John McCain got divorced from his first wife because of MULTIPLE AFFAIRS

[Dems Will Win]

This should be sent to the Greatest Page ASAP, thanks. And send to media!!

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.

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."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/mccain/articles/0301mccainbio-chapter5.html

PLEASE RECOMMEND THIS EXCLUSIVE DU THREAD!

[Fed_Up_Grammy]

1. Thirty years ago? Who cares ?

[Dems Will Win]

3. ??? Duh, it makes a pattern of behavior which the media will repeat ad nauseum now

And that could fulfill people's perceptions on this.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. So, we'll start by repeating on DU?

[annabanana]

13. Oh why the hell not?

and don't give me "well we're better than them". . They would never cut us the same slack.

[TreasonousBastard]

15. Never would I dare say "we're better than them"...

even if we are-- 'cause you'd never know it from here.

[huskerlaw]

9. It matters because

of the hypocritical little Republicans that say it matters when it's a Democrat. Personally, I don't give a flying fuck, but if those little bastards can try to impeach Clinton for receiving a blowjob, then I'm damn well going to trot out all of their private affairs too.

[Raksha]

32. My sentiments exactly!

Re >>Personally, I don't give a flying fuck, but if those little bastards can try to impeach Clinton for receiving a blowjob, then I'm damn well going to trot out all of their private affairs too.<<

It's strictly a matter of revenge with me, and I've never claimed otherwise. I don't even support Hillary for president, but the way the Repukes and the corporate media treated both of the Clintons while Bill was president was abominable. I'd love to see the media on a full-blown feeding frenzy over this...just as though McCain were a DEMOCRAT!!!

[JuniperLea]

44. You said it!

And it should be repeated over and over again every time a Republican tries to say how long ago something was or how it's not anyone's business... if it was good enough to trash the Clinton's over, it's good enough for the looooooooooong list of Republican hypocrites!

[calimary]

57. Yes. I have to agree here. Wholeheartedly. THEY made "bimbo eruptions"

an issue. Not us. THEIR side is the one that started this and built it up into such a national stink. They damn near hung a man for lying about cheating on his wife. Don't think many of them didn't want to do exactly that, deep in the depths of their dark hearts. It's probably because they are, after all is said and done, the Bedroom Busybody party.

Personally, I don't care, either. But if they're gonna define the game and set the rules that way, then we better play it and play it for keeps. And if they're going to open up Pandora's Box, they're fools to think it won't come back to bite them in the ass, too. As it should. I'm one who believes in the "taste of their own medicine - see how they like it" philosophy. If they're gonna dish it out... and all that. What's sauce for the goose IS sauce for the gander also.

And as long as he's portraying himself as this upstanding Mr. Clean on his reinvention of himself as a pure-as-driven-snow, Campaign-Finance-Reform, ultra-ethical politician who doesn't live in some fat-cat's pockets, as well as a loyal, loving husband, it's all fair game. He's the guy who presumably thinks it's excruciatingly important to be aware of even the appearance of impropriety. He should have been careful about this - and certainly not pack his campaign hierarchy with bigtime fat-cat lobbyists.

It's ABSOLUTELY FAIR to question. It's ABSOLUTELY FAIR to consider all these things when trying to gauge the measure of the man. It's absolutely fair to bring the whole Keating Five scandal back up again, because it has relevance (even moreso now), AND it's entirely fair to recall that he was quite the philanderer - enough so that it up-ended his first marriage. We are correct in wanting to know as much as we can about a candidate, especially those facts and realities behind all the PR and spin machinery. We already know what they WANT us to know. I'd like to know everything else, besides what the packagers and sales guys dictate. After all, whoever wins, we're going to have to live with them for at least four years, and what's behind the curtain with them is just as critical in knowing what moves and motivates them, what gets their attention, what moves their juices (so to speak), and what might distract them.

ESPECIALLY when whoever it is has his/her finger on "The Button" as part of his/her job description.

Some schmuck named rove once talked about "fair game." Well, so be it, then. His side made that bed, to begin with. His side just didn't expect to have to sleep in it, too.

[rainman99]

28. Because this is the party of, gag, 'family values'.

They spent the 90's judging Clinton for it so they
deserve to see what it feels like.

[saracat]

2. So what? If this was Dem, we would be saying it was nobody's business.

and it isn't .Thids is not a valid reason to go after anyone. It is his first and scond wife's business just as the Clinton affair was their business. This ios revolting and smacks of real hypocrisy on "our' part.

[DGoldman1212]

4. They should interview his first wife....

Unfortunately, Betsy Ross has been dead for years....

[classof56]

21. Thanks for the chuckle! And welcome to DU! n/t

[NikolaC]

42. ROFL

:rofl: To the OP, please spare me the visual of "Old Man McCain" having sex thanks :puke: .

[rzemanfl]

5. Judging from Cindy's expressions, he can have multiple affairs

but he can't provide multiple orgasms (if any).

[sjdnb]

6. "The blame was entirely mine."

