Gingrich Allegedly Asked Ex-Wife for an Open Marriage

Daily Intel, Thursday, January 19, 2012, 7:58am (PST)

By Dan Amira

• In some ways, today has been a good day for Newt Gingrich. Rick Perry is dropping out of the race and endorsing him. The polls show him surging in South Carolina just two days before the make-or-break primary there. It's starting to look like Gingrich has a real shot to defeat Mitt Romney if things continue to go his way. Unfortunately for Gingrich, they're not. After much internal debate at ABC, Nightline will air an interview with Gingrich's (second) ex-wife, Marianne Gingrich, at 11:30 p.m. tonight. And if an excerpt released this morning is any indication, it's going to dredge up all of the horrible baggage that everyone always thought would make Gingrich anathema to the party of good, old-fashioned family values. Such as the time Gingrich asked his wife to share him with his mistress. That kind of stuff. 

  Watch the excerpt here.

  Callista Gingrich doesn't come off looking too great either:

  Marianne described her "shock" at Gingrich's behavior, including how she says she learned he conducted his affair with Callista "in my bedroom in our apartment in Washington."

  "He always called me at night," she recalled, "and always ended with 'I love you.' Well, she was listening."

  Related at Daily Intel: Romney's incredible luck continues

  How will Gingrich respond to such damaging revelations? This morning on Today, before the excerpt was released, he tried to argue that nobody should care about the interview: It's old, it's private, and besides, President Obama is destroying the country. Shouldn't we be paying more attention to that, instead of salacious stories of Newt Gingrich's moral depravity? No? Anyone?   

  Watch Newt's response here.