John McCain has always been a phony & a scumbag; want proof?

I'm looking forward to an Obama Presidency myself, but that's no reason to slander the American Patriot, John McCain. Churcher is the scumbag.

Churcher is a journalist. In her investigative reporting she has not tried to create an icon of Obama at McCain's expense or vice versa. Scumbag? I don't think so, she's just doing her job.

Re: BBB


Nope, a whole series of lies.

Re: BBB

Unless he committed perjury about it in front of a Congressional committee, no.

Blame the foreigner, eh, Bill? How come you wrote nothing of these gentlemen?

Title: John McCain: Privileged 'War Hero', Liar, Colloborator, Traitor
Source: Educate Yourself
URL Source: http://educate-yourself.org/cn/earlhopperinterview08feb08.shtml
Published: Feb 13, 2008
Author: Ret. Col. Earl Hopper and Jerry Kiley

What they have to say about Senator McCain makes Ms Churcher's article seem like Carl Rove wrote it. Such blatant hypocrisy, Bill.

And you, Bill, of all people, should not be casting aspersions upon others. Are you not the guy who has been providing unflagging support for war criminals, a guy who doesn't seem to recognize true scumminess, that found in people who heap misery and death upon innocents the world over.

Please, Bill. You were actually starting to make some sense in a couple of your posting, and then this.

Re: BBB


That's certainly nowhere near out of the question, Thomas.

Based upon the maritial stats of the members of the Democratic Party, I find your statement quite naive.

I do not recall any Republican Senator causing the death of a woman while driving drunk.

You liberals are supposed to be for anything, except when the opponent is strong.

That scumbag Obama wants to raise taxes on everything and create new taxes that never existed.

What a worthless, elitist scumbag Obama is.

"Oooh, my ears are burning!"

It is clear from the article (and several decades of history) that Carol doesn't have a problem with John McCain or his decisions after 5 years of getting his ass kicked as a prisoner of war. Churcher, the scumbag, obviously went against Carol's wishes and took advantage of her kindness to slander McCain. This is the kind of mean-spirited dirty pool that should be universally frowned upon by all, regardless of party affiliation.

Are you that naive Bill? The cast-off, disfigured and crippled
ex-wife with no money standing (or sitting in a wheelchair) by her ex-man and his beautiful, rich young wife is filled with love and understanding while he gets on with his life and political career with a piece of eye-candy on his arm. Years of payoff to stay off?

Bill, no one confides in a journalist unless they want to put something out there. Revenge can be a many splendered thing.

I was talking with one of the Hawaiian democratic delegates yesterday and he said this was just the tip of the iceberg.

OccumBill
Occum, you criticize a journalist for writing a story based on what John McCain's first wife told her. Why are you upset only about the journalist's writing and not the facts about John McCain treatment of his wife?

BBB

McCain Received $100,000 From Abramoff Firm
McCain Received $100,000 From Abramoff Firm
By Sam Stein
The Huffington Post
February 12, 2008

On the stump, Sen. John McCain has touted his work tackling the excesses of the lobbying industry to bolster his reputation as a "maverick" reformer.

"Ask Jack Abramoff if I'm an insider in Washington," McCain often contends. "You'd probably have to go during visiting hours in the prison, and he'll tell you and his lobbyist cronies of the change I made there."

But how much change did McCain actually effect? And is he all that removed from Washington's special interests?

A review of campaign finance filings shows that the Arizona Republican has accepted more than $100,000 in donations from employees of Greenberg Traurig, the very firm where Abramoff once reigned.

Those donations include several thousand dollars from registered lobbyists who represent, or have represented, businesses such as NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch's media empire; Spi Spirits, a Cyprus based company that has fought with the Russian government for the rights to the Stolichnaya vodka brand name; El Paso Corp, a major energy company; General Motors; and the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a group of businesses and trade associations "concerned" about the shortage of lesser skilled and unskilled labor.

