Posted on 12/20/2011 6:51:38 PM PST by no dems
I like Rick Santorum and I've been rooting for him to be "The Surprise" coming out of Iowa in 2012. But could stuff like this short exceprt from "The Believer" by Michael Sokolove, hurt him in the General Election? Is this beyond the pale?
From "The Beleiver" by Michael Sokolove:
The childbirth in 1996 was a source of terrible heartbreak -- the couple were told by doctors early in the pregnancy that the baby Karen was carrying had a fatal defect and would survive only for a short time outside the womb. According to Karen Santorum's book, ''Letters to Gabriel: The True Story of Gabriel Michael Santorum,'' she later developed a life-threatening intrauterine infection and a fever that reached nearly 105 degrees. She went into labor when she was 20 weeks pregnant. After resisting at first, she allowed doctors to give her the drug Pitocin to speed the birth. Gabriel lived just two hours.
What happened after the death is a kind of snapshot of a cultural divide. Some would find it discomforting, strange, even ghoulish -- others brave and deeply spiritual. Rick and Karen Santorum would not let the morgue take the corpse of their newborn; they slept that night in the hospital with their lifeless baby between them. The next day, they took him home. ''Your siblings could not have been more excited about you!'' Karen writes in the book, which takes the form of letters to Gabriel, mostly while he is in utero. ''Elizabeth and Johnny held you with so much love and tenderness. Elizabeth proudly announced to everyone as she cuddled you, 'This is my baby brother, Gabriel; he is an angel.' ''
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Yes, it is, and that's when I remember hearing about it. Isn't it against FR rules to change the date on an article?
I’m not being critical. I like Santorum and thank God, I’ve never lost a child. I can only imagine the grief. So, I’m not being hard on the Santorums. I’m just wondering if stuff like this would be detrimental to his candidacy in the General Election. We don’t need an October surprises in 2012. Get it all out there now.
Bizarre. At least they didn’t take the baby to the taxidermist.
I don’t think I would choose to do this, but it used to be customary to bring the deceased home, lay them out on their bed, and hold a wake, with family and friends.
I don’t see anything to criticize here, if they wanted to say farewell to their dead child at home.
In the modern world, people prefer to leave it to funeral homes and directors. But that is mostly because the modern world is unwilling to confront death, and wants someone else to deal with it.
Moreover, if Rick’s bereaved and grieving wife wished to do it this way, should he have denied her? I think not.
You kinda beat me to the punch.
It hasn’t been that many years ago that was exactly happened, especially in rural America. I’m not that old (well, I don’t think I am, lol) and can remember two funerals that had the viewing in the home
in my childhood.
I guess since both birth and death occurred at home, the whole family participated in the experience. There was no mystery involved in going to a hospital and returning with a baby...or going to a hospital and never returning. It was all a family experience. Maybe the Santorum’s are of that mind set.
As far as sleeping with the child, if it gave them comfort, so be it.
The Santorums lost a child. Imagine a political enemy trying to make mileage of that, and voila you’ve got the New York Times.
Who is acting the creepiest, the Santorums or the New York Times?
Why of course it would have to be the Santorums. The stately prestigious New York Times, the paper of record could never be judged to have no moral conscience whatsoever, to have stooped to the level of a craven animal closing in for the political kill, against two young people who had just lost a new baby.
Or could it?
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Well, as a native Texan, I’ve endured Perry’s 25 years of being on the taxpayers’ dole as a career politician. I could never support him for President. His political machine has kept him in power for the past 10 years as Governor, but most Texans know he is an empty suit. We’re not surprised that he can’t remember what he had for breakfast this morning, forgot that the voting age was 18, not 21 and that he thought Solyndra was a country instead of a manufacturing firm. And then, there’s the Debates.......... He has embarrassed the State of Texas in this Primary Process. I guarantee, this will be his last term as Governor.
Everything you say is true.
Sadly, the Santorums will be ridiculed for something that is very personal by the liberal media, and made out to be extremest religious kooks.
I hope I am wrong.
I didn’t change the date on the article. The date was the date of my “Vanity”. I guarantee you, no matter how many years ago it was, Obama will bring it up.
“Isn’t it against FR rules to change the date on an article?”
If not, it should be.
There are times when ‘looking the other way’ is the merciful thing to do, especially in a time of untold pain. So good for you and your supervisor .. and the mortuary that had to have gone along with the scheme.
Sigh...I hope you are wrong as well, but you may very well not be.
We’ve come so far from where we started in this country and so many don’t even remember the old traditions.
An any case, it would be a very painful memory to fling at a family. But I guess that, sadly, is an old political tradition as well.
Indeed.
The date next to the name of the publication is supposed to be the actual date the article was published.
As for Obama bringing it up, Santorum isn’t getting anywhere near the nomination. He’s not likely to even make it past Iowa, so I wouldn’t worry too much.
I guess it must be against the rules, because the admin moderator has changed it to the original publication date.
See my Post #29.
Amen to that.
He’s not likely to even make it past Iowa, so I wouldn’t worry too much.
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But, I want to root for Santorum. I researched this because I heard that there was some bizarre stuff (not only this) in his past that could do him harm in the General Election if he is the nominee. I just don’t want to go the distance with the guy and have a “Herman Cain moment” or a George W. Bush’s DUI revelation like we did the weekend before the Election in 2000.
Which one of my Posts are you giving an “Amen”? (LOL)
“...the Santorums will be ridiculed for something that is very personal..”
How personal can it be if his wife wrote about it in a book??
I can appreciate that they followed their hearts during a time of unbearable pain, but she surely did not have to share it with the world in a book.
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