The American Spectator

Print Email

Text Size

The Spectacle Blog

This is the strongest signal I've seen that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is actually considering a presidential run in 2008. In an interview with James Dobson, Gingrich acknowledged having an affair even as he was leading the charge to impeach Bill Clinton.

"There are times in my life that I have fallen short of my own standards," he said. "There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards." The former speaker talked about "periods weakness" in which "I was praying and I felt I was doing things that were wrong. But I was still doing them."

Here Gingrich seems to be trying to avoid Giuliani-style problems with his equally checked marital history, talking to an evangelical audience about struggles with sin and redemption. Certainly, religious conservatives would play a bigger role in the coalition Gingrich must assemble than in Rudy Giuliani's. Whether this gambit works is another matter entirely.

topics:
Bill Clinton