All told, McCain has received more than $400,000 from lobbying firms, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And among his major fundraisers ("bundlers") 59 have been identified as lobbyists by the non-profit organization Public Citizen.

There is nothing illegal about these contributions. But campaign watchdog groups and McCain's opponents view them as more than just a reflection of political irony. McCain, they argue, has on occasion been far more bark than bite when it comes to taking on lobbying interests.

Indeed, this past week, the Democratic National Committee put together a memo challenging McCain's assertion that he was a corruption hound while investigating Abramoff. The document and some government watchdog groups note that while McCain put pressure on Jack Abramoff and several prominent Republicans, he also went out of his way during the Indian Affairs Committee hearing to spare his congressional colleagues.

"Although Sen. McCain has long bragged of his role in the Abramoff investigation, he let Tom DeLay and the other members of Congress who were doing Abramoff's bidding completely off the hook. The sole exception was Rep. Bob Ney, who is now serving time in prison," said Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics In Washington. "Sen. McCain knew what his colleagues were up to, he chose to take the easier path and give them a free pass."

McCain's divorce
U.S. Veterans' Dispatch
McCain's Divorce

Before John McCain's tour of duty in Vietnam, he married Carol Shepp, a model from Philadelphia. On his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam in 1967, McCain was shot down and captured.

While he was imprisoned, Carol was in an auto wreck (1969), thrown through her car's windshield and left seriously injured. Despite her injures, she refused to allow her POW husband to be notified about her condition, fearing that such news would not be good for him while he was being held prisoner.

When McCain returned to the United States in 1973 after more than five years as a prisoner of war, he found his wife was a different person. The accident "left her 4 inches shorter and on crutches, and she had gained a good deal of weight."

Yearning to make the grade of admiral, McCain enrolled in the National War College at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. and underwent physical therapy in order to fly again. The Navy excused his permanent disabilities and reinstated him to flight status, effectively positioning him for promotion.

In his book, The Nightingale's Song, Robert Timberg chronicled McCain's post-Vietnam military assignments and some of his "adulterous" behavior leading to his divorce from Carol and marriage to Cindy Hensley.

Timberg wrote, "in the fall of 1974, McCain was transferred to Jacksonville as the executive officer of Replacement Air Group 174, the long-sought flying billet at last a reality. A few months later, he assumed command of the RAG, which trained pilots and crews for carrier deployments. The assignment was controversial, some calling it favoritism, a sop to the famous son of a famous father and grandfather [both were Navy admirals], since he had not first commanded a squadron, the usual career path."

While Executive Officer and later as Squadron Commander McCain used his authority to arrange frequent flights that allowed him to carouse with subordinates and "engage in extra-marital affairs." Such behavior was a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice rules against adultery and fraternization with subordinates..

Timberg wrote, "Off duty, usually on routine cross-country flights to Yuma and El Centro, John started carousing and running around with women. To make matters worse, some of the women with whom he was linked by rumor were subordinates . . . At the time the rumors were so widespread that, true or not, they became part of McCain's persona, impossible not to take note of."

In early 1977, Admiral Jim Holloway, Chief of Naval Operations promoted McCain to captain and transferred him from his command position "to Washington as the number-two man in the Navy's Senate liaison office. It wasn't long before the "fun loving and irreverent" McCain had turned the liaison office into a "late-afternoon gathering spot where senators and staffers, usually from the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, would drop in for a drink and the chance to unwind."

In 1979 at a military reception in Honolulu, McCain met Cindy Hensley, an attractive 25-year-old woman from a very wealthy politically-connected Arizona family. Cindy's father, Jim, founded the Hensley and Company, the nation's third-largest Anheuser-Busch distributor.

McCain described their first meeting, "She was lovely, intelligent and charming, 17 years my junior but poised and confident. I monopolized her attention the entire time, taking care to prevent anyone else from intruding on our conversation. When it came time to leave the party, I persuaded her to join me for drinks at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. By the evening's end, I was in love."

