Sorry to break it to ABC News, but the facts of Newt Gingrich’s request for an open marriage are not new. They were laid out in full in the brilliant profile of Gingrich by John H Richardson in Esquire last year. Money quote:
Early in May, she went out to Ohio for her mother’s birthday. A day and a half went by and Newt didn’t return her calls, which was strange. They always talked every day, often ten times a day, so she was frantic by the time he called to say he needed to talk to her.
“About what?”
He wanted to talk in person, he said.
“I said, ‘No, we need to talk now.’ “
He went quiet.
“There’s somebody else, isn’t there?”
She kind of guessed it, of course. Women usually do. But did she know the woman was in her apartment, eating off her plates, sleeping in her bed?
She called a minister they both trusted. He came over to the house the next day and worked with them the whole weekend, but Gingrich just kept saying she was a Jaguar and all he wanted was a Chevrolet. ” ‘I can’t handle a Jaguar right now.’ He said that many times. ‘All I want is a Chevrolet.’ “
He asked her to just tolerate the affair, an offer she refused.
My italics. We know this already. The interview is not a news story. It’s a publicity stunt. And its timing and motives might even backfire in Newt’s favor.
The Dish 