Posted on 05/08/2011 6:48:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
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.
I’m really more concerned about the Nancy Pelosi and Global Warming side of his personality. Newt has his uses — he’s a smart guy. But I won’t vote for him.
Ditto that.
"He may have had issues with marrying his high school teacher, serial infidelity, and selling out the ideological store for Global Warming with Nancy Pelosi.
But he's my DADDY! Don't vote for that hateful witch Sarah Palin (who isn't even a card-carrying elitist intellectual). So THERE!"
Second translation:
"It's just about sex. Who cares?"
(See, Newt *did* learn from Clinton. Use your children as a shield and character doesn't matter.)
Cheers!
Why don’t you just let it go and respect the author’s wishes.
Anyone becoming effective at taming big government should expect to be savaged by the left. The leftists know this will repel our best and brightest.
Continue to heap shame on the left. Even though they haven’t any.
It may help America wake up and become embarrassed for their support for the left.
Newtist confronts calumny. Yawn.
Mr Newt is getting desperate. If he is elected will we again see his daughter go to the media to excuse his future inevitable personal moral failings to say my daddy is really,really misunderstood?
She's 44. I think she can make up her own mind.
How's that "character" thing working out with Obama?
The problem is they broke their pledge and they let a rapist remain in office. It was a dog and pony show only. They had no intention of doing what they said they would do.
Damage control - decades late.
But, it does show why/how the MSM would have a field day with Gingrich as the GOP nominee.
After they finish skewering him, he would be lucky to get as many Electoral votes as McCain got.
Obama wins a landslide again by 2-to-1 in the Electoral count. What a mandate! Hear the MSM rave!
That’s what did it for me, too.
I have had it with Republicans who feel the need to compromise with the Democrat agenda in order to reach out. I will never believe he has a core set of values that he will not breech after the stunt with Pelosi.
Whatever he did before that, or promises to do in the future, the image of Gingrich and Pelosi is forever burned in my mind.
The House didn’t impeach Clinton? As promised?
It’s the Senate that let us down.
LLS
IIRC, it was 2 Pubbies who lost their jobs in the aftermath of the Clinton impeachment: Gingrich (R) and Livingston (R).
That is part of the Gingrich legacy.
Yeah but I think the gov’t shutdown had as much to do with that than the impeachment.
After all, Clinton was never removed so it was no skin off his penis.
Newt’s character is a big problem. All his ideas about American traditions and constitutional integrity can be found in Thomas Sowell’s decades-old books, but Newt never credits this great thinker. Newt is a plagiarist.
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