re-writing history?

Justin Elliott (Salon): Jackie Gingrich Cushman has decided to resurface the most damaging anecdote of her father’s political career: that Newt Gingrich demanded his first wife hash over details of their divorce while she was stricken with cancer in a hospital bed. Cushman suggests in a new column that the story is false.

But Cushman’s column, titled “Setting the Record Straight,” is directly at odds with the testimony of her mother from just a few years after the 1980 incident … the column is likely part of a conscious inoculation effort. Cushman writes a syndicated conservative political column and recently co-authored a book with her father.

Cushman doesn’t offer much in the way of details, besides saying that she was present during that 1980 hospital visit and that the media has repeated unspecified “untruths”… here is what Newt’s wife (also called Jackie) told the Washington Post in a Jan. 3, 1985, profile:

“He walked out in the spring of 1980 and I returned to Georgia. By September, I went into the hospital for my third surgery. The two girls came to see me, and said Daddy is downstairs and could he come up? When he got there, he wanted to discuss the terms of the divorce while I was recovering from the surgery … To say I gave up a lot for the marriage is the understatement of the year.”

Newt Gingrich’s spokesman, by the way, told me in March that Newt denies the “terms of the divorce” part of the story but acknowledges there was “an argument.”

The question becomes: Should we believe Gingrich’s wife from five years after the incident, or what his daughter claims 30 years later when Newt is gearing up for a presidential run?

Full article here

the family values folks

NYT: Callista Bisek’s friends from rural Wisconsin were stunned when, well over a decade ago, she confided that she was secretly dating an older, married man: Newt Gingrich. (She was) still in her 20s when they met …

Today, Ms. Bisek is Mrs. Gingrich, married for 11 years, but perhaps best remembered for the six-year affair that contributed to her husband’s political downfall. His critics cast Mr. Gingrich as a hypocrite who sought to impeach a president over infidelity while engaging in it himself with Ms. Bisek, who was a Congressional aide.

….As he prepares for a Republican presidential primary run Mr. Gingrich is presenting himself as a family man who has embraced Catholicism and found God, with his wife as a kind of character witness….

Barely a sentence goes by without Mr. Gingrich uttering the words “Callista and I.” They are constantly together … she is the voice on his audio books; her face is all over his 2012 Web site, where visitors can read “A Note from Newt & Callista”.

…Mr. Gingrich is well aware that social conservatives are skeptical of him because of his two divorces and admission of infidelity. He has been meeting with religious leaders around the country to address their concerns.

…At 45, 22 years her husband’s junior … she runs Gingrich Productions, making documentaries in conjunction with Citizens United, the nonprofit group that drew national attention in a Supreme Court case last year.

…The same friends who tried to talk her out of out of dating him more than a decade ago have concluded that she knew what she was doing, and are banking that voters will forgive and forget. Karen Olson, best friend of Mrs. Gingrich, summed up their history in what might just become a campaign catchphrase:

“They’re a great couple,” she said, “that had a nontraditional start.”

Full article here

‘newt & callista’s excellent adventures’

Warning: if you have a weak stomach do not click play

From Slate

I really only have one question after watching this: Why does Callista looked permanently amazed? Is it Newt’s magnificence that leaves her wide-eyed with wonder?

‘newt gingrich cheated on his wives for america’

NY Mag: …..Newt Gingrich didn’t just get divorced three times, he also cheated on both of his first two wives. And furthermore, he left both of them when they were sick. As Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall recaps today:

Let’s remember, Newt famously dumped wife #1 for wife #2 while wife #1 was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. As in literally went to the hospital to present her with divorce papers while she was recovering from surgery for uterine cancer.

He eventually dumped wife #2 for wife #3 shortly after wife #2 was diagnosed with MS back in 1999. And he was having the affair on wife #2 with wife #3 while he was turning the country upside down trying to drive Bill Clinton from office over his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

….Gingrich, naturally, is trying to frame his misdeeds in the best light possible under the circumstances. In a recent interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody, he discussed the issue in religious terms that the voters he hopes to win over may understand:

“I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness. Not God’s understanding, but God’s forgiveness. I do believe in a forgiving God. And I think most people, deep down in their hearts hope there’s a forgiving God.”

If God can forgive him, then surely Iowa caucusgoers can, too. And besides, Gingrich has a pretty good explanation for why he did it:

“There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”

Sometimes you just feel so passionate about America that you need to go have some extramarital affairs. We’ve all been there.

Full article here