Gingrich rages at his creation

Those were some cheers that Newt Gingrich drew for chastising CNN's John King at a recent presidential debate in South Carolina. The applause was boisterous enough to drown out any laughter at the former House speaker's comical pose as a victim of a media machine attempting to ensure President Obama's reelection.

King provoked the tirade by asking about the affair Gingrich had with his current wife, Callista, while he was married to his previous wife, Marianne. Though clearly scripted to deflate the issue of his extramarital affair, Gingrich's scolding response did raise one legitimate question: Is a candidate's personal life even salient, especially given all the big issues and problems facing the next president, from the economy to the environment?

The outburst reminded me of an essay by Brooklyn College professor Tanni Haas, published a few years ago, on the media's treatment of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Required reading for my media ethics students, the essay argues that journalists should consider whether a public official's extramarital affair "did or would negatively affect the official's ability to perform the public duties of his or her office."

Credibility with foreign heads of state, Congress, and the American public is important for a president, and hypocritical behavior threatens to undermine credibility. Put more succinctly: It's the hypocrisy, stupid, not the sex.

Gingrich was carrying on his extramarital affair while he was leading the House's campaign against President Bill Clinton over his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. For Gingrich now to bristle at questions about his past sexual adventures is, to say the least, ironic.

There is still more hypocrisy in Gingrich's complaint, starting with his silly assertion that the "elite media" are "protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans." The "attack" on Gingrich came from his ex-wife, in an interview with a reporter for ABC News.

Moreover, most of the criticism of Gingrich and his competitors during this primary campaign has arisen not from the "elite media," but from the candidates' own Supreme Court-sanctioned super-PAC ads. The media are the conduit rather than the source of the attacks. And because his own super-PAC has engaged in such attacks, Gingrich is actually reprimanding his own supporters as well as those of his GOP rivals.