McCain adultery story rocks political world — oh wait, no it doesn’t

July 12, 2008

The Los Angeles Times did some solid investigative reporting and published a very damaging item yesterday on John McCain’s personal background, which is of course a key part of his campaign. We learned that McCain turned his back on his wife after she was seriously injured in a car accident, committed adultery, and left the mother of his children when he found a younger, wealthier woman.

Worse, we also learned that McCain didn’t tell the truth about this in his own memoir. McCain insisted that he was separated from his first wife before he began dating his second wife. That’s not true. McCain also insisted he’d been divorced for months before remarrying. That wasn’t true, either. (In fact, the LAT reported, “McCain obtained an Arizona marriage license on March 6, 1980, while still legally married to his first wife.”)

Clearly, this is the kind of salacious story reporters just love. A presidential candidate, running on his personal background, is found to have a messy past. The story has sex, drama, and fairly obvious lies — everything a news outlet needs for wall-to-wall coverage. What does this tell us about McCain’s character? Will voters care about a conservative Republican’s adultery? What will the “family-values” crowd say? How do we reconcile McCain’s untruths with his alleged proclivity for “straight talk”? Will the revelations hurt McCain in the polls? It’s the kind of story the media can obsess over for months.

So, let’s take a moment to step back, and analyze the media frenzy we’ve seen over the last 24 hours, as the political world comes to grips with McCain’s controversial personal life and his willingness to be less than truthful about it:

(picture tumble weeds rolling by)

Nada. Mark Halperin quickly featured the LAT story yesterday morning, but removed it soon after. Campaign reporters didn’t ask McCain about it at all yesterday (ironically, McCain was emphasizing his concern for women yesterday, so it might have been apropos).

A couple of mid-size papers republished the LAT article, with an emphasis on McCain’s relationship with the Reagans. The networks didn’t touch the story. The major dailies ignored it altogether (the NYT’s Nicholas Kristof mentioned it on his blog, but there was nothing in the actual newspaper).

This may be an awkward subject for reporters — McCain did, after all, give them barbecue — but it is a legitimate news story.

First, as far as the media was concerned when Bill Clinton was running for president, adultery counted as a character issue. Maybe reporters got burned out on the subject, but it creates a glaring double standard — a Democrat guilty of infidelity is a major news story; a Republican guilty of infidelity deserves a pass.

Second, even if news outlets decided McCain’s character issues are too old to deserve attention, there’s the issue of McCain’s memoir, which clearly includes stories about his marriages that aren’t true. Obama’s books were scrutinized in great detail, and news outlets highlighted minor inconsistencies. McCain, meanwhile, lied about cheating on his wife.

What constitutes major news lately? Wesley Clark, who has a tangential connection to Obama and supported his primary opponent, accurately questioned McCain’s presidential qualifications. Jesse Jackson, who hardly has any connection to Obama at all, whispers to a friend, off the record, about his dissatisfaction with Obama’s message to the African-American community. These were huge stories that generated excessive coverage.

McCain lies about the circumstances of his marriages? Nothing. No interest whatsoever.

I’d ask reporters to consider one simple question. If investigative reporters at the LA Times had discovered that Barack Obama had been divorced, cheated on his first wife, left her after she was injured in a car accident, pursued a younger woman while still married, and then lied about the circumstances of his marriages in his memoir, does anyone seriously believe that news outlets would blow off the story completely?

Or is it more likely we would never hear the end of this?

The next time someone suggests the media is covering the candidates even-handedly, keep this story in mind.

Good morning, sycophants, is everyone ready to praise our mighty god obama and pretend that we represent the elite bloggers of the world?

Do we all feel good about stealing the rich heritage of liberal/progressive achievements and water it down to a few “pet” issues, totally ignoring the traditional emphasis on socio-economic issues that create all of the other problems that we mindlessly parrot text about?

  • That must be some barbecue. And don’t forget the fluffer in the back of the plane, and the free Bud. And donuts, with sprinkles. What happened to the old time reporters? This is a disgrace when a good scandal goes unpublished. We haven’t heard much about the 32 propaganda films McKept made for the North Vietnamese, either, or the wet start disaster that killed 140 sailors. Some hero.

