Newt Gingrich’s speech at the University of Pennsylvania on Tuesday quickly took a turn for the dramatic when the first student to question him brought up his admitted extramarital affair and accused him of being “hypocritical” for espousing moral values.
“You adamantly oppose gay rights … but you’ve also been married three times and admitted to having an affair with your current wife while you were still married to your second,” Isabel Friedman, president of Penn Democrats, said to Gingrich. “As a successful politician who’s considering running for president, who would set the bar for moral conduct and be the voice of the American people, how do you reconcile this hypocritical interpretation of the religious values that you so vigorously defend?”
****************************************
Update: Salon’s Alex Pareene quotes Gingrich and then comments:
“I believe in a forgiving God, and the American people will have to decide whether that their primary concern. If the primary concern of the American people is my past, my candidacy would be irrelevant. If the primary concern of the American people is the future… that’s a debate I’ll be happy to have with your candidate or any other candidate if I decide to run.”
The American people are concerned about the future! Which woman will Gingrich next leave his wife for, and how embarrassing/ironic will it be?
Gingrich will continue pretending to run for president until early March, when he “expects an announcement” about whether or not he will continue pretending to run for president.
February 23rd, 2011 at 4:58PM
He could try the same kind of reconciliation that the civility crowd of last month has now performed as it shrieks with rage in the capitals of some of our states.
Just a thought.
February 23rd, 2011 at 7:41PM
A wise theologist explained to me why the modern distaste for hypocrisy is moral inversion.
A truly moral person sets their standards higher than what they can always achieve. If your morals are so easy that you always obey them, they’re not a moral system at all.
When people scream “Hypocrisy!”, it really means they resent high standards.
Be a hypocrite. It is honorable to aspire to greater virtue than what you can achieve.
February 23rd, 2011 at 7:53PM
Dear Jonathan:
That would make an awesome cover letter for your application to the Ministry of Peace. I commend you.
February 23rd, 2011 at 7:54PM
But is it honorable to claim greater virtue than what you can achieve?
February 24th, 2011 at 1:25AM
Prof. Burke,
Don’t understand your comment. Doesn’t seem to have much to do with what Jonathan wrote
U.D.
Has Gingrich claimed greater virtue than what he could achieve?
People fall into temptation. It’s not hypocrisy to fall into it, and then say that you were wrong. It means you have faults. It doesn’t mean that hypocrisy is one of them.
February 24th, 2011 at 5:01AM
I guess the question the student is asking Gingrich – and his listeners – to consider is whether we want a President who falls as often as Newt does.
As far as the hypocrisy goes – There are transcripts aplenty, from his House speeches to his interviews to his political addresses, in which Gingrich judges and finds wanting the personal morality of millions of his fellow Americans. I think at some point, whether you’re Bob Barr or Newt Gingrich or any number of other overt hypocrites, people just stop taking it and begin asking you embarrassing questions.
Or worse.
February 24th, 2011 at 6:29AM
I suppose we’re all hypocrites at various times and to varying degrees. Still, certain hypocrisies grate more than others. When you possess Newt’s matrimonial track record, yet support something called the Defense of Marriage Act, you are modeling hypocrisy in its purest form and you deserve whatever condemnation you receive.
Or maybe he simply wants to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry so he can be sure there will be an empty chapel the next time he gets a crush on one of his employees.
February 24th, 2011 at 9:30AM
I’m not a huge fan of charges of hypocrisy – being a believer in pragmatic inconsistency myself, and someone who does fail to live up to my own standards with some regularity – but when public policy attempts to legislate morality based on a now-archaic standard, public figures who support that standard should have to explain why it’s still relevant in this instance when they don’t consider it relevant in their own lives. “Personal failing” isn’t terribly persuasive as an out, either, for someone who takes such a strong position in favor of discrimination.
February 24th, 2011 at 12:08PM
UD
The real issue is not the label you put on it, but identifying the moral flaw. If he finds personal morality of others wanting, and he also finds his own morality wanting, then I don’t see how you can call him a hypocrite. You might find other moral flaws, but you haven’t established that hypocrisy is one of them.
