He took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to verbally slash at then President Bill Clinton for the Lewinsky affair — while himself cheating on his second wife with a mistress.

He publicly pledged that he would not go negative in his bid for the Republican nomination for president, but did just that when he saw his campaign failing to gain traction.

He insisted that he wasn’t going to publicly criticize his second wife, Marianne, whom he divorced to marry his mistress, but sent his daughters from his first marriage — he divorced that wife to marry Marianne — to suggest that the second wife was a liar for saying in an ABC News interview that he wanted an open marriage.

Finally, he attacked the mainstream media for irresponsible and sensational news coverage, but Sunday morning was on national television pontificating about the real America.

And yet, on Saturday, Republican voters in South Carolina ignored Newt Gingrich’s numerous trysts — with hypocrisy — and gave him an impressive victory in the primary. In so doing, they slowed down former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s drive for the nomination, and made Florida’s Jan. 31 primary a must-win for Romney.

But it is the willingness of South Carolina Republicans of just about every stripe to ignore Gingrich’s character flaws, all the while wrapping themselves in the now stained cloak of family values, which was the real story of the election.

It will be interesting to see if Republicans in other states take seriously the admonition that aptly applies to Gingrich: “Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t run around naked.”