GINGRICH'S BAGGAGE: "GOTTEN ON MY KNEES"

By Michelle Malkin

Newt goes to Focus on the Family's James Dobson to acknowledge his extramartial affair carried out during the Clinton/Lewinsky era:

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."

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."

We are all, as I said earlier today, fallible people. And conservatives are willing to forgive. Whether they'll buy into Gingrich as the best standard-bearer for the party and most deserving candidate for commander-in-chief--as opposed to anything more than the quick-thinking debater, cable TV guest, and lecturer that he now is--is another matter. In any case, his new admission is probably not going to help with these ratings (hat tip: Kathryn Lopez):

Ouch.

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More information on the interview at the Focus on the Family site:

Former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich tells Dr. James C. Dobson he has “gotten on my knees and sought God’s forgiveness” for his personal moral failings in a two-part installment of Dobson’s international radio program airing Thursday and Friday.

Gingrich also discusses his new book, Rediscovering God in America, and the rising threat of radical Islam to the West.

On day two of the program, Dobson compares the attitudes of today’s Muslim radicals to the actions of the Nazis in the 1930s -- a hatred of Jews and a desire for hegemony and domination.

“It bothers me,” Dobson says, “that many of our leaders don’t seem to get that – Republicans and Democrats.”

Gingrich agrees, noting that “there are 15- to 25-year-old men who are willing to die as long as they kill you.”

“It’s a warrior culture,” he adds, “that has been true historically for 6,000 or 7,000 years.”