While still married to Carol, McCain began an adulterous relationship with Cindy. He married Cindy in May 1980 -- just a month after dumping Carol and securing a divorce. The newlyweds honeymooned in Hawaii.

McCain followed his young, millionairess wife back to Arizona where her father helped catapult McCain into politics,

Today, Cindy Hensley McCain is chairwoman of Hensley's board of directors. Hensley and Company financial reports show assets worth a minimum of $28 million for the McCains
---------------------------------------------------------

McCain Divorce Settlement Outlined
By BILL KACZOR
Associated Press Writer
February 24, 2000

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) - John McCain gave up his interest in two homes and agreed to pay $1,625 a month in alimony and child support when he divorced his first wife 20 years ago, court records show.

The senator and Republican presidential candidate divorced his wife Carol in 1980 when he was a Navy captain with a home of record in Orange Park, Fla., about 12 miles south of Jacksonville.

McCain, 63, gave her his interest in homes in Alexandria, Va., and South Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., according to records of the divorce settlement obtained by The Associated Press and other newspapers.

The Arizona senator agreed to give her their furnishings, $1,325 a month in alimony, $300 in child support. He also agreed to pay an additional $500 monthly if she couldn't find a job.

She was subsequently employed in the Reagan White House, according to George "Bud" Day, McCain's attorney during the divorce. Day also was one McCain's cellmates when they were prisoners of war in Vietnam.

Carol McCain, who has remained friendly with her former husband, did not immediately return a phone call to her Virginia home Thursday seeking comment.

McCain filed for the divorce, stating in court records that the marriage was "irretrievably broken."

Under the settlement, McCain maintained insurance policies worth $64,000 with their children as beneficiaries, agreed to pay for their daughter's college education and paid $3,005 in joint debts. Carol McCain got the family's Audi, while McCain was allowed to keep a Datsun 810 and his personal belongings, the records show.

A month after the divorce, McCain married Cindy Lou Hensley, heiress to Phoenix-based Hensley & Co., the nation's second-largest Anheuser-Busch distributor.

Carol McCain was seriously injured in a traffic accident on Christmas Eve 1969, but her husband did not find out about it until he was released from Vietnam, Day said.

In the settlement, McCain agreed to provide insurance or pay medical bills for additional treatment she was expected to require.

It is so good to see the focus Democrats have on "the issues" and the high sense of purpose with which they so assiduously avoid the personal attacks and defamations of character which they claim are the Republican trademark.

John McCain's trophy bride
Friday, February 01, 2008
John McCain's trophy bride
John Aravosis (DC) · 2/01/2008

He's running as a conservative in a party that touts "the sanctity of marriage" as one of their top issues. Therefore his having divorced his first wife because she was involved in a bad accident, and his having married his second wife, 17 years his junior, shortly thereafter, is relevant. John McCain likes to talk about he was a POW. He doesn't like to talk as much about how he ditched his wife a few years after returning home. If we're being asked to consider 8 more years of these people, and their morality, then it's time we inquired about their morality. McCain would like us to remember the hero part, then forget the trophy bride part, even though they both happened around the same time. You get one, you get the other. And he was 42 years old at the time, so let's stop excusing Republicans for their "youthful indiscretions" that happened about the time of menopause. The Bible doesn't have a statute of limitations. If we have to live by it, they have to live by it.

From the NYT eight years ago:

Mr. McCain has acknowledged running around with women and accepted responsibility for the breakup of the marriage, without going into details. But his supporters and his biographer, Robert Timberg, all suggest that the marriage had already effectively ended and that the couple had separated by the time he met Cindy, his present wife.

That might be the most soothing way of explaining a politician's divorce from a disabled wife and his remarriage to a wealthy heiress, but it does not jibe with accounts of family members and friends.
Lots more after the jump...

John and Carol McCain had separated once briefly after they moved to Washington, when he moved his gear into his mother's house on Connecticut Avenue. That was the first hint that Joe McCain, John's younger brother, had of any marital problems, for neither John nor Carol confided much about personal problems....

