What was touted as ABC's big blockbuster interview with Newt Gingrich's second wife, Marianne Gingrich, turned out to be more of a fizzle since the main headline to come out of it, that Gingrich had asked Marianne to have an open marriage while he was cheating on her with Callista, was already leaked well ahead of the interview airing.
I don't think Marianne Gingrich came off all that well during the interview since she basically just laughed off allegations that she might have participated in trying to solicit bribes from an arms dealer in the late nineties and strangely ABC did not push her in any way about whether there was any truth to them. I'm not quite sure why they bothered to bring up the scandal at all if they weren't going to probe into it a bit more deeply.
The one portion of the interview which I posted above that I found rather humorous was Marianne Gingrich's reaction to Newt telling her that his current wife, Callista, was going to help him become president.
ROSS: Newt Gingrich lost his power as Speaker of the House and resigned from Congress in 1998. A year later he asked for a divorce and says Marianne, began to plan his campaign to run for president with Callista by his side who is probably best known in this campaign for the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry Gingrich bought for her at Tiffany's.
GINGRICH: He did tell me once that she was going to help him become president.
ROSS: What was your reaction to that?
GINGRICH: Didn't look like help to me.
I don't think the ABC report is going to have much of an effect on the GOP South Carolina primary race but if by some miracle Gingrich would actually become their nominee, I would imagine it would do some real damage in a general election. After the audience's reaction to Gingrich attacking John King during the CNN debate, it doesn't appear those "values voters" in the South really care about infidelity one bit. They're more concerned about whether a nasty piece of work like Gingrich might be able to put that "food stamp president" Barack Obama in his place should Gingrich win the primary race and have an opportunity to debate him in the general election.
