A Taste Of The Misinformation To Come

Hot Air posted a story today aimed at clearing up one of the attacks on Newt Gingrich that actually has no basis in fact. It is an attack (and talking point of the left) that has been around for at least twenty years, and it is really nasty as well as being untrue.

The story is that Newt Gingrich divorced his wife as she law in a hospital bed dying of cancer. His daughter, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, has decided to set the record straight.

Ms. Cushman tells her story at a website called creators.com. She relates:

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. 

It would have been nice of the people who spread this story to mention that Jackie Battley Gingrich is still alive and was not dying of cancer–nor did she die! Unfortunately divorce is a part of our society, we need to get past the habit of condemning the people who have gone through it.

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