Okay, based on some smarmy comments I've read from other writers I'll discuss one thing in particular that pissed me off.

The idea that someone who has had a divorce somehow lacks "family values" or cannot be a representative of such a concept is offensive and just damn wrong. This mean-spirited aside assaults not only my beloved mother and a number of my dear close friends but also categorically dismisses the concept of mitigating circumstances. As so many of those on the left love to spout "shades of grey" arguments when it comes to their lives and their choices, it is so easy to throw this accommodation to the side when the rhetorical rifle is pointed at one's enemy.

What? But the right is so high-and-mighty with their championship of "family values" that they should never set a foot wrong or lose all credibility? Please. We all make mistakes and we know it. We struggle toward the laudable goal of a long life with the ones we love. We struggle to lead strong moral lives and on occasion we fail. We KNOW we are going to fail and yet we try. Fear of failure is no excuse for not setting tough goals for yourself.

The estimate today is that 43% of marriages performed this year will fail and they'll do it for any number of reasons. It is NOT because they all universally lacked "family values."

Now specifically to Ronald Reagan's situation. Reagan was married in January of 1940 to actress Jane Wyman. Wyman, who had already been married once for just under a year, met Reagan when filming Brother Rat (1938) and became engaged during the shooting of Brother Rat and a Baby (1940). During their eight years of marriage the couple had two daughter (one of whom died one day after her birth) and adopted a son. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents - 4th Edition (ISBN 0-517-08244-6) states as follows:

"Reagan never discussed the reason for the breakup, but Wyman, in testimony at divorce proceedings in 1948, blamed it on his increasing political involvement with the Screen Actors Guild and his insistence that she share his interest. Contributing to the strain in their marriage was the death of their day-old daughter, born four months prematurely in June of 1947, at a time when Reagan was near death himself from pneumonia. Reagan, who resisted the divorce, became despondent and withdrawn. He was seen weeping at a New Year's Eve party. Some nights he sat alone in a parked car outside Wyman's home."

Jane Wyman got custody of the children and remarried twice more. Ronald Reagan eventually met and married Nancy Davis on March 4, 1952 and they would have two children. His youngest child, Maureen Reagan, died in August 2001 of cancer. All his other children where with him at the end and spoke at his funeral. Even Maureen's husband and his new wife were in attendance. They did not have perfect parent-child relationships but then so few families do. What they had was a family that stood together at the end.

Please, someone find the lack of "family values" in this story because for the life of me I don't see it.

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