  • I don’t know about you, but what bothers me the most is not the fact that McCain acted like a scumbag to his first wife. It’s contemptible and disgusting, but we all have our embarrassing personal moments. Whether or not he’s sorry, he deserves to deal with it in private, even if he’s a candidate for president.

    No, what absolutely infuriates me is the possibility that if we were talking about Obama, it’d be front page news, as if the truth about the Kennedy assassination, the secret to having a lasting orgasm, and the location of the island that’s holding Kurt Cobain, Tupac, and Elvis was discovered. Complimenting this surely reasonable coverage would be an endless repetition of racist insinuations that black men can’t keep it in their pants, Rev. Wright’s sermons, and pictures of Bill Clinton hugging Monica Lewinsky. And during this time, people would insist, with a straight face, that the media is liberal.

    If nothing else, perhaps an Obama candidacy might change the dynamic, even just a little. That’s enough to get me to donate a few bucks later today.

  • If we’d been paying attention to our buds across the pond, we might have noticed The Daily Mail’s June 8 story, subtly titled “The Wife John McCain Callously Left Behind.”

    http://tinyurl.com/6gbzhw

    Funny, but this is not the sort of “Left Behind” story one usually associates with the GOP.

  • How do we change the media? Especially in the face of the myth of the “liberal” media? Mention incidents like this to conservatives and they just scream louder about the “liberal” media.

  • Scoop Nisker’s famous edict: If you don’t like the news go out and make some of your own…

    McCain’s adultery and lies —> Wrap it in a 527 and sell it to the world.
    McCain’s adultery and lies —> Wrap it in a viral video and post it to the world.
    McCain’s adultery and lies —> Save the LAT link and post it to the world.

    In other words: Dog. Nape. Nose. Shit. Rub.

  • Relax, Mr. Marv. The point is equivalent scrutiny by corporate media. IF we were playing on a level field, it might be possible to run and win with candidates who were more to your liking. In the current environment, the reality is that even Obama gets tagged with having the “most liberal record” in the Senate and corporate media just echoes the falsehood.

    We can’t even get our own Congress to impeach the most deserving President in history. We can’t stand up against measures like FISA. What do you think would happen to a real liberal/progressive Presidential candidate? Get real.

    If America is ever to restore some sanity, some balance, to it’s political posture, it’s going to be a long, hard road. The forces that brought us to this sad moment are strong, determined, cunning, ruthless and organized. We would do well just to stop their progress. Hell, we’d do well just to slow it down a bit.

  • Steve:
    No. I’m sorry to say this, but I think there is nothing about this story except for the way and reason he left the woman who had stood by him while he was in prison (which may show cracks in the ‘ggod guy facade’ McCain wears) that is even slightly relevant to the campaign — and ‘they’d do it to us’ isn’t a good reason for ‘us doing it to them.’

    Is ‘adultery’ a problem for Presidential Candidates? It better not be, since of the eight Democratic Presidents since the Civil War, six were adulterers (Cleveland, Wilson, FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, and Clinton) and only two were, most likely, not (Truman and Carter). And of those six, well, Cleveland was, maybe, not a major figure, but the others — with, always the exception on racial matters for Wilson — were among the better Presidents. And Cater was, except for Cleveland, the weakest Democratic President (despite his prominence in his post-White House days).

    One thing I have been proudest about as I have supported Obama more and more strongly is his insistentce that ‘politics is and should be about issues and positions, not trivialities and scandals.’ Think of the ‘baggage’ that Hillary carried with her (not just Monica, but Hsu, the Rich pardon, and the Lincoln bedroom scandal — and, to use the cartoon cliche of the angel and devil on each shoulder, think of how hard it must have been for any black man to resist the devil’s shouting about the prostitution of the Lincoln bedroom, selling nights in it for contributions).