''For somebody to say that they were separated or at each other's throats is just nonsense,'' Mr. Smith said.

Yet at precisely the time that Mr. Smith was a guest in what appeared to be a happy household, in April 1979, Mr. McCain accompanied a group of senators on a trip to China. The Navy threw a big cocktail party for the group during a stopover in Honolulu.

''John and I were talking, and then somebody tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around and exchanged a few words,'' said Albert A. Lakeland, then a Senate staff member. ''When I turned around, John was gone. I looked around, and he was making a beeline for this very attractive blond woman.

''He spent the whole party talking to her, and he kept avoiding me when I approached,'' Mr. Lakeland said. After the reception, Mr. McCain and the young woman, Cindy Hensley, went out to dinner, and the romance blossomed....

Over the next six months, Mr. McCain pursued Miss Hensley aggressively, flying around the country to see her, and he began to push to end his marriage. Friends say that Carol McCain was in shock.

Late that year, the McCains finally separated, and Mrs. McCain accepted a divorce the next February. Mr. McCain promptly married Miss Hensley, his present wife.

YES
so let us then talk of the economy, Iraq, embryonic stem-cell research, immigration along with a few other issues of concern to MOST americans.

Arizona, the early years
Arizona, the early years
Dan Nowicki, Bill Muller
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 1, 2007 10:33 AM

CHAPTER V: ARIZONA, THE EARLY YEARS

In 1979, John McCain came face to face with his future.

He was in Hawaii, attending a military reception. While there, he met a young, blond former cheerleader from Phoenix named Cindy Hensley.

McCain was immediately dazzled and spent the event chatting her up.

"She was lovely, intelligent and charming, 17 years my junior but poised and confident," McCain wrote in his 2002 book, Worth the Fighting For. "I monopolized her attention the entire time, taking care to prevent anyone else from intruding on our conversation. When it came time to leave the party, I persuaded her to join me for drinks at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. By the evening's end, I was in love."

McCain recalls that both he and Cindy initially misled each other about their ages. McCain made himself a little younger, and Cindy made herself a little older. They found out their real ages when the local paper published them. McCain was 43, Cindy 25.

"So our marriage," McCain cracks, "is really based on a tissue of lies."

Early in the courtship, McCain called Cindy from Beijing, where he was traveling with a Senate Foreign Relations Committee contingent. Cindy was in the hospital recuperating from minor knee surgery. She thanked him for the lovely flowers in her room, sent from "John."

What McCain didn't tell Cindy was that he hadn't sent the flowers. They were from another John, who lived in Tucson.

"I never thanked him," Cindy notes with a grin.

After a whirlwind courtship, John asked Cindy to marry him. But there were some details to clear out of the way.

McCain needed a divorce from Carol, his wife of 14 years from whom he was separated. After McCain's dramatic homecoming from Vietnam, the couple grew apart. Their marriage began disintegrating while McCain was stationed in Jacksonville. McCain has admitted to having extramarital affairs.

"If there was one couple that deserved to make it, it was John and Carol McCain," author Robert Timberg wrote in John McCain: An American Odyssey. "They endured nearly six years of unspeakable trauma with courage and grace. In the end it was not enough. They won the war but lost the peace."

In February 1980, less than a year after he met Cindy, McCain petitioned a Florida court to dissolve his marriage to Carol, calling the union "irretrievably broken."

Bud Day, a lawyer and fellow POW, handled the divorce proceedings.

"I thought things were going fairly well, and then it just came apart," Day later recalled. "That happened to quite a few. . . . I don't fault (Carol), and I don't really fault John, either."

In his book Worth the Fighting For, McCain offers his own post-mortem on his failed marriage. He "had not shown the same determination to rebuild (his) personal life" as he had to excel in his naval career.

"Sound marriages can be hard to recover after great time and distance have separated a husband and wife. We are different people when we reunite," McCain wrote. "But my marriage's collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam, and I cannot escape blame by pointing a finger at the war. The blame was entirely mine."

