their personal lives and the lives of their relatives.

Newt Gingrich isn't a candidate for president, though he has made it known that he's interested.

I guess just being a potential candidate and having an ounce of popularity is enough to put a target on one's back.

WASHINGTON -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.

"The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. "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."

Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity.

"The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge," the former Georgia congressman said of Clinton's 1998 House impeachment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. "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 ... perjury in your highest officials."

Obviously, potential candidate Gingrich is being discredited with charges of hypocrisy.

He railed against the adulterous Bill Clinton while he was being unfaithful to Hillary.

(I can't imagine that Hillary enjoys having her cheating husband's sexual exploits being used to do damage to Gingrich or any other rival. I'm sure she'd rather leave that humiliation in the past and out of Election 2008.)

People can look down on Gingrich for his infidelity, but I don't think he can be faulted for being hypocritical.

Bill Clinton was not impeached for having oral sex with Monica Lewinsky.

He was impeached on the grounds of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice.

That's not sex. Those counts had nothing to do with the Clinton marriage.

There's no hypocrisy there on Gingrich's part.

The hypocrisy factor isn't the only reason that foes would unearth Gingrich's affair.

Any questionable behavior or moral lapse is used to turn the Christian Right against a conservative candidate.

That, of coure, can backfire.

When John Kerry and John Edwards shamelessly kept referring to Mary Cheney, the Vice President's lesbian daughter, with the hope that Christian conservatives would abandon the Bush/Cheney ticket, that was met with disdain and rightfully so.

The underlying assumption is that conservatives lack compassion and tolerance and are incapable of forgiveness.

That's insulting.

Should Gingrich get into the race, I don't think his personal life will be a factor.

Look at all the candidates, Democrat and Republican.

None of them are angels.

For instance, Barack Obama admits to using marijuana and cocaine.

Hillary Clinton has a closet full of shady dealings and God knows what else.

Rudy Giuliani has had three marriages.

Joe Biden is a plagiarist.

Go down the list of presidential hopefuls and you'll find something about them that's less than godly.

Why?

Because they're human.