Not that I'd ever vote for him, but that is rather refreshing to hear from a politician.

And, I agree, I don't think it's anyone but their respective family's business. I just wish someone would have found GW attractive enough to fool around with, maybe that would have taken his mind off warmongering and undermining the Constitution for a spell.

[caligirl]

7. The telecoms issue is far more important.

[Dems Will Win]

11. Why do you think Vicki was so anxious to boink him?

Her clients.

[Virginia Dare]

50. Exactly, this was business AND pleasure..

I don't see why people don't get that. It wasn't his private personal life, it was in the course of his business that he was acquainted with this lady. His STAFFERS got involved.

[Mountainman]

10. I think the marriages of most of the returning POW's ended in divorce.

You can't compare that to everyday life. Let it go!

[JuniperLea]

hiccup!

:silly:

[JuniperLea]

47. hiccup!

:silly:

[JuniperLea]

48. How much slack are you willing to give him if he were to be elected president...

How much slack is being a POW worth?

Personally, I think NO person who puts themselves out there to run for president deserves any slack at all. If they can't measure up, if they can't take the heat, they don't need to be president. In fact, they absolutely should NOT be president.

[Johonny]

12. I think the point of this all is

John McCain's marital behavior isn't rather new information. Why the media is so interested in it now seems odd. On the other hand it does probably explain why the family values crowd hasn't been over joyed with McCain. It seems like a Republican problem rather than a Dem problem. The rethugs are the ones that made such topics "of interest to politics" and their the ones who's voter base is most likely going to act on this type of information.

For Dems the only lesson seems to be "If you marry the husband you've been cheating with, eventually you're going to be stuck pretending to be shocked that your now husband is cheating on you"

[SoCalDem]

19. Rules are different..

If you are a republican and you have an affair & get divorced and remarried, the "old" marriage/divorce is off-limits..as is the REASON for the divorce

any offspring arriving early to the "new" wife is automatically a miracle preemie..

republicans live in the NOW..what's past, is always past , buried, forgotten, irrelevant, and NON-dicussable.. they are never accountable to their own pasts...

BUT...

If you are a democrat, YOUR past extends well into the "olden days"..perhaps into your mother's womb... and EVERYTHING you ever did, saw, wrote..everyone you ever dated, slept with, married, divorced is worthy of a thorough going-over. If you dare to opt out of the discussion, a special prosecutor may be in your future, and at the very least, you will be portrayed as someone with "something to hide", by the blab-o-rrific "hosts" of hundreds of right wing radio/tv shows..

[Rosemary2205]

14. Petty Stupid and Lame

If you wanna attack a POW for having a meltdown at 40, more power to you. I know too many guys who got so mental they eventually deleted themselves. Seems to me a little boinking on the side is really nothing to get all worked up about. It was between him, his wife and his god. Leave the man alone.

[Dems Will Win]

16. No I won't he has admitted that it was not the war that made him have affairs

he says that directly in the link above. Go read it.

Now he is denying that he had sexual relations with that woman WHEN HE WAS RAILING AGAINST CLINTON'S AFFAIR AT THE SAME TIME.

I say fair is fair. It's just like Newt's affair while he ranted against Clinton!

[onenote]

18. when did mccain rail against Clinton's affair

I'm no fan of McCain and he is as guilty of hypocrisy as any repub out there on many many issues.

But I don't recall him being "holier than thou" about Clinton's dalliance with Lewinsky. In fact, my recollection is that McCain acknowledged that he had done things in his private life that he wasn't proud of and that the issue for him wasn't the president's personal life but his alleged perjury.

After Clinton was acquitted by the Senate, McCain was one of several senators that publicly urged that the whole matter be put behind and argued that Ken Starr shouldn't attempt to indict Clinton.

[progressoid]

38. True

During the Clinton/Starr debacle, I was working at an event where McCain was speaking. He never spoke ill of Clinton. There were a lot of people in the audience that wanted him to smear Clinton but he wouldn't.

[JDPriestly]

25. I didn't hear him deny that he had sex with Vicky what's her face.

I only heard him deny that he gave her special favors. Did I miss something?

[Virginia Dare]

51. He denied "romantic" involvement...n/t

[JuniperLea]

45. Seems to me any human being who was subjected to the horrors...

John McCain was subjected to is damaged goods and has no place leading a nation. Not his fault. I feel for him. But that's not good enough to overlook the reality that he has no business running a nation. A meltdown is a meltdown, and I would expect his to be worse than the average man's.

I agree. We need to leave him alone... alone and NOT in the White House. If it takes pointing out his damage, so be it. By putting himself out there as a candidate for POTUS, he is opening himself up to all the world can fling at him. It's called Politics 101.

