Newt Gingrich's marital shipwrecks are old news. But his second ex-wife,  Marianne, revealed a new insight into Newt's definition of fidelity.  Her claim that Newt asked for an "open marriage" explains his fatal character flaw spilling over from his private life into the public arena, spelling doom for Republicans in 2012.

Newt wants conservatives to honor marriage vows with him, while he is free to carry on multiple love affairs with liberal progressives and Democrats.

Newt's defenders easily recall the legislative triumphs as Republican House Speaker underpinning his conservative bona fides.  Contract With America, Balanced Budget, Tax Cuts, Welfare Reform. Even the inestimable Thomas Sowell has endorsed him.

Yet, how can one dismiss his serial infidelities against monogamous conservatives? His coziness with then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2008 on climate change and cap-and-trade and his ongoing infatuation with ethanol subsidies are but the most egregious perfidies -- committed long before his quest to be the Republican nominee for president in 2012.

Newt's most brazen betrayal this campaign season was his trashing of Congressman Paul Ryan's sensible plan to fix runaway entitlement spending, particularly Medicare. Said Gingrich then, Paul Ryan's plan is " right-wing social engineering...no better than left-wing social engineering." 

Seeking forgiveness after most of us had Newt buried and forgotten in June.  Newt pulled a Lazarus.  Dousing his self-immolation with potassium carbonate foam charm, he quipped about how Occupy Wall Street vermin ought to take a bath and recently tagged Obama as the "food stamp president."  These have been effective acts of contrition designed as self-applied skin grafts hoping they would disguise his transgressions.

But just when we were prepared to absolve a serial abuser, Newt broke our hearts once again by savagely belittling Mitt Romney's leadership at Bain Capital.  Perhaps Newt thought his beat-down of Romney as a villainous captain of industry was merely confined to a short-lived character assassination of a political rival having no lasting consequences.

No, Newt's attacks on Mitt Romney have been far worse than the usual campaign mudslinging.   When Newt co-opted the language of progressives and Marxists for purely personal advantage he offered safe harbor for the wholesale repudiation of private property rights and free markets. When Newt attacked private capital formation and deployment by attempting to discredit one of its most effective and successful operators, Newt undermined the very underpinnings of liberty and self-determination-- an act of sedition that cannot be overlooked.

Newt asserts he is a small government Tenth Amendment fundamentalist. Then why has he been sucking the teat of Freddie Mac to the tune of $1.8 million in consulting fees?  Why does he show contempt for free market initiatives by bashing private equity capital?  Why does he share president Obama's conviction that there are no market solutions to energy supply, only government led mandates?

Newt Gingrich is unworthy of conservatives' affections, let alone share in its ambitions to unseat our current president.  The editors at National Review said it best in this December piece:

His character flaws - his impulsiveness, his grandiosity, his weakness for half-     baked (and not especially conservative) ideas - made him a poor Speaker of the House. Again and again he combined incendiary rhetoric with irresolute action, bringing Republicans all the political costs of a hardline position without actually taking one. Again and again he put his own interests above those of the causes he championed in public.

If Newt were a faithful and reliable small government conservative, he would never have allowed his conservative credentials to give lift and life to Obama's re-election momentum.  If Newt Gingrich, of all people, is attacking conservative core beliefs, maybe conservatism really isn't the means for this nation to get back on the right track.  Or maybe we're on the right track after all.  At least that will be the new theme proffered by the MSM to undiscerning independent voters who will decide this election.  Moreover if Newt Gingrich, the heartthrob of many conservatives, endorses Democrat Party talking points, why not vote for the real thing -- Barack Obama?

Newt's spectacular betrayal isn't a victimless crime. He is dragging down Republican prospects for winning in 2012 and destroying what could be a new conservative agenda -- relying upon limited government and private enterprise -- that this nation so desperately needs.

Of course the remainder of the Republican field are co-conspirators along with Gingrich in assisting Barack Obama.  Rick Perry piling on the Bain attacks, calling Romney a tool of "vulture capitalism".  Rick Santorum,  with nothing on his resume commending, much less meriting his aspirations to be the nominee, reminding independents and Reagan Democrats why social conservatives can be insufferable.

And what to make of Ron Paul,  whose  incoherent  positions on national defense and foreign policy  channel the worst of the Republican isolationist tendencies prior to WWII in Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio, and outpaces even the most strident "loathe America first" lefties, prepared to coddle tyrants, totalitarians, and terrorists.

No wonder In-trade has Obama's re-election prospects at 54% now, a 20 point spread over his nearest Republican rival, Mitt Romney.  Despite Obama's occasional flirtation with moderate politics -- to wit the December 2010 tax compromise, and his consent to put a bullet into Bin Laden's head --   this president has been utterly faithful to his political bedmates.  EPA's war on industry and energy, packing the NLRB with union thugs,  ObamaCare,  Eric Holder's DOJ assault on states' rights,  Obama's non-stop class warfare, and commitment to open borders, denying national sovereignty are but the most obvious proofs for fidelity Obama can show to his base. 

Who would have imagined the Democratic Party,  the champions of social engineering and moral equivalence, whose view of traditional marriage has been seen to be more of a burden than a blessing, would be the face of a happy devoted couple?  Meanwhile, the Republicans, soon to be led by the recidivist philanderer, Newt Gingrich, are happy to enable another dalliance, discarding principle and policy, on the road to defeat in 2012.