MSNBC: Gingrich admits having an affair in Clinton era

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich speaks at the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday, March 3, 2007 in Washington. Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, FILE)

I just love Republican hypocrisy. This is off MSNBC News:

WASHINGTON - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich 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."

So while Newt was busily pushing the impeachment process on President Clinton for lying about his own affair with Monica Lewinsky, Gingrich was also happily enjoying a little extramarital-curricular activities--hey, impeaching a sitting president is hard work! I'll admit that the irony here is just incredible. But I can also accept that people can do some really stupid things here. That is what makes us human. And Newt Gingrich did a really stupid thing in having an extramarital affair while he was impeaching President Clinton for lying about having an extramarital affair.

But that is not what is so incredible about this story. Continuing with the MSNBC story:

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."

This is just outrageous! Newt Gingrich should not be viewed as a hypocrite for impeaching President Clinton on lying about having a sexual affair, when Gingrich himself was having his own sexual affair, because Clinton had lied to a federal judge about the affair. Gingrich was "not rendering judgment on another human being," but rather judging Clinton as a government official. Talk about hypocrisy here! The reason Clinton ended up lying about his sexual relations was because of the endless Republican investigations during his presidency. The Republicans wanted to take down Clinton in any way they could. They started the endless investigations into Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, and even the Vince Foster suicide. It was only after Monica Lewinsky started talking to Linda Tripp about her affair with Clinton, that this whole mess ended up into Ken Starr's lap. And the Republicans had their smoking gun to not only smear Clinton with the Starr Report, but also to embark on removing Clinton through impeachment. Excuse me Newt, but you were so bent on taking down President Clinton, that you, and your GOP ilk, would submerge yourselves into the slime of investigating Clinton's personal affairs. You could not accept the fact that Bill Clinton was a successful Democratic president. You had to find a way to remove Clinton. Even better yet, if you could have forced Clinton out on impeachment, then Vice President Al Gore would become president and be under tremendous pressure to pardon Clinton--something you could then use as a means to impeach Gore, and make the Speaker of the House president. And that Speaker of the House would have been you Mr. Gingrich. Was that your political plan?

Either way, it was all old news. What is new here is the resurfacing of your own hypocrisy regarding the Clinton impeachment proceedings. I could care less if you, Mr. Gingrich, had one affair, or a thousand affairs while you were Speaker of the House during the Clinton years, and even when you were embarking on the impeachment proceedings against Clinton. That is politics. But don't give me this bull crap about how you were correct in impeaching Clinton because he lied about having sex without looking down into your own, stained pants. You, and the entire Republican right-wing conspiracy could have ended the Starr investigation without looking into Bill Clinton's pants. But you didn't. You could have ended the Clinton sex scandal with the publication of the Starr Report, and even a censure of the president. But you didn't. You wanted to remove Clinton from office. You are just as responsible for creating this sordid mess as Clinton was in engaging in such behavior.

Mr. Gingrich--You are a hypocrite!