    He never used them, never let his surrogates use them, and, despite the charges of the Hillary supporters and PUMAs, never once used ‘sexism’ in the campaign. (And this was good tactically as well, since he knew the stories were out there, and his very refusal to use them brought them into focus at times. Again, political jiu-jitsu, use the enemy’s attacks against him — an advantage you lose if you use the same tactics.)

    The fact is that on literally every issue we have the better and more popular position. Don’t let the campaign drift towards the personal. We may have the advantage there as well, but it opens the door to the ‘whispering campaigns’ and slanders that the Republicans love to use to distract people.

    For the hundreth time, Don’t validate Republican tactics by using them ourselves. Isn’t it about time we accepted the fact that we can win on the issues, can win by being liberal — because the country is more liberal than we are thanks to the ‘era of triangulation’ that we are only overcoming.

    In short, can’t we accept that, while it makes errors, and ones as bad as “Dubya,” in the long run DEMOCRACY DOES WORK.

  • Yes, McCain’s past marriage breakup is a much more important issue to discuss than Obama’s failure to provide gender equity when paying his own Senate Office staff.

  • The Repocriminals and their abetting media, will continue to protect themselves and their party.

    So, sites like this must continue to print the truth and point out the lies.

    Sad and wearimaking but that is the state of the “news” these days.

    Cudos to the repoerter who investigated and the LAT for printing, already known info, in a major media publication.

  • Prup makes good points.

    But the larger issue is double standard and hypocrisy. When Bill Clinton’s zipperitis shut down the govt, shameless politicians stood in front of the camera and said he needed to be impeached for the good of the……children.

    It was the highest of crimes.

    Where are these same people now?

  • The only people that care about this kind of crap are republican “base” people, and then only when it serves their own interests.

  • I think there is nothing about this story except for the way and reason he left the woman who had stood by him while he was in prison (which may show cracks in the ‘ggod guy facade’ McCain wears) that is even slightly relevant to the campaign

    Mmmmm, yes and no. Agree that private acts between consenting adults should not be campaign fodder, but this goes beyond judging plain old infidelity when one of the two parties talks ad nauseam about “family values” and works against equal marriage on the argument that male-female marriage is sacrosanct, the pillar of our Judeo-Christian society, blah blah blah. Of course, there are (a few) Republicans who manage not to get pulled into that talk, and their private lives are most assuredly their own business. John McCain isn’t one of them.

    So Cleveland cheated on old Frances while married to her? Or are you referring to him knocking her up while she was his ward, which I believe more accurately falls into the category of fornication?

  • Sorry–mine at 16 was a response to this of TCD’s: shameless politicians stood in front of the camera and said he needed to be impeached for the good of the……children.

  • TCG, the Republican Congress shut down the government by playing brinksmanship over balancing the budget. It had nothing to do with Monica. The supluses that Clinton delivered on a platter to Bush were the result of his playing hardball with Congress, something our current leaders do not know how to do, and something I cannot imagine Obama ever doing — Mr. let-me-compromise-before-I’m-even-asked-to.

    You are aware aren’t you that the Obama’s have admitted to having troubled points in their own marriage that involved cheating? I also believe that Obama is running every bit as much on family values as McCain. Why do you think he had his kids on TV, why the cute little fist-bump and Michelle’s endless interviews about their domestic life?

  • The networks didn’t touch the story.

    They must be busy researching for the next big thing, Rev. Jeremiah Wright II – The Prequel. It’s just not entertaining to report actual events when everybody already knows John McCain is a hero and makes swell barbecue.

  • Marko said: The only people that care about this kind of crap are republican “base” people, and then only when it serves their own interests.

    Yep.

  • You are aware aren’t you that the Obama’s [sic] have admitted to having troubled points in their own marriage that involved cheating?

    Link, please. (Will it be just like the one you got busted on this morning

    I also believe that Obama is running every bit as much on family values as McCain. Why do you think he had his kids on TV, why the cute little fist-bump and Michelle’s endless interviews about their domestic life?

    You’re equating showing a happy, healthy family with preaching and legislating against equal marriage, sexual autonomy, reproductive rights and non-traditional gender roles? Is there any length you won’t go to to defend McCain? Do you have any self-respect at all?

