Newt fails to win AFA support.

Newt Gingrich has been forgiven by God for his adulteries. But the issue before the nation is not his fitness for heaven but his fitness for the Oval Office. His fitness for heaven is an issue between him and his God. His fitness for the presidency is between him and the American people.

He is a very bright man, a creative thinker, and a brilliant scholar who has much to offer the conservative movement in the realm of ideas. Perhaps that is where he is designed to make his greatest contribution at this time in our history.

The conservative movement needs creative, insightful thinkers like Mr. Gingrich to motivate and inspire us to better and more incisive public policy.

But with the American family in the desperate shape it’s in, it is imperative that the next standard bearer of the conservative movement be a man who has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to family values in deed as well as in words, a man who does not just talk the talk but has walked the walk.

Surely the conservative cupboard is not so bare that social conservatives cannot find a candidate to back who has met the minimum qualification for public service, fidelity to the wife of his youth.