Carol, who remains on good terms with her former husband, generally has avoided reporters interested in hearing her side of the story.

She did briefly address her divorce to Timberg: "The breakup of our marriage was not caused by my accident or Vietnam or any of those things. I don't know that it might not have happened if John had never been gone. I attribute it more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else."

In the divorce settlement, McCain was generous with Carol, the mother of their daughter Sidney and two sons, whom McCain had adopted. Among other things, McCain gave Carol the rights to houses in Florida and Virginia and agreed to provide insurance or pay for additional treatment she was expected to require.

Except for signing the property settlement, Carol did not participate in the divorce. A court summons and other paperwork sent to her during the proceeding went unanswered.

In April 1980, the judge entered a default judgment and declared the marriage dissolved.

A month later, McCain married Cindy in Phoenix, where the couple would move. The wedding party included a couple of McCain's high-profile friends from Washington. Sen. William Cohen was the best man. Sen. Gary Hart was a groomsman.

Carol went her separate way, finding work as a personal aide to Nancy Reagan during the 1980 presidential primary campaign and later running the White House Visitors Office.

McCain for Congress

The move to Arizona was convenient for the budding politico McCain. After the 1980 census, Arizona was sure to get a new, fifth congressional seat.

But was it too convenient?

McCain explains the reaction of some of his new neighbors: "My ambition was plainly obvious, and to some, it was presumptuous and arrogant. If not said, it was thought by many that when I had decided to start a political career, I had looked around the country for a place where I thought the locals were gullible enough to take a chance on a novice. Worse, some critics contended that I had married Cindy because of her Arizona residency and her wealth and connections there. Neither charge is fair, and I am surprised at how angry I still become when some fool hints that such ruthlessness lay behind decisions to marry and relocate."

McCain truly was at a turning point in his life and ready for a new challenge.

He had a new wife. He retired from the Navy in 1981. His father, Adm. Jack McCain, died on March 22, 1981.

Politics occupied his mind.

According to Timberg's book, McCain actually had toyed with the idea of seeking a House seat as far back as 1976, when he was still living in Florida, but determined he probably couldn't win. After his Senate liaison duty, it became an obsession.

Cindy's money came from her family business. Her father, Jim Hensley, owned a Phoenix Anheuser-Busch distributorship that had made him a multimillionaire. He gave his new son-in-law a job as vice president of public relations, but, really, McCain was just biding his time until the right political opportunity came up.

"Jim Hensley didn't care about PR," said Bill Shover, a former executive with The Arizona Republic who met McCain in 1981. "When you have the Budweiser franchise, you . . . don't need PR."

McCain himself acknowledges that he "fit the bill" of the stereotypical "upwardly mobile boss' son-in-law who obviously lacks the experience and training typically required for the job he holds." But he didn't want to let Hensley down, either.

On the political front, McCain reached out to his Capitol Hill mentors and friends for guidance. Cohen put him in touch with veteran political consultant Jay Smith, who advised McCain to discreetly get out and start meeting Arizona VIPs.

His job with Hensley allowed him to do that.

It didn't take long for McCain to meet wealthy power brokers such as developers Charles Keating Jr. and Fife Symington III, who would later be elected governor. Local polls suggested McCain start slowly by running for the state Legislature, but McCain wasn't interested.

Eager to make up for time lost as a POW, McCain wanted Arizona's new congressional seat.

But he had a problem. The new district was in the Tucson area. For McCain to move from Phoenix to Tucson would open him up to criticism as a carpetbagger.

Fate lent a hand. In January 1982, former House Minority Leader John Rhodes, R-Ariz., a legendary figure in Arizona Republican politics, retired from his seat in the former 1st Congressional District, which included the East Valley. Rhodes had first won the seat in 1952.

On the day Rhodes announced his retirement, Shover got a call from McCain. He could hear noise in the background.

"Where are you?" Shover asked.

"I'm on the freeway," said McCain, who had stopped at a service station to call Shover. "I'm on the way to Mesa to buy a house."

