Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Jackie - 'G'

There has been so much said in the media that clearly is misleading about Newt Gingrich that I thought this simple short article from his daughter would put some of the rumors to bed. At least for some.


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.

Jackie Gingrich - Cushman
Townhall. com 11/15/2011

As we approach these first two primaries, it is so important that we do so with a willingness to measure the candidates on their abilities as a leader. Each of us along with our hopeful candidates have histories. Each of us along with our candidates have strengths and weaknesses in different areas of our lives. However, the sum of our lives lay in our strengths over a lifetime and not in bad judgments made throughout the course of a lifetime.

As the people and the nation have grown so have our problems as a nation and as a people. To try and compare the last national crisis to the current crisis is simply not doable. None of the previous crisis's core issue had to do with how the nation would govern itself. The country has transitioned itself away from a powerful lower skilled manufacturing based economy into a technological manufacturing based economy. In so doing it has displaced and limited so many citizens in search of the American dream. And in so doing it has moved the greatest capitalist nation the world has ever seen to a threshold of a partially open door with a sign hanging loosely that reads, "Welcome, welfare state, enter here."

If the 2012 elections do not flood the halls of Congress and the White House with leaders with foresight, courage, resolve, and experience that door will swing wide and once opened it can't be closed. Just ask England, France, etc. None of us born and raised here can fully appreciate just how a socialist nation works. It looks good from the outside because the people get more than they pay for….. That is until there is no money or things left to pay them with….All of Europe is flaming out. America and Canada are the last holdouts and both are drifting.

In the elite upper circlers of the GOP they are waiting for a candidate to show well in the primaries they say. But the money along with their organization is pushing towards Romney. The voters have said "No" to Romney already so what has he done between now and the last time to change their minds? I suspect most who are reading this article said "No" to him in his last go-around. (Barney Frank in his, I'm not going to run for office again announcement said, " Mitt Romney would be the best thing that has happened for Democrats since Barry Goldwater." It has taken thirty years for me to find one thing this man has said or done that I have agreed with.)

I spent most of the past week, in Texas, with family who think of themselves as conservative Republicans. They along with their circle of friends seem not have an awareness that the house is on fire. Their discussion hinges around the notions that all that is needed is to tweak the tax code one more time and things will be OK.

The polls say that 80 to 90% of voters feel the country is going in the wrong direction but what does that mean to them? To us?

In thirty days the conservative votes will start getting counted. Without a conservative leader who can articulate what the wrong direction is and what a right direction needs to look like we will end up with a second term Obama.

There is a little trick I use on the computer that I have found helpful. Put a copy of the National Debt clock on your home page so every time you open your computer you see the clock ticking and tallying…. This tallying is a constant reminder that these liberal Republican leaders who are trying to pass themselves off as conservatives were and are major contributors to this national destructive debt.

Barney Frank and Chris Dodd may go down in history as two of the most destructive congressional members in our history. Both seem to realize their game of liberal vote buying politics are over and left on their on volition. Even while California and Nevada are crashing and burning, Nancy, Barbara, and Diane from California along with Harry cannot read the writing of the moving hand on history's wall. So go be…..

Eight governments in Europe have collapsed in the last few months and have been replaced with conservative leaders or so they say. This change was to late in coming. These countries have crashed and burned already. Our country's leaders have crossed the same line….They have to go…All of them…

Ron
 
docnick37@gmail.com
 
http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com/

No comments:

Post a Comment

Let us know what you think?