  • I agree with Prup @ 10….

    when it comes to having a discussion with people – like minded as well as from the opposite side – who have brain cells.

    However when considering people who listen to Rush, or watch Fox News…. the brain cells are missing and if you take the moral high road, by not playing by their rules….. Well, in their opinion, you are a liberal sissy, who wants to sell out to the terrorists.

    So…. by not stooping to their level, you’re reinforcing their belief system. Either way you loose.

    It is a dilemma. Maybe some 527’s can start running some ads on Fox News, and the other Republican sycophantic networks. That way Obama can stay above the fray.

    Dimwitted Republicans wouldn’t know the difference anyway.

  • Nobody cares. Because it happened right after he returned from Vietnam, where he was tortured as a prisoner of war for 5 years. The Viet Cong whipped, bayonetted, and beat him repeatedly during that time period. When he returned he was messed up. Even his ex-wife has forgiven him.

  • You are aware aren’t you that the Obama’s have admitted to having troubled points in their own marriage that involved cheating? —- Mary, @18

    I thought that was the Pattersons (the replacement Governor of New York and his wife). But hey, who can tell them blacks apart, eh?

  • “When he returned he was messed up.” – Jane

    A perfect example of why John McCain is not the man to run this country.

    “Nobody cares.” That’s what they said about Ken Starr’s epic publication of Bill Clinton’s escapades, but it inspired a monumental exercise in hypocrisy called impeachment.

  • I guess the “maverick” macho man even flip flops on marriage.
    This should not be an issue but I think it is important for people to know his history.
    Goes to the character of the man.

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  • Mary at #18:
    Either substantiate your allegation about the Obamas with a reputable source (and, since you’re such a stickler for rules, unless they favor Obama, look up apostrophes and why they are used) or apologize. Fabricating ugly smears that can damage families is low, low, low. Or is it true what libra says at #23, that you confused the Obamas with the Pattersons because, hey, you think all black couples are alike? Oh Mary, this is so bad.

  • Purp said”…” in the long run DEMOCRACY DOES WORK….”

    Starr spent 7million $s and 7yrs saying the same thing. This is not a political party but a criminal cabaal.
    From driftglass: “…. Never trust these motherfuckers. Ever. They will never leave the business of winning and losing to anything that smells of “free and fair”, because they know if they do they’ll lose every time. Every game they run is crooked, every piety they utter is a lie, and every deck they deal from is stacked, marked and frozen.
    So…
    2. Never, ever fight them on ground of their choosing….”

    DEMOCRACY DOESN’T WORK WHEN IT’S BEEN PRIVATIZED. When laws are made to immunize illegal behavior. Stop suggesting we bring knives to a gunfight.. Whiile you are out there being bogged down in elaborate discussions about how we should raise the level of our discourse…thse bastards are whispering in the voter’s ears that you’re really a maggot girly-man terrorist enabling traitor with your nose way up in the air so far that you see the voter as just a peasant. These repuke repulicants absolutely demand a double standard in the media and insist on keeping voters ignorant and hatefully riled up to vote with their emotions rather than their brains. McCain took one look at his dedicated disfigured wife and said “You make me sick..I’m going out and don’t expect me back. I’ve already wasted too much time…time I could have been partying” and off he went in chase of women, money and a good time. He then proceeded to get an continuous office party going on in the House, banging women two at a time and drunk every night. He was known as the party guy to over stressed legislators with his continuous drunk-a-thon.

    To borrow from driftglass again: ” we should toddle down to the Piggly Wiggly and buy some brand of Kiwi shoe polish powerful enough, to buff this turd of a human being to a shine high enough, so that he can be …” considered a viable candidate.

    Living off the government tit (100% disabled and $58k/yr. from his disability) wasn’t enough so he married a very wealthy woman and manipulated his way to real power (the senate) and money. 8 mansions still ain’t enough…”I wanna be presnit too”. Yeah, he made democracy work for him alright.