McCain was hardly a shoo-in. Other well-known local Republicans had their eye on Rhodes' job and were not about to step aside for an audacious newcomer.

Two veteran state lawmakers entered the race. State Sen. Jim Mack, R-Tempe, had served in the Legislature since 1971; Rep. Donna Carlson-West, R-Mesa, since 1975. Ray Russell, a third GOP rival, was a personable former veterinarian active in Mesa civic affairs and the Mormon Church.

The Republican establishment took McCain seriously because of his war record and Washington insider ties. Plus, McCain had charm. Women were drawn to him, and men respected him as a man's man.

"John was a very engaging guy," Shover recalls. "You could not help but like John."

But McCain still had a political Achilles' heel. As a recent Valley transplant, he looked like a carpetbagger, and critics instantly seized the issue.

How McCain finally squelched the charge has become part of Arizona political lore.

At a 1982 candidates forum, McCain "snapped," to use his own word, after somebody brought up his residency "for the thousandth time."

Here is what he said:

"Listen, pal. I spent 22 years in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the first district of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi."

The late Phoenix Gazette political columnist John Kolbe is quoted in Timberg's book as calling McCain's brusque answer "the most devastating response to a potentially troublesome political issue I've ever heard."

McCain recalls in Worth the Fighting For: "Looking back, I think the race was effectively over right then. I had stunned the audience and finally put to rest the one nagging vulnerability that was still clouding my prospects. But I didn't know that then. I was just mad and had taken a swing."

And it wasn't the only time that McCain would lash out during the campaign.

Mack contacted McCain's former wife Carol in hopes of digging up dirt on McCain. An offended Carol gave McCain a heads-up about the telephone call. (She also discussed the conversation with Kolbe, who ripped Mack in a Gazette column.)

McCain confronted Mack after a subsequent campaign event.

McCain recounts in his book: "When the debate ended, I walked over to the opponent who had attempted to mine some little nasty opposition research from my failed marriage and told him with as much steel as I'm capable of demonstrating, 'If you ever try to hurt anyone in my family again, I will personally beat the **** out of you.'"

A taste of victory

McCain's strategy for winning the primary focused primarily on Scottsdale. Mack, Carlson-West and Russell's stomping grounds were Mesa and Tempe. Much to McCain's surprise, the popular longtime Scottsdale Mayor Herb Drinkwater immediately embraced his candidacy. The mayor lined up support from the rest of the City Council and other Scottsdale community leaders.

"I can't think of a single Arizonan outside the confines of my own house who was more instrumental to my election to Congress," McCain later recalled of Drinkwater, who died in 1997.

Other Arizonans helped, too. For example, former governor and senator Paul Fannin, R-Ariz., endorsed McCain. He did so at the urging of Sen. John Tower, McCain's buddy from his days in the Navy's Senate liaison office.

According to McCain, Tower helped more than anybody, breaking his own long-standing rule against backing a candidate in a competitive GOP primary to support his friend. He also intervened with Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., after Goldwater's office criticized McCain for trying to take some credit for the then-new Apache attack helicopter that a Mesa defense contractor would build. McCain had supported the Apache as Navy liaison but later acknowledged his attempt to share in the glory of the local contract award was "a bit of a stretch." But Tower quickly issued a counter news release confirming that McCain had indeed recommended the Apache.

Russell recently recalled McCain as a hard worker and a tireless, if inexperienced, campaigner.

"He really wanted that worse than anything," Russell said. "There were several issues that he flip-flopped on. He wanted to win so badly that he'd tell people whatever they wanted to hear."

On Sept. 7, 1982, McCain finished first with 15,363 votes. Russell was second (12,500 votes), Mack third (10,675 votes) and Carlson-West fourth (9,736 votes).

According to Russell, McCain's early and effective use of television advertising helped him clinch victory. Carlson-West's decision to stay in the race also helped McCain, Russell said.

"If she had dropped out, I would have beaten McCain easily because I would have gotten almost all of her votes," Russell said. "But that's politics: timing and money and all that stuff."

