We all were appalled

Right off, last night CNN's Republican debate moderator John King asked Newt Gingrich about his ex-wife's new claim that he asked for an open marriage. Newt answered,

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. Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through personal 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.

Despite his admitting to having a weak imagination, this morning's coverage calls Newt's reply brilliantly calculated. What made it a hit was not so much Newt's words but rather (1) the timing of the exchange, (2) Newt's delivery, (3) King's freezing up, and (4) the audience's enthusiasm.

No doubt King thought his opening rhetorical situation a golden opportunity; he hoped to start with fireworks, embarrassing Newt by capitalizing on the big ABC tabloid interview with the ex-wife. But doing so created an even bigger rhetorical situation for Newt, one he seized with his customary bluster by rejecting the question on moral grounds. That he got to do so right in the beginning, at the moment when anticipation and energy were peaking and ratings were highest, only magnified the exchange and created an immediate emotional outlet for the audience, who cheered Newt on as he chastised the media, the moderator.

Here we have a politician who publicly preaches values, from the party that owns family values, caught violating those values, claiming that he is morally above public inquiry into his values and his personal life.

The hypocrisy is plain as day, yet King fumbles on the opportunity, and Gingrich looks brilliant because he gets away with it.

Gingrich holds aloft his righteousness in his staccatoed indignation. He summons the dignity of the moment--a Presidential debate (a Primary debate)--a dignity due to such an event in abstraction, but not often felt in practice.

King could have countered along another route: Gingrich faults "the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media" while enjoying the destructive, vicious, negative nature of attacks hurled at candidate Romney by him and his Super PAC.

All this aside, what to make of Gingrich's appeal to "personal pain"? What pain? The pain of the divorce? And whose pain? His? The ex-wife's?

The answers don't matter. What matters is, What does the pain speak of? I'd venture that, for Gingrich, "pain" in this context is the pain we inflict and feel ourselves when confronted by personal failings. Gingrich has them in spades, but a candidate can't say so. Instead, "pain" is a code, a signifier of the unspeakable. Pain communicates to us without words and carries its own meaning. I'd venture further and say most his audience understands this, personal failings, even if they don't know it.

And if I'm right about what Gingrich is saying, I'd be tempted to see this as a product of his recent conversion to Catholicism, as his statement has in it an element of Confession.