When it comes to the 2008 presidential election, 3 Republicans are knocking the loudest at the door to the White House: Sen. John McCain (AZ), former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Rep. Newt Gingrich (GA). The country would be hard-pressed to find 3 more different men. However, each has something in common: adultery.
The question is, does it matter? Will the American voter care?
The Washington Monthly details the shenanigans of McCain, Giuliani and Gingrich in a recent article titled High Infidelity.
1.) Sen. John McCain was still married and living with his wife in 1979 while, according to The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof, "aggressively courting a 25-year-old woman who was as beautiful as she was rich." McCain divorced his wife, who had raised their three children while he was imprisoned in Vietnam, then launched his political career with his new wife's family money. In 2000, McCain managed to deflect media questioning about his first marriage with a deft admission of responsibility for its failure. It's possible that the age of the offense and McCain's charmed relationship with the press will pull him through again.
2.) Rudy Giuliani informed his second wife, Donna Hanover, of his intention to seek a separation in a 2000 press conference. The announcement was precipitated by a tabloid frenzy after Giuliani marched with his then-mistress, Judith Nathan, in New York's St. Patrick's Day parade, an acknowledgement of infidelity so audacious that Daily News columnist Jim Dwyer compared it with "groping in the window at Macy's." In the acrid divorce proceedings that followed, Hanover accused Giuliani of serial adultery, alleging that Nathan was just the latest in a string of mistresses, following an affair the mayor had had with his former communications director.
3.) Newt Gingrich was the most notorious of them all. Gingrich, who ran for Congress in 1978 on the slogan, "Let Our Family Represent Your Family." (He was reportedly cheating on his first wife at the time). In 1995, an alleged mistress from that period, Anne Manning, told Vanity Fair's Gail Sheehy: "We had oral sex. He prefers that modus operandi because then he can say, 'I never slept with her.'" Gingrich obtained his first divorce in 1981, after forcing his wife, who had helped put him through graduate school, to haggle over the terms while in the hospital, as she recovered from uterine cancer surgery. In 1999, he was disgraced again, having been caught in an affair with a 33-year-old congressional aide while spearheading the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.
So, if former President William Jefferson Clinton's infidelities became a matter of global interest and scrutiny, halting the Federal government and leading to his impeachment, are we to treat the infidelities of Republican presidential candidates any differently?
My prediction: Sen. John McCain, former mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Rep. Newt Gingrich, have absolutely nothing to worry about. The reason? They're Republicans.
Newt Gingrich is foul. A nauseating man. Are women so readily and stupidly drawn to power? He does not even appear clean. Yes, the double standard will prevail.
None will get my vote. I’d vote for Hillary before these three.
The idiot media will pretend their pasts don’t exist. No one will ever hear Wolf Blitzer mention any of it. Fox news will rewrite their personal stories. The New York Times will rise above such a topic. Although they loitered in the gutter recently with their hit piece on the Clintons marriage.
McCain will get a pass because he was a prisoner of war in Viet Nam.
Guiliani will get a pass because he was the mayor of NYC when the 9/11 attacks happened.
That leaves Gingrich. I think of the 3 aforementioned, he’s the one that is open to scrutiny by reporters, if they choose to do their job.
Should it matter? Of course. If they hounded Clinton over his marriage then the same rules should apply.
The different is, the rules are different for Republicans and we don't have an Arkansas Project funded by Richard Melon Schiafe to dog these bastards. Unless Soros wants to write a blank check.
I took great offense to the Republican fishing expedition into Clinton’s private life and the details of his marriage. I thought and I still think he should bring a lawsuit in civil court against Ken Starr. But, these are the rules of engagement in politics todat, and the GOP wrote the book, so it’s only fair to examine McCain’s affair, and Rudy’s daliance and Gingrich’s dispicable treatment of his former wife. At the end of the day, voters will be turned off again and the political process suffers.
Conservatives always turn a blind eye to this behavior when it involves one of their own, but God help you if you’re a liberal.
All the while that monster, Newt Gingrich, was leading the cause to impeach Clinton for oral sex, he was nailing a babe behind his wife’s back.
Makes me want to puke.
Ugh! Sex with Newt? I’d call Dr. Kovorkian before I had sex with Newt.
These men are pigs and obviously use women for only one thing.
The polling for both McCain and Guiliani doesn’t look too good at this point. I don’t think a genuine frintrunner has emerged yet that dazzles the public and would draw voters to the polls. It’s too early.
you guys still dont get the clinton thing…he lied under oath. Thats the issue, not the “sex”. Did any of these three lie under oath about their shady dealings? jeez