The "big" one that got away

Five years ago, I chased the story that Speaker Newt "Family Values" Gingrich was messing around with a young Capitol Hill staffer, but I just couldn't pin it down. Now the tabloids have "outed" him.

By David Corn

Aug 12, 1999 | These days, Newt Gingrich may be little more than a political has-been whose policy pronouncements barely register in the press, but his sex life, apparently, still can make headlines.

After learning that the Star magazine would publish an article on the alleged extramarital affair between the former House speaker and a congressional aide named Calista Bisek, the New York Post and the New York Daily News both rushed out breathless stories on the supposed tryst -- which Gingrich and Bisek would neither confirm nor deny.

"Newt's Fooling Around with His Girl on the Hill," shouted the Post headline.

The Daily News Web site polled readers: "Do you think Newt Gingrich is a hypocrite?"

Short answer: Of course. This is a guy who gained the speakership of the House of Representatives by posing as a champion of family values. Remember how Gingrich repeatedly referred to liberals and Democrats as deviants and miscreants? And, later, how he gleefully tried to exploit Monicagate?

Well, Gingrich, the advocate of families, informed his first wife he was divorcing her when she was ill with cancer. Now, he is divorcing his second wife, Marianne, and a tabloid will soon publish a picture of him holding hands with his much-younger girlfriend.

As far as inveterate Newt-watchers are concerned, however, the Gingrich-Bisek story is old news. For years, word of this relationship was commonplace on the Hill. It was one of those "everybody-knows-it" stories that seem to float endlessly around Washington.

Unfortunately, such stories can be the most difficult to prove. I should know, for I tried to prove this one back in 1994.

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