There aren’t many easy ways for politicians to discuss having affairs, but this particular word selection from Newt Gingrich, in an interview with CBN, is probably going to prove problematic:
Newt Gingrich: “There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate. And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn’t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them. I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness.”
Questions of whether God forgave Gingrich are best directed to Him. But those opening sentences seem to suggest that the “things that were not appropriate” were triggered by “how passionately [Gingrich] felt about this country.” His crime of passion was driven by passionate patriotism, it would seem.