As I mentioned the other day, last week didn’t seem like a very good week for Newt Gingrich, and mainly because the week was about two things: his proclivity to keep coming up with stupid ideas, and his longstanding record as a serially unfaithful husband.

So is this really the best time for him to be reminding people of sexual improprieties?

[Herman Cain], who left the race before the first nominating contests after facing accusations of unwanted sexual advances, suggested the two have both undergone intense scrutiny.

“I know that Speaker Gingrich is running for president and going through this sausage grinder,” Cain said. “I know what this sausage grinder is all about.”

What’s the message here? Philanderers for Gingrich?

In a week where he’s already taking heavy fire for his own sexual peccadilloes, does Gingrich really need this?

Not a good news day for Gingrich leading into the last debate before the Florida primary.

A week ago Gingrich had to stand up to a debate the day after ABC aired an interview with his ex-wife in which she described his request to convert his marriage with a six-year affair on the side to what he called an open marriage. He handled it pretty well, doing what comes naturally to him: he lied.

The story is false. Every personal friend I have who knew us in that period says the story was false. We offered several of them to ABC to prove it was false. They weren’t interested, because they would like to attack any Republican.

And the kicker is, it worked. Everyone agrees that his pugnacious presentation won the debate.

Unfortunately for him, he had to walk back his story just ever so slightly today. In fact, “Tonight, after persistent questioning by our staff, the Gingrich campaign concedes now Speaker Gingrich was wrong – both in his debate answer, and in our interview yesterday,” King said on tonight’s edition of John King USA. “Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond says the only people the Gingrich campaign offered to ABC were his two daughters from his first marriage.”

You really should watch the video. A week after he lied in the debate, and two days after he lied on camera, they had to come back and admit that what was baloney here, to use Gingrich’s term, was not ABC’s reporting but Gingrich’s own claims.

I didn’t watch tonight’s debate, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t ask the question I would have asked. If I were asking the questions, my first one would be:

Mr. Gingrich at a debate the other night you stated that you had asked ABC to interview several of your friends and that they had refused to do so. Today your campaign admitted that your statement was false, and that the only people you offered to ABC to interview were your two daughters, who have also worked on your campaign.

In light of the fact that your statements during the debate were demonstrably and intentionally false, how can you expect the American people to believe anything else you say to them?

Alternate wording: In light of the fact that your statements during the debate were demonstrably and intentionally false, are you prepared to release to the American people a list of the other knowing misstatements you have made during your long political career?

So tell me, did anyone ask that question, or any version of it?

Once again President Obama emphasized the central role of community colleges in his education plans.

We have noted that before on these pages, as well as noting that his support for community colleges is a major campaign promise kept, but it’s worth noting again.

From last night’s State of the Union address:

Jackie Bray is a single mom from North Carolina who was laid off from her job as a mechanic. Then Siemens opened a gas turbine factory in Charlotte, and formed a partnership with Central Piedmont Community College. The company helped the college design courses in laser and robotics training. It paid Jackie’s tuition, then hired her to help operate their plant.

I want every American looking for work to have the same opportunity as Jackie did. Join me in a national commitment to train two million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job. My Administration has already lined up more companies that want to help. Model partnerships between businesses like Siemens and community colleges in places like Charlotte, Orlando, and Louisville are up and running.  Now you need to give more community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers – places that teach people skills that local businesses are looking for right now, from data management to high-tech manufacturing.

Community colleges can be the core of the next great American recovery. They’re in communities (!) where people live, they are affordable, they provide flexibility for working and other nontraditional students, and they can adapt to meet the vocational and general educational needs of their students.

President Obama has it exactly right when he talks about the importance of community colleges to the new American century.

If you’re a regular reader around here you know that I’m fond of Dan Savage’s definition of Santorum, but the news reports today demonstrate that Bob Kerrey was right.

At an appearance in Florida one of Santorum’s supporters spoke out, saying  “He is an avowed Muslim and my question is, why isn’t something being done to get him out of our government?”

Sound familiar? It should, because four years ago a John McCain supporter made a similar charge with regard to then-Senator Obama. Watch the video and then come back. It’s short.

Okay, back?

See what McCain did? Even though he was fighting for every vote, he corrected this misguided woman, even saying that Obama was a decent man who just disagreed on policy.

He set quite a standard for your boy, Santorum, eh? So what did Santorum do?

“It’s not my responsibility as a candidate to correct everybody who makes a statement that I disagree with,” Santorum said. “There are lots of people who get up and say stuff in a town hall meeting and say things that I don’t agree with, but I don’t think it’s my obligation, nor should it be your feeling that it’s my obligation to correct somebody who says something that I don’t agree with.”

Maybe politics are like sports. They claim that sports build character, but maybe politics, like sports, reveal character.

And maybe that’s why Bob Kerrey observed “Santorum, that’s Latin for asshole.”

No argument here.

This isn’t the most important or substantive issue, but I can’t let this go without one more post.

