WASHINGTON,Jan21,2012: Dredging up a past that
Newt Gingrich has worked hard to bury, the Republican presidential candidate's second ex-wife says Gingrich asked for an "open marriage" so he could have both a wife and a mistress.In an interview with ABC News' "Nightline",
Marianne Gingrich said she refused to go along with the idea that she share her husband with
Callista Bisek, who would later become his third wife.The interview was aired just two days before the presidential primary in South Carolina, a state with a strong Christian conservative
bent, and as Gingrich tries to present himself as the strongest alternative to Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney.Gingrich denied the claim as "false" and called the question "as close to despicable as anything I can imagine"."I am tired of the elite media protecting
Barack Obama by attacking Republicans," thundered Gingrich, who as speaker in the 1990s hounded Democratic president
Bill Clinton over an extra-marital affair.Marianne said Gingrich conducted his affair with Callista "in my bedroom in our apartment in Washington.""He always called me at night and always ended with 'I love you'," she said. "Well, she was listening." She also said Gingrich moved to divorce her just months after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
