Richard Perry/NY TimesFrom the beginning, John and Cindy McCain had two entirely different experiences of Washington. He was the most popular member of the freshman Congressional class of 1983, with the most heroic background, the most uproarious jokes and, from his days as the Senate’s Navy liaison, the highest-level contacts. “John was clearly the star from the first day,” said Steve Bartlett, a former congressman from Texas.
Mrs. McCain was 28, nearly two decades younger than her husband and just five years older than his eldest-son. “Cindy was a little bit star struck by John’s fame and the strength of his personality,” said Diana Dunn, who socialized with the couple. Ms. Dunn, the former wife of William S. Cohen, the former Maine senator and defense secretary, recalls the new Mrs. McCain as gracious but timid, unschooled in Washington conversation, and worried about fitting in.
Carol McCain was still a presence on the social scene, working in the Reagan White House and as an events planner. Everyone knew her story: she had stood by her husband during his captivity in North Vietnam, never passing word of a debilitating car accident, only to discover, a few years after their reunion, that he was leaving her for a younger, richer woman.
Rejected by the clubby Congressional wives, Cindy McCain tried to befriend her husband’s aides.
“She seemed lonely,” said Lisa Boepple, a former chief of staff. But “she was John’s wife, so we didn’t really want to hang around with her.”
Wow, imagine if that had been Michelle Obama's story. What John McCain did to his first wife was unconscionable and people in Washington knew about it. The Republicans vilified President Bill Clinton about his affairs when he ran for the presidency. Though was he did was wrong, I think John McCain should thank his lucky stars that what he did back then has not been fodder for the mainstream media.
His presidential aspirations would have come under tremendous fire. Now Cindy McCain's attorney, John Dowd, posed some questions in a letter written to the NY Times and released to Fox News, which should come as no surprise. The letter accused the NY Times executive editor Bill Keller as biased in his coverage and for not pursuing more information about Obama's personal life. He wrote that "It is worth noting that you have not employed your investigative assets looking into Michelle Obama."
"You have not tried to find Barack Obama's drug dealer that he wrote about in his book, 'Dreams of My Father,'" he continued. "Nor have you interviewed his poor relatives in Kenya and determined why Barack Obama has not rescued them. Thus there is a terrific lack of balance here."
Wow, haven't we been here before? Gee, did anyone try to find President George Bush's drug dealer when he was running for office? So, while the truth about Cindy McCain is being revealed, the McCain camp takes offense to that. Cindy McCain was a damn junkie, who stole from her own foundation. Look who she wants to emulate, Princess Diana, who committed adultery repeatedly and had some serious emotional problems. Yes, Princess Diana did a lot of good, but at what cost?
More from the NY Times article:
Scandal and an Addiction
Whatever humiliation Mrs. McCain suffered in her first Washington foray, her trips there in 1989, for weeks of Senate hearings on the savings-and-loan scandal, were worse.
Her husband was accused of improperly intervening on behalf of a donor, Charles Keating, whose failed savings and loan had cost taxpayers billions. Four other senators were implicated, and one Senate spouse: Mrs. McCain. She and her father had invested in a shopping center with Mr. Keating, and while Mr. McCain insisted that he had reimbursed Mr. Keating for vacations their families had taken together in the Bahamas, he said his wife, the family bookkeeper, could not find the receipts.
Mrs. McCain busied herself with the American Voluntary Medical Team, a charity she founded to supply medical equipment and expertise to some of the neediest places on earth, like Micronesia, Vietnam and Kuwait in the weeks after the Persian Gulf war.
In 1994, Mrs. McCain dissolved the charity after admitting that she had been addicted to painkillers for years and had stolen prescription drugs from it. She had used the drugs, first given for back pain, to numb herself during the Keating Five investigation, she confessed to Newsweek magazine. “The newspaper articles didn’t hurt as much, and I didn’t hurt as much,“ she wrote in an essay. “The pills made me feel euphoric and free.”
To read more of this riveting article, CLICK HERE.....
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