Could Newt's ex-wife have prevented a divorce by losing weight?

[Enrique]

That's what Dennis Prager wonders...

this blogger has been documenting Prager's wisdom (JOKE!!!!!!!) for many years, and recently recalled this from back in 1999:

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=39928

In his third hour, Dennis Prager talked about women who slim down and look great after a separation. He used Mrs. Gingrich as an example. She’s lost 35 pounds since splitting from Newt, has changed her hair, and looks much better. Prager wondered if many of these divorces could’ve been prevented if the women had slimmed down and toned up while married. This drew an angry reaction from several female callers.

Prager said that it is important for married people to stay attractive to their spouses. For men to work hard and move ahead in the world, and for women to maintain a pleasing shape.

I wonder if the female callers were Prager's own two ex-wives


(EDIT *****I'm posting this to hold it up to ridicule, which we sometimes do here.)

[SharonAnn]

1. Could Newt have avoided a divorce by losing weight?

[HockeyMom]

14. Yeah,

why does it always have to be the woman? I am a 100 lb woman married to a 250 lb man who blames ME and my dinners for HIS weight gain. Hello? Are you blind? Look at ME, who eats the same dinners as YOU!!!!!!

[hlthe2b]

2. what tripe...

Typical misogoynist RETHUG

[Scuba]

3. If Newt had lost about 190 he'd have disappeared. That count?

[appleannie1]

4. What a bunch of tripe. It shows a total lack of respect for women.

[JSnuffy]

15. I don't know about their specific relationship...

... but I personally know two husbands who divorced their wives and gave, as their specific reason, "too fat and unattractive"

Doesn't mean it's "right" but it does happen.

[niyad]

16. and were these men supermodels?

[JSnuffy]

20. Not sure about their off duty activities...

... but I would hazard a guess "No"

[Enrique]

21. no, the theory goes that it's women's job to look good

and men's job to go out and be "successful".

[niyad]

23. seriously, that sort of thinking went out a very long time ago. again I ask, WHY are you posting th

disgusting, sexist tripe from the last century?

[JSnuffy]

28. As my example shows...

... it is still around.

[niyad]

30. again, that article was from the last century. we KNOW that sort of idiotic thinking is still

around--all we have to do is listen to the reichwingfundies of both parties.

[Enrique]

29. to make fun of it

i'm grateful to the person who documented it in the first place, especially since 1999 is pre-Media Matters. It's very valuable to record somewhere the stuff that people are hearing on the radio.

People are making very good points about it here, including you, so I'm glad I posted it.

[MADem]

5. Well, she chose to lose weight--around two hundred and eighty pounds of it, or so!

And I'll bet she looks and feels much better as a consequence!!!

[niyad]

8. +1 million

[southernyankeebelle]

12. You bet. Getting rid of that albastra she has been married to for so many years.

[niyad]

6. praeger's "wisdom"??? are you kidding me? this sexist, offensive tripe is "wisdom"?

is there some reason you found it necessary to rehash sexist tripe from 13 years ago from an obvious chauvinist?

[southernyankeebelle]

7. She could have been Twiggy that wasn't her problem. Her problem was like the first wife's problem

both had serious illness. I mean he had the affair for 6 year with this wife he has now. Until she told him she had MS that is when he asked for the divorce. But I have to say am sick and tired that the wife has to be the trophy wife on the man's arm. This is the 21st century how about the man stand on his own job he does. I don't see it right to make that kind of statement. After all look at Newt, he is no Steve McQueen or a Cary Grant that is for sure.

[11 Bravo]

9. Well, she could have dumped about 220 lbs of doughy fuckwad, but ...

that's what she did with a divorce, isn't it?

[Ilsa]

35. That was my first thought.

And I'm sick of men expecting women to have size 2 figures time and the babies their husbands impregnate them with change their body structures.

At one point after my second child I weighed only three pounds more than when I got married. But both time and pregnancy changed my body shape.

If men want size 2 ingenues all the time, then they shouldn't commit to a lifelong marriage.

[Raine]

10. A good start on her losing ugly weight was losing Noot

[arbusto_baboso]

11. Prager is an unrepentant bowl of steaming fuck.

And the next time he spouts off about integrity, he needs to be strung up and hung with his own lying tongue.

[The Genealogist]

13. "For men to work hard and move ahead in the world, and for women to maintain a pleasing shape."

What the hell? Reminds me of that old song,

"Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your make-up, soon he will open the door, Don't think because there's a ring on your finger, you needn't try any more."

Attitudes like Prager's and expressed in that song belong in the stone age.

[Enrique]

18. yes, and he is VERY angry that most of the world has moved on

he's one of those people that reveres the 1950's, and is steaming mad at the people that messed up America in the 60's.

[arely staircase]

17. i have two thoughts on this. one - what a load of sexist garbage

two- why would anyone want to be married to noot in the first place?

[pnwmom]

19. She had multiple sclerosis. He had previously left a wife with cancer.

He's not into sick wives, no matter what size they are.

[FSogol]

22. Dennis Prager! Today's Worst Person....in the Woooorrrrllllddd

[LadyHawkAZ]

24. She did lose weight. About 250 pounds of bothersome fat

Unfortunately the rest of America found it.

[SoCalDem]

25. "Powerful" (and ignorant) men often like their wives to be "trophy-wives"

It "shows" the other men they associate with, how masterful they are for attracting such a beautiful/desirable woman.
Of course in the real-world, these trophy wives are often after the fatness of his wallet, and the connections he has, so HIS looks are secondary.

To HER cohorts, the message is that SHE "attracted" money/security.

[tawadi]

26. Wouldnt anybody look and feel better after divorcing that slimeball? eom

[Missy Vixen]

27. I wonder how much weight Prager's two previous wives lost when they divorced him.

I just love men spouting off about how they're kicking women who gain weight to the curb. As another poster has already observed, it's always the guys who aren't all that themselves, but insist on being with a woman who looks like a supermodel.

[TheCowsCameHome]

31. She got rid of 350 pounds of ugly fat just by divorcing him.

[Marnie]

32. She lost a hundred pounds of lard

by divorcing Newt.

[MoonRiver]

33. And I guess Elizabeth Edwards could have kept John faithful if she'd lost weight.

Disgusting!

[aaaaaa5a]

34. Why do I always see fat old grey men with fit attractive blondes... but rarely the reverse.

Just asking?