Wedded Miss

In defending Newt Gingrich against charges that he asked his ex-wife — the second of three lucky women to marry the former Speaker of the House — for an open marriage, Herman Cain (whose own presidential ambitions, you'll remember, went up in smoke shortly after numerous sexual harassment allegations surfaced) raised a question which has been heralded as valid in many circles.

“What,” asked Cain during an appearance on Fox News, “does something that happened 20 years ago relative to an ex-wife have to do with fixing America’s problems today?”

“Marriage is important! One should keep doing it until one gets it right! In fact, next time… ”

And while I won't presume to speak on behalf of all Americans — as both Cain and Gingrich have done in the past — I'll take a shot at answering for myself.

Here’s the problem, Newt: You want people to keep their noses out of your personal life, right? You think it’s inappropriate that anyone dare question the morals of a man such as yourself simply because you've chosen to try and run for the highest office of the land. And yet... you want to sanctimoniously and somewhat hypocritically say that your past, present and — let’s be honest — future marriages should be off limits even as you vow to prevent others from taking a single shot at what you’ve failed to accomplish twice now: happily ever after.

You've said repeatedly in the past that you believe “a marriage is between a man and a woman,” even going so far as to call the movement toward legalizing same-sex marriage  “a temporary abberation that will dissipate.”

Ironically, the debate during which your request for an open marriage was called into question was co-sponsored by... wait for it... wait for it... the National Organization for Marriage. Apparently, one is free to marry as often as one likes, have affairs during said union even while taking others to task for their own infidelities (as you did by leading the charge against Bill Clinton following the Monica Lewinsky scandal)... just so long as each of those marriages is to someone of the opposite sex.

The bottom line is this, Newt: Don't take us to task for judging you even as you're trying to put yourself in a position where you can not only judge everyone else but legislate their love lives. In other words, that glass house of yours may not be the best place from which to lob stones.