Posted on 11/05/2011 1:37:42 PM PDT by bkopto
My father, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, has been in politics as long as I can remember.
And as long as I can remember, media coverage about him has contained misstatements of facts. The vast majority are simple mistakes that are easily corrected, understood and rewoven into an ongoing storyline.
But one of them seems to have taken on a life of its own, and simple corrections have not sufficed to set the record straight. Why does this happen? I can't be sure, but I suspect that the narrative created by these untruths proves to be so much more compelling and more dramatic than what actually happened that it proves irresistible.
I'm talking about the story of my father's visit to my mother while she was in the hospital in 1980.
For years, I have thought about trying to correct the untrue accounts of this hospital visit. After all, I was at the hospital with them, and saw and heard what happened. But I have always hesitated, as it was a private family matter and my mother is a very private person. In addition, for the four people involved, it was one of a million interactions and was not considered a defining event by any of us.
My mother and I have both recently run into quite a few people who hold an inaccurate understanding of this hospital visit. Many think my mother is dead.
So, to correct the record, here is what happened: My mother, Jackie Battley Gingrich, is very much alive, and often spends time with my family. I am lucky to have such a "Miracle Mom," as I titled her in a column this week.
As for my parents' divorce, I can remember when they told me.
It was the spring of 1980.
I was 13 years old, and we were about to leave Fairfax, Va., and drive to Carrollton, Ga., for the summer. My parents told my sister and me that they were getting a divorce as our family of four sat around the kitchen table of our ranch home. Soon afterward, my mom, sister and I got into our light-blue Chevrolet Impala and drove back to Carrollton.
Later that summer, Mom went to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for surgery to remove a tumor. While she was there, Dad took my sister and me to see her.
It is this visit that has turned into the infamous hospital visit about which many untruths have been told. I won't repeat them. You can look them up online if you are interested in untruths. But here's what happened:
My mother and father were already in the process of getting a divorce, which she requested.
Dad took my sister and me to the hospital to see our mother.
She had undergone surgery the day before to remove a tumor.
The tumor was benign.
As with many divorces, it was hard and painful for all involved, but life continued.
As have many families, we have healed; we have moved on.
We are not a perfect family, but we are knit together through common bonds, commitment and love.
My mother and father are alive and well, and my sister and I are blessed to have a close relationship with them both.
My sister and I feel that it is time to move on, close the book on this event and focus on building a great future. We will not answer additional questions or make additional comments regarding this meaningless incident, which occurred more than three decades ago.
As I said, my mother is a private person. She will not give media interviews. She deserves respect and should be allowed to live in peace.
Which is what you do when your husband is cheating on you with someone else. I’m sorry, his daughter isn’t a neutral witness on this.
And her being alive is even worse, because by the rules, he’s still married to her, not to his next two wives along the line.
I get that cheating is a bad thing.
However serving a dying wife with divorce papers in the hospital (which many believe is what happened) is gut-wrenchingly horrible.
Big difference between the two. The story needs to be corrected in the public’s mind.
One is wrong, but no different that a thousand other politicians.
The other is just evil. The evil version, is what people believe. That need public clarification.
Thanks for posting that.
ASK YOURSELF THIS...
Didnt the media vilify and destroy Newt before??? Then he dropped out, then we started to see him hanging out with Hilary..... Now the media is writing nice things about him... Why do you think that is??? Because he is another compromised Rino like McCain.
I agree. Newt’s personal morality is a complete non issue. It is his political morality that is the problem
We should be talking about an annulment.
Jackie was Newt's high school geometry teacher.
That she eventually married her boy toy does not make this okay.
That a bunch of smelly perverts on the naughty teacher threads whoop and holler over this crap, and cheer it on... does not make it okay.
It was a pretty fair bet from the get go that this marriage could not last, but there were kids in the deal and no unmessy solution.
None of this excuses Newt's subsequent behavior.
On the other hand, we can never know how Newt would have turned out if his geometry teacher had kept her clothes on.
According to the article, the divorce was her idea.
That is the issue itself.
Most likely she was justified for doing so, but that’s just an average one of millions divorce situation.
Nothing to see. How in the world did it get so misrepresented?
Newt was the original Palin. Seriously. He’s the one, the left perfected these smears against.
And the GOP has been ineffective at fighting them, ever since.
Cain may be the first target of a leftist Gingrich-like smear campaign, to ever successfully stand such an attack clearly on its head.
I hope this starts a trend.
The “giant" who has consistently stabbed the Conservative movement in the back in the name of political expediency?
Newt who threw Paul Ryan under the bus, trash talked the GOP Health Care plan as “Right wing social engineering”, chastised Conservative for not backing uber RINO Dede Scusafasa, purposes a Amnesty lite “Middle way on Immigration” and jumped on the Global Warming couch with Nancy Pelosie??. Pimp flex fuels and "alternative energy". Who got $300,000 plus lobbying to protect Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from reform?
So “giant” now means being a Bush like candidate who will talk a tough Conservative game on the Campaign trail and then go to DC and be a good little crony capitalist liberal GOP water boy.
No thanks, have no interest in voting for McCain 2.0 in 2012
I give up: My candidate of choice is JESUS CHRIST, HE is the only PERFECT MAN.
Or perhaps some on FR will show me another.
You realize you are excluding 95% of high-end politicians, right?
Obama probably hasn't cheated on his wife - is he your guy?
Well this all new information! And where has Newt been for the past twenty years in explaining this to the American Public???
Yet, Herman Cain has been under relentless attack for his lack of answering questions about “supposed” “trangressions” and the lack of his campaign’s ability to diffuse the attacks, and he’s not ready for prime time because he didn’t get “in front” of the attack.
My opinion of Newt has changed from a scumball who left his dying wife, to a dummy who didn’t come out with the truth, as his daugher portrays it, about his previous divorce twenty years ago.
gee, you’d think FoxNews would be on this one.
Yes, it's good this has been set straight. Now, we can return to discussing his many warts. And they are legion.
He's a big-government, establishment Republican despite his nice-sounding talk at the debates.
Yup, just like “I can see Russia from my front pouch”. The Rats in the 90s’ perfected their “big lie” and no merit “ethics charges” on Newt that they used with great effect on Sarah Palin.
This column needs to be resurrected every month in this 24/7 news and blogsphere. Two marriages, and as a Catholic, two annulments to marry Calista in the Church. He seems very happy at last and is obviously devoted to Calista, as she is to him. They have written and produced together on faith issues ever since his conversion.
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