    Over a million displaced and dead and a country destroyed is hardly proof of democracy working especially since our elected leaders enabled and immunized it and we the people are powerless to hold anyone accountable and actually allow those who would do the same damn thing all over again and would definitely continue it to run for president makes a mockery of the idea that Democracy Works.

  • I predict McCain and his media base are going to follow the Bush approach on this one:
    “Scurrilous rumours ……… Not going to address it ….. not going to address it ……. not going to address it …….. too late, it’s old news.”

  • 11.
    On July 12th, 2008 at 11:51 am, Mary scarything said:

    Yes, McCain’s past marriage breakup is a much more important issue to discuss than Obama’s failure to provide gender equity when paying his own Senate Office staff.

    Likewise, McCain’s past marriage breakup is a much more important issue to discuss than Mary’s ineptitude in her classroom, where she obviously made the smarter kids work as “assistant teachers,” both without any pay at all, and in violation of federal child labor laws. Tell me again—why do we allow child abusers in our classrooms?

  • Well, it was Friday, it was day two of Dr. Phil, and the end of an exhausting week of bad news for McCain. If I had to guess, the editor decided to release the story when it would do the least amount of damage, without pissing off the writers by holding it.

  • Well, this whole Obama-paying-women-on-his-staff thing made me a tad curious. I did a search on the internets tube using the Google, with the search criteria “Obama’s staff” and “equal pay.” The first link was to the aforementioned CNS site, a link which no longer works. No matter, the 2nd link was to that bastion of honesty, free republic, who copied and pasted the original CNS story & accredited the author “Fred Lucas” (if the CNS News link under the headline is any indication as to the source).

    Here are the first two sentences, the money-phrases I’ve highlighted.

    “While Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has vowed to make pay equity for women a top priority if elected president, an analysis of his Senate staff shows that ***women are outnumbered and out-paid by men.***

    That is in contrast to Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s Senate office, where ***women, for the most part, out-rank and are paid more than men.***”

    Now, for all I know, Obama is a complete and total douche nozzle about pay equity, but here’s what I found interesting: The article specifies that on McCain’s staff, “women, for the most part, out-rank and are paid more than men.” Well, I’d certainly hope so. You have a higher position, you ought to make more for it. Right?

    But for Obama, there’s no mention as to whether or not the men on his staff, in general, outrank women. Just that they outnumber them. Hmmmmmm…

    Could this be a sin of omission? The uninitiated is led to think “well, if the men on Obama’s staff outranked the women, the article would mention it, just as it mentions that many women on McCain’s staff outrank men.”

    That could be true. It could also be true that author of the article WANTS readers to think & believe that, when it’s entirely possible that more of the men on Obama’s staff outrank women. If that were the case, then it would make sense that those men would get paid more. After all, they juggle more responsibility, they should get paid more, just as on the women on McCain’s staff. Right?

    And since men outnumber women on Obama’s staff, even simple statistics would dictate that more men probably have positions of power in his staff than women.

    Until/unless we were to get a staff directory of each campaign, which would include people’s positions AND salaries, there’d be no way of knowing. I’d think that Fred Lucas, who wrote the original CNS story, must have had access to this information. Why he’d choose to omit that information is a mystery to me. After all, if women on Obama’s staff outranked men AND were paid less, that would really REALLY bolster the claim that pay inequity lives. Wouldn’t it? But if more men outrank women on Obama’s staff…well then, that wouldn’t prove anything…unless you were willing to obfuscate that salient point, so stupid readers would infer that Obama is a hypocrite on this issue. Too bad Fred Lucas didn’t opt to share that info, otherwise…you know…there’d be no room to guess.

    This gives people like Mary permission to keep assuming that Obama is paying the women on his staff less than men, for the same jobs, for less money.

    It also gives me the confidence to say Mary can lick my ass until it’s as sore and scabby as a baby starfish.

