New Dimensions in Hypocrisy

The last six years of the Bush administration have exposed us to some amazing feats of hypocrisy. As the end of Bush's second term approaches, the jockeying to take over leadership of the Republican Party is already well begun. Which is, I suppose, the explanation for this news:

WASHINGTON - 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.

"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.

Perish the thought.

Of course we remember that it was Clinton's testimony about that infidelity while being deposed in an unrelated sexual-harassment lawsuit that was the alleged problem. (Though, unlike Scooter Libby, Clinton was not convicted of perjury, and the 'underlying' suit was dismissed.)

Newt hasn't had to testify in a lawsuit about his sexual history, his three marriages, the way he left his first when she was in the hospital with cancer or the way he was cheating on his second with the woman who became his third. So how could he possibly be a hypocrite?