We saw the news this week about Newt Gingrich and his, shall we say, casual attitude toward marital fidelity, for which he got some negative publicity. Granted, it’s not about politics, it’s about sex, although the fact that he was busy impeaching Bill Clinton for extramarital sex while he was enjoying his how access to extramarital sex (to the extent you can say you’re enjoying it when you’re having sex with someone who is so sharp she can cut glass) says something not very favorable about his adherence to principle and intellectual honesty.

Nevertheless, the man who has been the leader of the right wing of the Republican Party ever since the election of Bill Clinton has rushed to defend Gingrich’s honor.

From Rush Limbaugh’s web page, to which I will not link:

I got a great note from a friend of mine.  “So Newt wanted an open marriage.  BFD.  At least he asked his wife for permission instead of cheating on her.  That’s a mark of character, in my book.  Newt’s a victim.  We all are.  Ours is the horniest generation.  We were soldiers in the sex revolution.  We were tempted by everything from Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice to Plato’s Retreat, Deep Throat to no-fault divorce.  Many of us paid the ultimate price, AIDS, abortion, or alimony for the cultural marching orders we got.  Hell, for all I know we should be getting disability from the government.” That’s from a good friend of mine, “Newt’s slogan ought to, ‘Hell, yes, I wanted it.'”  (laughing)  I’m sharing with you how some people are reacting to this.

“Mark of character”?

I guess that’s true. I guess that for the last thirty or forty years Gingrich has been demonstrating his character. In fact, we probably know more about the character of Newt Gingrich than we have known about any presidential candidate since Richard Nixon.

And they are remarkably similar.

Like any southern gentleman, when Newt Gingrich's honor is questioned he stands up to defend it. Maybe there was no slap across the face with a glove, or challenge to a duel at last night's debate, but how could he sit back in the face of charges of marital infidelity?

Let's take a step back and examine the charges. Here's the question from last night's debate, based on ABC's reporting:

As you know, your ex-wife gave an interview to ABC News and another interview with The Washington Post, and this story has now gone viral on the Internet. In it, she says that you came to her in 1999, at a time when you were having an affair. She says you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage. Would you like to take some time to respond to that?

Gingrich's response in its entirety:

I think — I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that. (Cheers, applause.) . . .

MR. GINGRICH: Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things. To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine. (Cheers, applause.)

My — my two daughters, my two daughters wrote the head of ABC, and made the point that it was wrong, that they should pull it. And I am frankly astounded that CNN would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate. (Cheers, applause.)

MR. KING: As you noted, Mr. Speaker, this story did not come from our network. As you also know, it is a subject of conversation on the campaign. I'm not — I get your point; I take get your —

MR. GINGRICH: John, John, it was repeated by your network. (Boos.) You chose to start the debate with it. Don't try to blame somebody else. You and your staff chose to start this debate with that. (Cheers, applause.)

MR. KING: Now, OK —

MR. GINGRICH: Now, let me be quite clear. Let me be quite clear. The story is false. Every personal friend I have who knew us in that period says the story was false. We offered several of them to ABC to prove it was false. They weren't interested, because they would like to attack any Republican. They're attacking the governor, they're attacking me. I'm sure they'll probably get around to Senator Santorum and Congressman Paul. I am tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans.

The typography is important here. In all that blathering, the only thing Gingrich says that actually responds to the charge is what's in bold there. “The story is false. Blah blah blah.” The rest of his answer is to attack the media, which is always popular among Republicans, and to attack the questioner.

But when he says the story is false, what is he actually talking about? The only real question was whether he asked his then-wife if he could have an affair with Callista while remaining married to his wife. After the fact. There's no question about the fact that he was having an affair. We know that he had already been having an affair for six years before the divorce.

The facts are clear. Gingrich met his second wife in 1980 and married her in 1981. (Yes, okay, it is true that he started carrying on with Wife # 2 while married to Wife #1, if you want to be a stickler about it.) He filed for divorce in 1999. By that time he had already been having an affair with Callista for years, and when his divorce was final in 2000 he married her.

Oh yes, and during part of the time he was carrying on with Callista, 23 years his junior, he was trying to hound Bill Clinton out of office for carrying on with a much younger woman.

So to understand Gingrich's “The story is false,” in the context of the known facts, we have to conclude that the only factual point that he could be disputing is whether he went to his wife and asked her if it was okay to keep on having affairs while staying married to her.

Not whether he was having affairs with women much younger than his wives during his marriages to them.

Not whether he left two wives to marry his much younger paramours.

No. Whether he tried to convince his wife that he should be allowed to have affairs. What's false about the story if you believe every word he says, is that his ex-wife claims that he asked her for permission and he says he never asked for permission, he just carried on his affairs without any regard for what his wife wanted.

Oh yes, and when Gingrich talks about having “someone close to them go through painful things”, what he's talking about is all the years he was married to one woman while having an affair with a different woman.

