McCain the Womanizer

To go along with the "hit and run" piece in the New York Times which accuses  John McCain of an inappropriate relationship with a female lobbyist, here is a hit and run diary.

According to a well-documented article in the Arizona Republic from last year, John McCain has a long history of womanizing and extra-marital affairs which McCain admitted led to the break-up of his first marriage.  His first wife attributes their break-up to McCain acting like he was 25 when he was 40.  Interesting, McCain admits that he lied about his age when he met his much younger current wife.

More of the straight talk express?

•  hit and run tip jar?

  by zdefender on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:44:46 AM PDT

  •  No.

    I want to leave this crap alone and run on the issues.

    by rock the ground on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:46:02 AM PDT

    •  hear hear!

      let's not stoop to their level: the real issue is corruption - let's keep the press focused

      by Great Uncle Bulgaria on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:48:18 AM PDT

      •  I don't want to unilaterally disarm

        and not tell true stories that relate to the man's character . . . when the Repubs will bombard us with false stories of Obama being a muslim, raised in a Madras, etc or similar false stories about Hillary

        by zdefender on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:02:54 AM PDT

•  focus on the real McCain story

  http://www.channel10.com/...

  FEC chair says McCain can't withdraw from public financing until loan questions resolved

  WASHINGTON — The government's top campaign finance regulator has issued a ruling that could put a crimp in John McCain's ability to spend campaign money between now and the Republican National Convention in September.

  Federal Election Commission Chairman David Mason, who is a Republican, says McCain can't forego the public financing he had requested until he answers questions about a loan that kickstarted his once faltering presidential campaign. The FEC chief says McCain must reassure the commission that he did not use the promise of public money to help secure the $4 million line of credit.

  McCain's lawyer says the candidate has withdrawn from the public money system and that the FEC can't stop him.

  A candidate who accepts public money for the primaries can't spend more than $54 million. McCain's campaign has almost reached that.

  by AHiddenSaint on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:46:18 AM PDT

•  False narratives need to be challenged

  Running on the issues is important, but when some of McCain's main talking points surround integrity and character and are demonstrably false, that should be pointed out.

  It is often asserted that character is an important issue in the context of selecting a president and these allegations speak to that rather directly.  McCain is a bit seemy.

  by Guinho on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:48:28 AM PDT

  •  it's almost like Gary Hart,

    daring the media to follow him around.

    by zdefender on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:50:55 AM PDT

    •  Keating and Abramoff are bigger, though, its true

      Corruption is a bigger and more important issue, but the narrative of McCain as upstanding man of integrity isn't correct on more than one level.

      by Guinho on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:52:34 AM PDT

•  the real story

  is that mccain did a lobbyist's bidding. his personal life is none of our damn business.

  by Turkana on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:49:03 AM PDT

  •  no, but his character is if he runs on that.

    Mostly, I'd agree, but since McCain isn't running on issues alone, he brought this into the political sphere.

    by Guinho on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:50:11 AM PDT

    •  how did he vote on impeachment of Clinton?

      by zdefender on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:51:25 AM PDT

      •  Unlike Clinton, McCain admitted to

        having an affair and did not hide it from the divorce court.

        by Drgrishka1 on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:03:58 AM PDT

      •  ....

        McCain voted guilty on the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
        What a lying hypocritical weasel.

        by Lilyvt on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:06:57 AM PDT

    •  Exactly and wasn't that McCain's point this week

      when he made an issue of Obama and public financing, character?  

      I have always felt this stuff is legitimate.  They parade their wives and children around.  I get sponges from the wives that say "vote for ______" when you wet them.  I get testimonials from the wives and children.  The press is not just a PR operation for spreading the candidates claims of being wonderful parents and spouses.  

      We get to judge them by our standards and my standards are pretty tough about infidelity.  It bespeaks an untrustworthy character.  

      by Lois on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:04:21 AM PDT

•  marrying cindy...

  withing a month of dumping first wife.  How very Gingrinch of him.

  by Guinho on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:49:03 AM PDT

  •  at least his first wife wasn't in the hospital

    at the time. . . like Gingrich.

    by zdefender on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:51:59 AM PDT

    •  She'd just been in an accident

      So, she was injured when he left her.

      by melthewriter on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:55:32 AM PDT

      •  McCain's wife or Gingrich's wife?

        by zdefender on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:00:46 AM PDT

•  Frankly...

  I could give a shit.  He's never run or bloviated on the morality issue.  I'm sick of our purient fascination with the sex lives of the powerful.  The only time sex comes into play is when it's a hypocrite who has preached one thing and then does something else...lord knows, there's been enough of that over the past 8 years.  THAT is fair game.  

