Newt: ” Honey, I’m divorcing you to marry the woman I’ve been cheating on you with for the last 6 years.” Marianne: “Fine. Just wait til you run for President. I’ll be ready.”

Newt Gingrich’s second (of three) wife, Marianne Gingrich, has said in the past that she had it within her power to  end her ex-husband’s career with a single interview. This is not as remarkable as it sounds; just consider how many political spouses past and present have or had that power regarding their own power partners. Let’s see: Eleanor Roosevelt…Jackie Kennedy…Coretta Scott King…Lady Bird Johnson….Pat Nixon…Hillery Clinton, of course…Bill Clinton…Laura Bush…Tipper Gore. That’s just for starters. I have no doubt that Marianne Gingrich might be able to tell tales that would make any of these women feel fortunate by comparison, but on the other hand, what could she say that would be a surprise? Anyone who doesn’t know by now that Newt is about as miserable an excuse for a human being as one can be and avoid being shot or imprisoned hasn’t been paying attention.

This is the problem, however. People don’t pay attention, and have the memories of Eric Holder under Congressional questioning about Fast and Furious. After Gingrich’s deft response to Juan Williams’ accusatory race-baiting question at the last South Carolina debate sparked a standing ovation, you would have thought that he was the new star on the scene to hear callers on conservative talk-radio rave.* Yes, yes, Gingrich is smart and articulate. So were Richard Nixon, Tom DeLay, Huey Long and Joe McCarthy. So were Professor Moriarty and Goldfinger. We know Newt is smart; we also should know other things about him by now, like the fact that he’s an untrustworthy narcissist and a cur.

Apparently Marianne Gingrich has decided to do America a favor and to remind amnesiac Republicans once and for all who they were cheering this week. She has taped a two-hour spill-the-dirt interview with ABC News. The Gingrich camp is in a panic, and supposedly there is an ethics debate at ABC about whether the interview should air before the critical South Carolina primary, possibly Newt’s last chance to stop the Mitt Romney juggernaut, or after. Fox host and legal analyst Greta Van Susteren comes down on the side of holding the interview in the can until Monday. On her blog, she writes:

“… we are only 2 days out from the South Carolina primary and there is a high risk from the Drudge Report description of an explosive interview of unfair poisoning of those going to the polls.  There simply is not enough time for a candidate to respond to the explosive report and fairness also includes fairness to the candidate.  This is not to say that news should be suppressed (it should not) but news should also not be used to ambush….What do you think?”

Here’s what I think:

• Greta either cannot write a coherent sentence to save her life, or has hired a seventh grader from a poor school to write her blog posts. The Drudge Report description is going to poison those going to the polls?

• Greta is an Ethics Dunce.

Delaying the release of the news is manipulating the news. It’s not up to ABC to decide when it is fair for voters to get information. Al Gore’s campaign intentionally held the fact that George W. Bush had a DUI arrest until days before the 200o election, and no news organization had any qualms about running with it immediately. They did the right thing. If Mrs. Gingrich II chooses this moment to speak up, the unfairness, if any, is hers, and it is not up to ABC to help Newt deal with it. Van Susteren says the there isn’t enough time for Gingrich to respond…so what? “Respond” means spin; since when did fairness mean “give the candidate lots of time to figure out how to deflect criticism and explain away embarrassments”? It is outrageously unfair to voters to send them to the polls without relevant information that is already available. Van Susteren thinks that it is better for South Carolina Republicans to see the interview on Monday and think, “Holy cats! I voted for that guy??” than for Gingrich to have only two days to explain the events in his own marriage? This certainly tells us where Greta’s loyalties lie, and that her perception of right and wrong, not to mention the trustworthiness of the news media, is skewed.

I don’t trust ABC, Fox, CNN, The New York Times or anyone else to “time” news stories according to what they think is best for America. The news organizations are biased, and they are not that smart….as Newt himself constantly reminds us. It’s not the news media’s job to protect Newt Gingrich from his woman scorned…that is, one of his women scorned. Is Marianne being cruel, vindictive, and unfair to pick the worst possible time to remind voters about her ex-husband’s character deficit? Sure, but that’s no surprise—after all, she married Newt Gingrich. Of course her ethical standards are low.

There is no ethics dilemma. The journalistic duty of ABC is clear: broadcast the newsworthy interview as soon as possible. Holding it until after the primary would be unfair to the other candidates and the public, and an abuse of power and discretion. (At last report, ABC had decided to run the interview before the primary, probably tonight.)

But please…won’t somebody stop that Drudge report from poisoning all those voters?

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*An aside: Williams’ question, asking Newt if he understood why his use of the term “Food stamp President” to describe President Obama was racially offensive, was yet another piece of evidence that a campaign document entitled “CAMPAIGN 2012: How to argue that criticizing Obama is inherently racist and that Republicans and conservatives discussing anything that can possibly be linked to racial bias in any way, no matter how far-fetched, illogical or unfair, is proof  that they and anyone who supports them are racists” is sitting on the desks of every Democratic office-holder and operative, and every liberal/progressive media columnist and commentator, probably in a brown paper wrapper. When Rick Santorum referred  specifically to blacks as he talked about wanting to create jobs that allowed people to make money rather than giving them money, he was accused of assuming that welfare primarily benefited African-Americans, insulting African-Americans while reinforcing black stereotypes. When Gingrich referred to food stamps with no racial references at all, he was accused of speaking “racist code,” using  “food stamps” to mean African-Americans. This is the brilliant double bind “gotcha!” that we are going to see over and over again. It is based entirely on confirmation bias: conservatives are bigots, ergo anything they say is racist code—you just have to decipher it. The race-baiter makes an unwarranted racial connection in a critical statement by a Republican, explains why the racial connection is based on bias, and says that the Republican is appealing to bias via code.  Food stamps benefit more whites than blacks; Gingrich’s (unfair but certainly above-the-belt for political combat) line reflected the fact that more American are on food stamps under Obama than under any other President. But it was still racially insensitive because, supposedly, bigots (and Democrats looking for evidence of bigotry)would take his reference as the insinuation that Obama favored hand-outs to African-Americans. Democrats devise the false meaning, then attack the Republicans for giving them the raw material to make a racist connection…in code. How can anyone avoid falling into this trap, which is based on a prior assumption that Republicans and conservatives are actively racist, so whatever they can be interpreted in that light? Easy–by never criticizing any black official, by never talking about any problem in the black community, and by never discussing race. Then, of course, Juan Williams will ask why Republicans don’t care about African-Americans, and Eric Holder will say they are “cowards.” I’m not saying this isn’t a clever strategy to get Democrats elected; just that it’s just as divisive and wrong, in its own way, as when the Republican “Southern Strategy” actively did appeal to racism.  That was an effective strategy too.