… but enough about me

From the Associated Press story that appeared in today’s New York Times.

	I’ll pull your leg if you pull my finger. [newsweek.com]

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he 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.

…

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.’ “
[more]

Translation: The president can’t lie, but the Speaker of the House can. One might even extrapolate: If I were the president and not the speaker, I would not have lied. (Or, I only lied because I was the speaker.)

However you parse it, if this sort of reasoning idiocy brings Newt any comfort, I think it’s pretty clear that Republicans have no business nominating him to run for president. Unless they prefer that the president be someone who can’t be trusted to tell the truth.