Newt Gingrich Hospital Cancer Divorce Story Refuted

As the media prepares its campaign to take down former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, as it did Herman Cain, Rick Perry, and Michele Bachmann, an old story about the presidential candidate and his first wife has been refuted.

The story goes that Gingrich served his first wife, Jackie Battley Gingrich, with divorce papers as she lay dying of cancer. It has become part of the black legend of Gingrich, boosting the narrative of his being a mean, heartless man willing to trample on anyone for personal or political gain, contrasting with the conservative theme of family values.

There is one problem with the story. It isn't true, as we have from the testimony of one of Gingrich's daughters.

In fact, the divorce, requested by Mrs. Gingrich, has already been set in motion before her hospital stay. Far from dying of cancer, the first Mrs. Gingrich had a benign tumor removed. The conversation in the hospital room was not a sudden shock as the legendary story suggests. The first Mrs. Gingrich is very much alive, albeit a private person who does not give interviews.

The black legend of the hospital room cancer incident should serve as a warning about believing stories of public people whose sources are dubious at best. One does not know how the story, first published in 1984 by Mother Jones, was concocted, but it has proven useful for Gingrich's enemies over the years. In fact, it will likely prove to be too useful to be put to rest, despite the refutation of Ms. Jackie Gingrich Cushman. The cancer divorce story has haunted Gingrich for decades, after all.

It is not that Gingrich's personal life is pristine pure, as the former Speaker himself will readily admit. No doubt a Republican candidate with two nasty divorces and three marriages will have a difficult time, especially with evangelicals who regard adultery with a jaundice eye. But Gingrich has also said that he has repented his sins and has asked for forgiveness. If he has, in effect, gone on and sinned no more, then his questionable personal past should remain there. If the country can forgive Bill Clinton for turning the Oval Office into a trysting spot, it can forgive Newt Gingrich.