    And on a final note, it’s so swell that McCain’s staff has more women than men. Yes, the idea that a serial womanizer who left his injured wife and children for a woman significantly younger and richer than his first wife…a man who had to be told by members of his staff that a relationship he was having with a hotter-than-usual lobbyist was bordering on the inappropriate…that a man such as this would opt to fill so many key positions on his staff with women, giving those women statistically more access to his valuable time than to the men on his staff…well, that’s just refreshing. Isn’t it? Mary, I can see why you’d vote for such a maverick. You’re so bold, so principled, the idea of you voting for McCain must make you positively…moist with patriotism.

  • It’s amazing to me that anybody could be surprised that this story doesn’t have legs. In recent years, Republicans have almost always been cut slack on stories that would be regarded as inflamatory and career killing for any Democrat. W can, for example, zoom onto the flight deck of the Abraham Lincoln and then prance around in a flight jacket while proclaiming “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq; and yet, during the Vietnam War, he essentially went AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard after having landed there only because of his daddy’s connections with the Texas Speaker of the House and in place of young men more deserving — all to avoid service overseas. What was the effect of all of that? Nothing, except that Dan Rather got canned for some sloppy reporting, even if the major facts of his story held up. And let’s not even get into those destroyed service records or missing drunk driving records.

    John McCain, too, can accuse Obama of being a “flip-flopper,” and yet he’s flip-flopped on major issues, including, significantly, caving on the use of torture in his refusal to vote for a ban on waterboarding. Recently, a veteran publically challenged him on his lack of support of veterans’ issues. McCain’s response? To lie and equivocate. That made almost no media splash. It’s not even legitimate for Wes Clark to question how McCain’s service in Vietnam makes him prepared to be president, even if McCain’s campaign constantly makes reference to that service as an indicator of McCain’s preparedness, complete with gauzy campaign commercials of McCain just after he returned home from war.

    Some former supporters of Hillary Clinton, most of whom I assume are liberals and are thereby opposed to McCain’s political agenda, have vowed to make trouble for Obama at the Democratic Convention, and perhaps vote for McCain in the general, because they think that Clinton got a raw deal from a sexist media and the Obama campaign. And yet McCain’s womanizing and mistreatment of his former wife — not to mention the crude insult made to his present one in full view of reporters some years ago — doesn’t seem to matter, even as McCain stresses his deep respect for Clinton and women in general. We all just let that stuff slide, even as Republicans relentlessly tout “family values.”

    W., McCain, Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, (moral arbiter) Bill Bennett, Dick Cheney — hypocrites and liars all, hiding behind hubris and chest-beating chauvinism (not genunine patriotism) — have never really had to suffer any real consequences for their public or private conduct. Instead, their sterling reputations go unblemished. It’s just a fact of life in modern day America that Democrats get the raw end of the deal.

  • McCain’s first wife also ran out on her husband in a previous marraige.

    Lets not make her out to be some innocent victim.

  • McCain’s first wife also ran out on her husband in a previous marraige.

    Lets not make her out to be some innocent victim.

  • Whoops, that cut off my response:

    Yes, she left him after he cheated on her. You can’t get anything right today, can you?

  • Reading through this blog and many more like it, I am surprised and dismayed that we liberals have still not learned our lesson in dealing with the GOP. We continually say that we should take the high ground and not engage in the same dirty tactics that the GOP uses because it will open us up to attacks. Yet this does not STOP the GOP from using them on us. Some fellow liberals have claimed that we should not stoop to getting into a mud slinging match because it drags us all down. Yet what is remembered about Bill Clinton? Monica. Not his other blunders and certainly NOT his successes.

    When we, as liberals, try to take the high road, we are leaving our bellies exposed to the kind of attacks those without morals and character are most successful at. We come off as Ivory Tower Intellectuals, Cold, Impersonal, and Weak.

    The GOP has a group of focused shills that scream at the top of their lungs full time. They have a dirty tricks squad who will bug their own offices days before an election to cause negative feelings to a candidate. They have an army of lawyers to disqualify votes with little more reason than “I say so”. They have 24\7\365 propaganda outlets spoon feeding the masses “news”.

    Its time we liberals woke up and realized a very important fact; You DON’T play nice with the crocodile.

