Here is a sweet story about the real lives of Giffords and Kelly who fell in love and married in 2007:
“FRANK CAPRA would have had a field day with the life of Gabrielle Giffords,” Robert B. Reich mused as guests began to gather for the wedding on Nov. 10 of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and Cmdr. Mark E. Kelly.
Mr. Reich, the former Labor secretary, saw parallels in the breezy down-home sincerity of the films Capra directed and the lives of Ms. Giffords, 38, a Democratic congresswoman from her home state of Arizona, and Mr. Kelly, 43, a NASA astronaut and Navy pilot from New Jersey.
So after the ceremony, Mr. Reich was inspired to toast their spirit: “To a bride who moves at a velocity that exceeds that of anyone else in Washington, and a groom who moves at a velocity that exceeds 17,000 miles per hour.”
But theirs was not a whirlwind romance.
“We met four years ago in China, as young leaders selected by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations,” said Ms. Giffords. At that time she was an Arizona state senator and was seeing someone else; Mr. Kelly was married, living in Houston and between space shuttle missions. Read the rest at NYT
It should be noted that Giffords is a gun rights advocate and is considered a centrist:
Unusual is a relative term in American political life, but Representative Gabrielle Giffords fits the bill: avid equestrian and motorcycle enthusiast, repository of arcane health care data, successful Democrat elected three times in a Republican Congressional district, French horn player and wife of an astronaut. More at NYT