And then the question is just what kind of a moral flaw is hypocrisy. Look at Bill Clinton. He was a documented philanderer, and seemed to have no compunctions about it. Now maybe someone can find a way to call him a hypocrite, but when you look at the morality of what he did and compare it to Gingrich, it would take some doing to show that Gingrich is morally inferior to Clinton because Gingrich at least aspires to certain standards.
Jonathan Dresner,
You’re making an accusation against Gingrich without spelling out exactly what it is, and why discrimination can be the only explanation for it. If Gingrich is not trying to legislate criminal penalties for infidelity, then I don’t see your point.
“Personal failing” might not be an explanation for the conduct, but then he doesn’t owe the public a detailed explanation for that conduct. He need only defend against a charge of hypocrisy. Personal failing is a reasonably good defense for that.
February 24th, 2011 at 1:09PM
Timothy:
The morally absolute, we-are-all-sinners point of view that I advocate is very much the opposite of the Orwellian moral relativism you seem to be alluding to. I am arguing for the (Christian though I’m not) view that although perfect virtue is unattainable, we should strive for it anyway. This is the antidote, not the cause, of the Ministry of Truth–though I can see how you might think the opposite. The western world is now infused with the modernist view that hypocrisy is a great sin, and we must center our moral standards on the human rather than aiming higher. This philosophical shift is what made communism, the greatest evil in human history (and inspiration for the Ministry of Peace), possible.
UD:
I wasn’t speaking about Gingrich specifically; I don’t know much about him. Does he claim greater virtue?
February 24th, 2011 at 8:28PM
Does he claim greater virtue?
The most Gingrich would admit to is that he’s “had a life which, on occasion, has had problems.” Has had problems. That’s the sort of language you use to describe engine trouble with your car. No suggestion that he himself might have been the source of those problems.
Until he adopts a somewhat more morally serious attitude towards his own past behavior, I don’t think we need waste much time of Newt’s opinions about the sanctity of marriage.
February 24th, 2011 at 11:02PM
You know what, Jonathan? I think someone striving for moral improvement should start with humility. And focus on the object most immediately at hand: oneself. If a sinner wants to testify about his own sins, I’m prepared to listen sympathetically and credit his sincerity when he tells me that the sins which have burdened him ought to concern us all. I’m afraid I don’t see the virtue in crusading that’s laden one-dimensional tinpot moralizing against something that you can’t be bothered to work out for yourself. The charge of hypocrisy, if you like, is a reminder of the call to humility first.
I also think only simpletons think that treating morality as a complex, adult challenge full of philosophical richness is the same as “relativism”. That’s the Cliff’s Notes approach to life. I wonder a lot at how a person who sees nothing but relativism when they encounter grown-ups who refuse to just stamp “good” and “bad” in glowing red letters on everything they encounter could manage to read or appreciate most great works of literature, for example.
February 25th, 2011 at 1:09AM
Speaking of hypocrisy, my memory might be a bit off, but I seem to remember that the left tried to portray Clinton’s escapades as involving private rather than public morality, and that what he did had nothing to do with his qualifications for office. Yet Clinton’s personal failings were reportedly far greater than Gingrich’s.
February 25th, 2011 at 3:47AM
AYY: I don’t know how left I am (I’m an enthusiastic Obama supporter, to be sure, but in the context of the typical English department, I’m a rabid right-winger), but I believed (and believe) that Clinton should have resigned.
March 1st, 2011 at 4:20PM
Dear Timothy,
Since “the charge of hypocrisy, if you like, is a reminder of the call to humility first,” I’m afraid I’ll have to charge you with hypocrisy, since I can detect neither humility nor charity in your initial reaction to Jonathan’s comment.
Furthermore, whether or not one can read Jonathan’s second comment as claiming that “treating morality as a complex, adult challenge full of philosophical richness is the same as ‘relativism'” is arguable at best.
Jonathan’s first comment expressed a fairly standard and, in my view, entirely legitimate objection to charges of hypocrisy (and the way they are commonly deployed in public life). It is rather rich to have begun by comparing Jonathan’s first comment to Big Brother and to have ended by lecturing Jonathan about humility and the Cliff’s Notes approach to life. I’m afraid I can’t see the virtue of crusading for humility that’s laden with one-dimensional tinpot moralizing about something you can’t be bothered to work out for yourself.