And this is why he feels he must defend his honor? I'm waiting for the duel.

Every so often we see a court case that illuminates the difference between two ideas of justice, and this week was one of those times.

The case involved Cory Maples, a young man in Alabama who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. His court-appointed attorney made the kind of token effort you would expect of someone whose pay is limited to $1,000.00. Indeed, the trial lawyers actually admitted to the jury that they were “stumbling around in the dark,” given their inexperience in capital cases. This would ordinarily be grounds for a challenge to the death sentence because he was denied his constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel.

Since Alabama has no funding for court-appointed lawyers on appeal even in death penalty cases, Maples was forced to rely on two volunteer attorneys from one of the big New York law firms.

They literally abandoned the case: when they left their jobs they just left, not even telling their client or the court that they were out of it, so when the court in Alabama sent a notice to them that their request for post-conviction review had been denied it was just sent back to the clerk unopened. No lawyer, no hearing, no review of your death sentence.

The question before the Supreme Court this week was whether in this case, where the attorneys who represented the defendant abandoned the case, he was entitled to pursue an appeal of his death penalty. The question was so clear that even Roberts and Alito ruled in favor of the defendant, but what is most interesting is  the dissent by the Scalia-Thomas twins. In their view, it doesn’t matter that his lawyers in New York dropped the case, and maybe never even communicated with him, he is considered responsible for everything his lawyers knew and did.

The derelictions of the defense attorneys in this case are so shocking that even some of the most conservative justices ever to sit on the court ruled in favor of the defendant. What we know, though, is that Scalia and Thomas are the model for judicial appointments from the Republican Right. If you picture the vacancies likely to arise on the Court in the next five years, and if you consider the choices that Mitt Romney will be in a position to make if he is elected, you can see the paramount importance of this year’s election to all who value justice in our courts.

It’s not just in the Times, it’s also on NPR, and some people are unhappy.

Take this ombudsman’s note defending their coverage of the Santorum story.

The ombudsman found that covering the story was a legitimate journalistic enterprise.

I have to say that for myself, I sympathize with Wolff but agree with Sydell. It would be disingenuous to ignore what anyone can see on Google. We Latinos call that trying to cover the sun with a finger. Sydell’s story, at least, gives a responsible explanation of why you find what you find on Google. And why Santorum has a problem.

Of course it was. Journalists have no business pretending a real news story isn’t news. Even if the subjects of those stories don’t like it.

My favorite part of this whole thing, though, is the phrasing of the letter of complaint. Read this sentence:

All Things Considered has stepped out of bounds for this cheap political smear.

He said it, I didn’t.

I’ve always been partial to Bob Kerrey’s definition of Santorum, but I have to agree that Dan Savage has really topped him.

Don’t you wonder, though, why Santorum‘s friends are working so hard to keep the meme alive?

Remember how things looked to the Iraq War supporters back in the “Mission Accomplished” days? You know, back when Bush got to put on his little pilot outfit and prance around on the deck of that aircraft carrier?

I sure do, and one of the things I remember is the fact that they were so sure of winning that they got Congress to allocate $20 million of the Pentagon appropriation back in fiscal 2007 for the celebration.

 Under the language, the president could “designate a day of celebration” to honor troops serving in the two wars. The president also could call on the nation “to observe that day with appropriate ceremonies and activities” and issue awards to troops who have served honorably.

The Pentagon could spend up to $20 million of its $532 billion budget in 2007 for the commemoration, minus any private contributions it might receive for such an event.

It was pretty much literally impossible to agree with everything Christopher Hitchens said.

For example, I was 100% in agreement with his position that Henry Kissinger should be prosecuted, tried, and imprisoned for his myriad crimes against humanity. As he said in The Atlantic:

Many if not most of Kissinger's partners in politics, from Greece to Chile to Argentina to Indonesia, are now in jail or awaiting trial. His own lonely impunity is rank; it smells to heaven. If it is allowed to persist then we shall shamefully vindicate the ancient philosopher Anacharsis, who maintained that laws were like cobwebs-strong enough to detain only the weak and too weak to hold the strong. In the name of innumerable victims known and unknown, it is time for justice to take a hand.

On the other hand, if you agreed with him on Kissinger and Vietnam it was almost certain that you would disagree with him on Bush's invasion of Iraq, which he not only supported, but called “a war to be proud of”.

You could agree with his positions on atheism and religions but wish he would be a little more polite and tolerant of the sensitivities of religious people, or at least that he would refrain from criticizing that beloved icon, Mother Theresa:

“[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.”

Or you could take pleasure in his obvious enjoyment of language and learning, but just wish that he would be a little less sure of himself.

Hitchens was one of the greatest public intellectuals of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, A man whose English breeding and education were evident with every word he spoke, but who became an American and embraced that identity.

“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”

Hitch died yesterday of esophageal cancer at the age of sixty-two. It is a great loss for all of us.