  Otherwise, I couldn't care if McCain was sleeping with a different woman/man everynight and two or three at the same time on Saturdays.  At his age, I'd cheer him on.

  by mayan on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:50:09 AM PDT

  •  Something for everyone.

    "normal" people, those who don't think sex is filthy-dirty, are aghast at the mere idea (still unproven at this point, imo) that McCain used his Senatorial power to benefit a lobbyist in an untoward fashion.

    Yet the rabid right, if this is proven, will care not a whit about influence trading and will focus on the affair.

    Fun!!

    by RenaRF on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:54:10 AM PDT

    •  Woo hoo!!

      by mayan on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:03:47 AM PDT

•  The guy spent six years as a POW

  If anyone deserves to get laid...

  THAT - by the way - will be the gyst of what will amount to McCain's defense of his past indiscretions.

  by jgkojak on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:51:00 AM PDT

  •  He and his first wife both said

    it wasn't about Vietnam, it was a mid-life crisis.

    by zdefender on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:52:55 AM PDT

•  But that would mean...

  ...that McCain has a (whispered) penis.

  Ew.

  by RenaRF on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:52:29 AM PDT

  •  Only Because Ann Coulter Donated Part Of

    hers to him.

    by kerplunk on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:03:26 AM PDT

•  Voters have a right to judge character by

  OUR standards, not what the elites tell us our standards should be.  

  by Lois on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:57:48 AM PDT

•  Or, maybe, just maybe,

  much of it had to do with the fact that he had emotional issues after being held in a Vietnam POW torture camp?

  Nah.  People who go through that sort of experience never act in self-destructive way afterwards.

  by Drgrishka1 on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:02:45 AM PDT

  •  Well, do we need a president with "emotional

    issues?"  And if thats the excuse, lets hear about it now.  Has he got a Napoleon complex or an Oedipus complex or what??

    by Lois on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:07:24 AM PDT

    •  Or perhaps he is someone who

      was emotionally scarred, but worked to overcome those issues, establishing a strong second marriage and reconciling with his first wife and children from that marriage.  

      by Drgrishka1 on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:11:16 AM PDT

      •  Some would say his outbursts of anger,

        affairs, acting out, are an undisclosed or undiagnosed PTSD.  While I sympathize with McCain and the torture he endured, I don't want another psychologicallly unstable man as president.

        by zdefender on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:57:44 AM PDT

        •  Bill Frist called. He wants his prerogative

          as sole diagnoser-by-TV back.

          by Drgrishka1 on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 12:59:53 PM PDT

        •  O yes!

          I don't want another psychologicallly unstable man as president.

          My family doc said more or less the same thing to me at my last appointment. He lamented how the drug and insurance companies were ruining health care. My response to him was "stop voting for republicans and vote Democratic". He smiled and nodded in agreement. I think we have a convert.

          by AuntieM on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 01:54:57 PM PDT

  •  true of most...

    however, McCain has stated that the break-up of his first marriage was absolutely NOT because of Vietnam because, you know, Vietnam was hunky-dory and we should have stayed there longer so we could WIN it!

    by jodygirl on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:19:39 AM PDT

    •  Saying we should have stayed there longer

      and saying that war is hell are not mutually incopatible.  No one disagrees taht we should have fought WWII for as long as it took.  But no one also disagrees that people who went through WWII (esp. those who were in the Japanese POW camps) came back scarred.

      by Drgrishka1 on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 01:01:36 PM PDT

•  Whether McCain did...

  ...or didn't, one has to admit that the NYT would have made a perfect fit with "Pravda" during the Soviet Union era....a news organization with extraordinary powers of political propaganda to meet their aims.

  by pintel on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:19:07 AM PDT

  •  Do you really honestly believe that?

    Because no matter how "Librully Biased" the NY Times is, do you really think they are an official propaganda arm of a vicious political movement willing to lie, cheat and kill to achieve its aims?

    Because frankly, I think that's a load of horse#^%$.

    Perhaps you agree with Ann Coulter that some Islamic terrorists ought to drive a car-bomb into the NY Times office?

    by jeremybloom on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:30:06 AM PDT

    •  No...

      ...I don't think they're an arm of anything....but only have their own agenda....and yes, I do think they will lie and cheat to achieve those aims. And it's ok to think that's horse#>%$. And I don't like Ann Coulter. Gosh, that feels better.

      by pintel on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:49:30 AM PDT