‘Family values’ still matter — when it’s the other party’s indiscretions

I’ve seen no politician more reviled over an affair than former senator John Edwards (N.C.), partly because of the public’s fondness for his wife, Elizabeth, but most heatedly by Democratic donors who wanted their money back. In that case, the news media caught hell for not pursuing the rumors sooner — though if Edwards had been in the remotest danger of nabbing his party’s 2008 presidential nomination, that would have changed faster than you could ask, “What were you thinking?”

On both right and left, reporters’ questions about sex reliably provoke at least as much sympathy as outrage. And on both right and left, a common reaction to such reports is a charge of hypocrisy. (Republican: You people thought this wasn’t a problem when it was Bill Clinton! Democrat: You wanted Bill Clinton drawn and quartered, and now it’s fine?)

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Ask a Republican about Gingrich’s history of philandering, and the odds are excellent that the next sentence you hear will include the words “Bill Clinton.” (Which does seem a snub to Edwards, Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer, David Paterson and more.) The morning after the South Carolina debate at which Gingrich went after King, Charlestonian Anne Atwater King — no relation to the moderator, but sister of the late strategist Lee Atwater — told me she was indignant that Gingrich had been asked such a tacky question. “How can the Democrats say anything about Newt Gingrich,” she said, “when Bill Clinton. . .” She neither finished the sentence nor had to.

Matter of fact, mention Gingrich to a non-Republican, and you are also quite likely to hear about Clinton: “At least Bill Clinton never brought any of his mistresses back to Hillary’s bed,’’ volunteered a Democrat named Cookie Washington at the Colbert rally later that day.

“At least Bill Clinton had the survival instincts not to ask” for an open marriage, wrote blogger Taylor Marsh.

“At least he never tried to drape his genitals in the flag,’’ wrote Slate’s Emily Yoffe, referring to Gingrich’s contention that it was passion for America that had sometimes led him astray.

This past week in Miami, campaigning ahead of the Florida primary next Tuesday, Gingrich angrily rejected the comparison: “I didn’t do the same thing” as Clinton, he insisted. “I never lied under oath, I have never committed perjury, I have never been involved in a felony.” And unlike Clinton when asked about Monica Lewinsky, he said, he told the truth when deposed under oath in his divorces.

When Univision’s Jorge Ramos tried again, Gingrich questioned his ability to process information: “There is someplace there where there’s a mental synapse missing.”

But how the public processes such nuances depends most of all, as has always been the case, on the affiliation of the politician being accused.

hennebergerm@washpost.com

Melinda Henneberger is a Washington Post political writer and anchor of the blog “She the People.” Follow her on Twitter at @MelindaDC.