    And the GOP is a crocodile. Old, resistant to new ideas and realities, and willing to gobble up anyone that gets in its way.

    We, as liberals, MUST be willing to get our hands dirty. We have to be able to say, “LOOK there, he’s a liar”. If we don’t, it certainly will not get reported on by American Media. It certainly won’t get a question in a debate. And in November, we will be scratching our heads wondering why we lost to McSame.

  • Has anyone informed Elizabeth Hasselback that her “hero” is not perfect. She really had an issue with Bill Clinton and his problems with adultery, so I wonder what her “VIEW” will be on this little gem?

  • (In fact, the LAT reported, “McCain obtained an Arizona marriage license on March 6, 1980, while still legally married to his first wife.”)

    That would have helped him in Utah if it weren’t already as red as it can get.

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  • Well all I can say if your managing a political party you would think one of the higher ups would say to presidental candiate hopefuls prior to picking which one to do with “Tell us all the skeltons in the closet.” good job john

  • McCain is a worse liar than Bush W, and maybe even dumber. The only people dumber than him are those that support him. They seem to have no grasp on reality at all. Don’t forget what happened to Bush’s crimnial record. A great vanishing trick the press isn’t interested in. Put it together – the press is owned by the lobbyists who own the president. They don’t care about you, because you don’t care about you. Sheeple get what they deserve, and how it can get any worse without totally collapsing is beyond me, but it should prove quite entertaining.

  • Hello…all the news agency’s (radio, tv, and print) are owned by 1 person. Don;t watch or listen to them. It is 2008 people. They want us to fight amongst ourselves, the want to keep us divided. Don’t give them the satisfaction.

  • It don’t matter what these Presidential candidates do or have done or will do because the people of this country don’t care about what is going on in government or the character and integrity of the people running it.

    All they care about is that the TV comes on and tells them who they are supposed to like and what Britney Spears latest drama. They do not care that we are loosing our freedoms.

  • I agree with you in spirit, but there’s a reason why no one picked up on this story:

    It’s months old. The details you speak of (dumping the car accident victim first wife, etc.) have all been reported on and rehashed on multiple occasions, the last time being after the ex-wife was interviewed for a newspaper in England, if I’m not mistaken, perhaps in early June.

  • The Republinazis own the media. The news will never be reported. But he McCan’t be President!

  • Maybe its time we realize that peaceful change can never be achieved.
    Maybe its time we realize that if peaceful change could be achieved, it would be illegal.
    Maybe we should look towards change achieved through other means.

  • Sadly Adultery isn’t all that uncommon anymore. happens all the damn time. it’s almost like it’s socially acceptable. People just have no respect for relationships. It’s very sad to see this happen as much as it does and have people OK with it.

  • Don’t worry – the moral majority is only upset if the sex scandal involves a democrat.

    Remind me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it adultery that got the last president brought up for impeachment?

    Refresh my memory if you would on who pushed hardest for those charges?

  • Alex, great point. The media never ceases to amaze me. But the problem with the lack of noise regarding McCain’s actions is that no news authority brought this to the forefront of American minds—Democrat nor Republican. What I do like about Obama is that he beats the media to the punch every time. He exposes any past indiscretions himself, so he doesn’t get caught in any lies. This is not so much about McCain abandoning her,(he can’t change that fact)– but that he blatantly lied about it in his memoirs. Electing liars into the White House seems to be the status quo. This is probably the #1 prerequisite to becoming a politician.

  • I’d rather stories like this were kept away. I don’t want the history books to say Obama won the 2008 election due to secrets revealed about McCain’s ugly personal life. Good people aren’t taking back the country on a technicality.

    We’re winning this election legitimately because the world is becoming a better place. It is one thing to sink to their level and use smear tactics, it’s another to do so when we don’t even need them to win.

    If one of you idiots puts the suffix “Mc” on another word I swear I’ll puke. You have better taste than that, seriously.

