If you want to read one of the most devastating pieces of journalism in a long time read Gail Collins on Newt Gingrich in Saturday's New York Times.

Collins is usually in the shadow of her more famous Irish American colleague Maureen Dowd but on this occasion she outdoes everyone.

Gingrich, pictured here with third wife Callista, was recently on Christan Broadcasting Network defending his three marriages. and he said " There is no question that at times in my life , partially driven by how passionately I feel about this country that I worked far too hard and that things happened in my life that were not appropriate."

Huh?

As an excuse for infidelity it beats the band.

As the man who led the impeachment charge against Bill Clinton it gives hypocrisy a new name.

And Collins knows how to apply the knife mocking Gingrich for saying his passion for work led to his affairs.

She goes back over Gingrich's two broken marriages.

In the first one he told his wife Jackie when she was recovering from surgery for uterine cancer he was divorcing her --charming I'm sure.

His second wife Marianne , who suffered from multiple sclerosis, was visiting her mother when he called to tell her he'd met some one better.

A real class act.

The Catholic Church found a way to have Gingrich annul his second marriage and marry his third wife, a much younger woman after becoming a Catholic.

With Catholics like him no wonder the church is in trouble.

Gingrich is ready to forgive his own sins, but judging by his rhetoric not those of others.

What a hypocrite!