Marianne Gingrich, the 2nd wife of Republican presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich, has claimed in an interview with ABC News that her former husband undertook a six year clandestine affair with a Congressional aide 23 years his junior, at the same time he was conducting impeachment hearings against President William Clinton for lying regarding a sexual affair with White House aide Monica Lewinsky. Gingrich later married the Congressional aide – Callista Bisek – only after his wife rejected his proposal that they enjoy an open marriage, with Ms. Bisek playing the role of mistress.

Marianne Gingrich should not have been surprised that Gingrich proposed to Callista Bisek before he even announced to his wife he was seeking a divorce. This is exactly how he dumped his first wife in favor of Marianne, saying to an aide at the time that his first wife was too ugly to be a First Lady, and that her future was uncertain anyway because she had cancer. Marianne Gingrich had previously described the former House Speaker as a man whose hypocrisy is such that he does not think he is bound by the rules he provides the voters for living a moral life. "He believes that what he says in public and how he lives don't have to be connected”, said Marianne Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich provided a brief statement to the press in response to the upcoming interview by his 2nd wife. “While Marianne and I no longer have a relationship, it is gratifying to see that she has put aside her bitterness and endorsed my competence to lead the Republican Party in the 2012 general election. Ever since Ronald Reagan ran on a family values platform, while in private being barely able to speak to his children from his first marriage, I have done my utmost to live up to his standards of hypocrisy and disgraceful personal behavior. I believe no other candidate for the Republican presidential nomination comes close to my cynical attempts at deflecting criticism of my actions by blaming the media, blaming my political enemies, and blaming my misguided, if not outright dishonest, former wife.”

Gingrich’s two daughters from his first marriage came to his defense. Kathy Gingrich Lubbers and Jackie Gingrich Cushman issued a joint statement which said in part,

ABC News or other campaigns may want to talk about the past, just days before an important primary election. But Newt is going to talk to the people of South Carolina about the future– about job creation, lower taxes, and about who can defeat Barack Obama by providing the sharpest contrast to his damaging, extreme liberalism.

Kathy Gingrich Lubbers is president of Gingrich Communications, which is partly owned by her father, and which provides advertising services to the Gingrich campaign. She is also a senior adviser to Newt Gingrich. Jackie Gingrich Cushman is also heavily involved with the campaign, as a frequent contributor of newspaper editorials and as a guest on Fox News.

Newt Gingrich has declined to give any verbal response to his former wife’s comments, other than an opening statement he made at the South Carolina debate, where he said both CNN and ABC News were “despicable” in bringing up such a private topic. He also said his 2nd wife was lying when she said he proposed an open marriage so that he could keep Callista Bisek as a mistress. He has directed any other questions to his two daughters.

The chairman of the Gingrich 2012 campaign, Callista Gingrich (nee Bisek), said “we are delighted with the comments made by Kathy and Jackie. While none of these girls can hold a candle to my transcendent beauty and heavily sculpted hair (due to an accident of genetics that was no fault of their own), they are always welcome on the campaign trail as long as they sit in the back of the plane. They have definitely earned their six-figure salaries with their press comments about Newt’s decent moral character, and their willingness to confirm Newt’s denial that he ever proposed an open marriage (even though they weren’t even ten years old at the time). America can rest easily tonight knowing that, in the fine tradition of Liz Cheney and so many other Republican offspring who feed on the government teat, both Kathy and Jackie will hold senior positions in a Gingrich Administration doing the type of mindless but highly paid work for which they are so eminently qualified.”

Not everyone was as enthusiastic about the press statement from Ms. Lubbers and Ms. Cushman. A spokesman for MoveOn.org declined to be named, but said “We object to the reference from the Gingrich campaign to President Obama’s ‘extreme liberalism’. We think we know liberalism when we see it, and from what we’ve observed during the past three years of the Obama Administration, President Obama is no liberal, extreme or otherwise.”