  • The fact that McCANE dumped his first wife when she needed him most and then took up with trollop Cindy wouldn’t sway right-wingers if it were plastered on the cover of Time magazine. Remember the mind set here, “She MUST have done something to deserve it”, or, “Well, he’s a good man, and it takes two to tango”. Also, Cindy is filty rich, and GOP loyalists admire that (no matter what it seems) so it was a win-win no-brainer for McCain. With that said, even tho most GOPers will still vote for McCain, there will be a few religious folks who won’t. They won’t vote for Obama, but will probably just stay home which won’t hurt McCain much, but it certainly won’t help him any either. As far as the adultery being trumpted from the highest steeple by the MSM, yes, if it were Obama faux “news” would be all over it like white on rice, but then again, people (even repubs!) are finally figuring out that faux is pretty much fluff anyway.

  • This story is stupid. Those facts have been circulating forever now about his wife and second wife.

    And just because his second wife was wealthy and younger, doesn’t mean she was the reason he left. None of us know that reason. But just because you described it that way, all the idiot commenters above just swallowed it hook line and sinker.

    I don’t like McCain. But grow up with this sensationalist crap writing.

  • To borrow a word from the Obama campaign, let’s see some HOPE in all this! Even if you don’t particularly like Obama, it’s time to shake of the liberal malaise of the past years and remember how it felt to think positively. Obama is pretty damn liberal for a mainstream and increasingly successful politician. He won the democratic seat, even with the ‘liberal’ (the conservatives have a tight, insidious grip don’t they?) media, and even without stories like this going global. Why? Because all those worker ants are scurrying toward change. Maybe this isn’t going to fix everything, but this is real life, not TV. It’s a great first step. Hopefully, somebody else got excited at the idea that Obama is still winning, even with the media being so slanted. Hopefully, we’ll see more positive blog entries in the coming years. Change is in the wind, and it feels great.

  • Wow, you guys are just a bunch of meanies who have almost nothing else to hang on McCain except that he left his first wife after being beaten and tortured for five years. I’d like to see any of you go through that and come back the same way as you were when you left. Obviously his wife has forgiven him and they’ve moved on, perhaps you should too.

    McCain isn’t running on having a perfect life or being a perfect person, it’s about the issues, and from where I stand, his views are closer to my line of thinking than the socialist ideas of Obama’s. People who work hard in this country are rewarded, people who look to the government to help get everything they deserve, i.e. welfare, medicare, foodstamps, etc…

  • Nothing about McCain would shock me in terms of his dealings with his spouses. I mean the man publicly flew off the handle at his present wife for gently teasing him about his thinning hair. He snapped back with a nasty a comment about (and I’m paraphrasing here), “At least I don’t apply makeup with a trowel, you c*nt!” Yep. The dreaded c-word. What a loser. (Maybe he should take some grooming tips from his wife. Have you seen the guy’s face? Yikes! Oh, yeah. And some anger management sessions wouldn’t hurt either….)

  • John McCain stood before man and G-d and swore his loyalty to his wife. He flip-flopped on that one. If he is elected president, we will have the misfortune of seeing him put his hand on a Bible and again, swearing his loyality before man and G-d.

    Fall for that twice and you’re a fool. It goes to honesty and character. Both are missing with Mr. McCain.

  • What’s unfortunate in my eyes is the fact that if this story were about a Democrat the uproar would be unbelievable.

    Personally, though, I think that McCain’s (and Clinton’s and anyone’s) personal issues should remain just that–personal. They are theirs to handle as they will, and aren’t really anyone else’s business.

  • The rightwing could not control the media so they bought it and turned serious journalism into 30 nightly minutes of drug ads, fluff stories and 3 or 4 minutes of distortion. If Obama had cheated on his wife (or fourth grade girlfriend for that matter) his role as contender would be over. McCain cheated then lied and nobody gives a crap; mainly because they will never hear of it from the media. When McCain and Obama went in for their Morals Exam last weekend at Superguru, Inc. Obama tried to explain the difficulty of dealing with complex social issues while McCain opted for just telling the deadbrains in the audience what they wanted to hear. Has anyone noticed that McCain literally reads his “spontaneous” speeches? Watch him next time. I guess he believes the presidency is all scripted.

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