John H. Richardson’s profile of Newt Gingrich in Esquire Magazine includes this anecdote about Gingrich’s former wife Marianne, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis shortly before Gingrich revealed to her that he was having an affair.

She called a minister they both trusted. He came over to the house the next day and worked with them the whole weekend, but Gingrich just kept saying she was a Jaguar and all he wanted was a Chevrolet. ‘I can’t handle a Jaguar right now.’ He said that many times. ‘All I want is a Chevrolet.’

He asked her to just tolerate the affair, an offer she refused.

He’d just returned from Erie, Pennsylvania, where he’d given a speech full of high sentiments about compassion and family values.

The next night, they sat talking out on their back patio in Georgia. She said, “How do you give that speech and do what you’re doing?”

“It doesn’t matter what I do,” he answered. “People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”