The congressional district was so solidly Republican that McCain had Rhodes' seat locked up after the primary. He made short work of his Democratic opponent, Bill Hegarty, thumping him by a more than 2-1 margin in the Nov. 2, 1982, general election.

Money-in-law

Many have told the tale of McCain winning the 1st Congressional District by wearing out three pairs of shoes, with the final pair immortalized in bronze by Cindy. McCain's footwear definitely took a beating during the race, but it was more greenbacks than soles that swept McCain into the House of Representatives.

McCain's first campaign benefited from his wife's personal wealth, some of which had been tied up in a trust set up in 1971 by her parents, Jim and Marguerite "Smitty" Hensley.

In 1981, the trust expired and was dissolved, giving Cindy a half interest in Western Leasing Co., a truck-leasing business controlled by her father, according to Trevor Potter, general counsel to the McCain 2000 presidential campaign and 2008 exploratory campaign. Potter also is a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission. Western Leasing was not the only income the McCains had in 1982. They earned a combined $130,000 in salary and bonuses from Hensley, the beer distributorship controlled by Cindy's father. John also had his Navy pension, which paid $31,000 a year.

"No one pretends that Cindy had no money at all," Potter said. "It was hers. And it wasn't something Jim (Hensley) had given her for the campaign."

Under 1982 election rules, it was legal for McCain to tap his wife's assets, as well as his own, when making personal loans to the campaign. In 1983, the rules were rewritten, with tighter guidelines on the use of family money.

In the end, including the personal loans, McCain would raise more than $550,000 to win the seat.

The 'Maverick' cometh

McCain's notoriety followed him back to Washington, D.C.

Although for the most part McCain's House years found him a fairly typical Reagan era conservative, from Day One he clearly was a little different from his peers.

In 1983, he was elected the House GOP freshman class president.

In 1985, after he had breezed to a second term the previous November, McCain returned to Vietnam with veteran CBS newsman Walter Cronkite. He got to go only after some drama. The Vietnamese government initially balked at providing McCain a visa. Once in Hanoi, Cronkite and McCain made a stop by a monument marking the fall of "the famous air pirate" blown out of the sky in 1967. McCain, the man immortalized by the landmark, mingled with Vietnamese onlookers eager to shake his hand. The McCain sequences aired on CBS as part of an hourlong special titled Honor, Duty and a War Called Vietnam.

As a representative, McCain took another vote that is of interest in retrospect.

In fall 1983, he bucked President Reagan by voting against a resolution allowing the White House to keep Marines deployed in Lebanon for another 18 months.

He denounced the policy in a House floor speech.

"I do not foresee obtainable objectives in Lebanon," McCain said. "I believe the longer we stay, the more difficult it will be to leave, and I am prepared to accept the consequences of our withdrawal."

The resolution passed. The next month, a terrorist truck bomb shattered the Marines' barracks in Beirut, killing 241 soldiers.

Reflecting on the resolution in Worth the Fighting For, McCain notes that the approval already was a done deal, "so I can hardly claim my dissenting vote was a singular act of political courage."

But there were other consequences, as McCain explains:

"It caught the attention of the Washington press corps, who tend to notice acts of political independence from unexpected quarters. My press secretary, Torie Clarke, began receiving interview requests from national print and broadcast media. Because of my POW experience, I had always enjoyed a little more celebrity than is usually accorded freshmen, but not so much that my views were solicited or even taken seriously by the national media. Now I was debating Lebanon on programs like the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and in the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post. I was gratified by the attention and eager for more."

U.S. News & World Report listed him a "Republican on the rise." Even Rolling Stone, the left-leaning music and pop culture magazine, praised McCain for the vote.

The 'maverick' was born.

BBB


John McCain is not the president who will solve these problems. Normally I wouldn't post information like this. My purpose is to expose the myths John McCain and the Media have created. McCain is a big liar and is no more competent that George W. Bush. We don't need another incompetent in the White House.

BBB