[usregimechange]

17. slime but they will be throwing it our way

[Enrique]

20. too much hype

[Divernan]

22. Here's more from a vets' group about his adulteries including w/military subordinates

I had occasion to attend a business conference where there were a lot of former Air Force pilots.
They were there to party and they were very agressive to any good-looking female who crossed their paths. A number of them had been test pilots, and they just seemed to have personalities which drove them to push the envelope in many aspects of their lives.

www.usvetdsp.com/mcaindiv.htm

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 , 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."

####################################################################################
The article continues to detail that 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.' It was at this point that he, still married, but with numerous adulteries to his (dis)credit, that he met the next Mrs. McCain

[bermudat]

23. "I attribute it more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else."

The first Mrs. McCain sounds like a sensible woman.

[dano81818]

24. pretty sure that doesn't matter at all

let's run against mccain on the issues, not this nonsense.

[sendero]

26. No...

... the Republicans made their "family values" bed and they can now lie in it.

Let the "straight talk express" explain why he was cheating on his wife.

[dano81818]

27. i dont think thats ever been mccain's bag...

no one's perfect. stick to the issues. voters are tired of this crapola

[defendandprotect]

29. Also, I don't think Dems have the stomach for ripping apart a veteran that the Repugs do . . .

McCain's doing favors for lobbyists is enough to deal with --
and it looks like he has a long record of that!

[Canuckistanian]

31. Agreed

Let's not sink to their level.

[Virginia Dare]

54. Fuck that, we tried that in 2004..

and look where it got us. We've got to keep them on the defensive, not just sit back and wait for the petty bullshit attacks to be thrown OUR way. Sanctimony doesn't win elections.

[Virginia Dare]

55. It's all inter-related..

he's trying to pass himself off as something that he clearly is not. If Clinton's "draft-dodging" and marijuana use were fair game. If Kerry's actions in and after Viet Nam were fair game, then this is fair game.

[Virginia Dare]

53. So what, he's representing the political party that does..

so he's a party to it. After all, I'm sure the repubs won't be ripping up either Hillary or Obama over petty issues, I'm sure they'll play nice. That's sarcasm by the way in case you missed it.

[Virginia Dare]

52. Oh, it matters..

I was pretty sure that what happened in Viet Nam or afterwards shouldn't matter to John Kerry's campaign, but that wasn't at all the case was it?

[kskiska]

30. "my own selfishness and immaturity"

What happened to this selfishness and immaturity once he achieved his goal and was married to Cindy? It just went away?

[Lorien]

36. Well, I've known men who overcame their selfishness and immaturity as they

grew older. My dad is one of those. He ran off with another woman when I was seven years old and my sister was three, and he cheated on her as well...but eventually he did settle down and now feels a great deal of remorse for his past behavior. Almost anyone is capable of change if they WANT to change. I don't like McCain's policies, but I won't fault him for being just as fallible as anyone else (unless, of course, he had been one of the repugs who wanted to burn Clinton at the stake for his affair, but I don't think that he was).

[gauguin57]

33. They divorced mainly over ONE affair ... with the current Mrs. McCain.

http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2000/03/06/carol/index.html

"... It seems that McCain, who had once revealed to fellow prisoners of war in Vietnam that he wanted to be president, was restless in 1979. As Navy liaison to the Senate, he didn't have the career momentum he had counted on to propel him into an admiralty and on to the White House. He was 42, mired in stifling ordinariness. (Civilians call it "midlife crisis.")

"But McCain was making bold career moves on the home front, hotly pursuing a 25-year-old blond from a wealthy Arizona family -- while married. Carol, his wife at the time, had once been quite a babe herself apparently, until a near-fatal car accident (while her husband was in Vietnam) left her 4 inches shorter, overweight and on crutches. The couple had three children, whom Carol cared for alone while her husband was in Vietnamese prisons.

"McCain's strategy worked perfectly: After chasing Cindy Hensley around the country for six months, he closed the deal late in the year, had a divorce by February and was married to Hensley shortly thereafter. Bingo! McCain was a candidate for Congress by early 1982, his coffers full, his home in the proper Arizona district purchased."

[Dems Will Win]

34. thanks

[Virginia Dare]

56. Who just happened to be filthy rich and politically connected..

her daddy financed his political career, and the rest is history.

[Swamp Rat]

35. with himself

[Jennicut]

37. What matters is if he did favors for this lobbyist

and if his "close personal relationship" with her led to inappropriate behavior regarding any favors. McCain is Mr. Against Special Interests so if he is a hyprocrite than he should be nailed on that. None of the networks and their talking heads seem to get this point or talk about this point (except maybe Keith but I missed his show tonight as my 2 year old daughter was really cranky...nothing like a tantruming toddler to keep one from watching Countdown, Mommy's favorite show). They are talking about it as a sex story, a personal story. But if it turns out to be more than that, its important. As for Bill Clinton, I thought his having affairs were not enough to impeach him. If he did favors politically for Monica Lewinsky it would have been different but she was just a 23 year old with nothing to gain. This was a 40 year old lobbyist with connections to the telecom industry which McCain has passed favorable legislation for. We shall see what happens...

[progressoid]

39. yawn

[Javaman]

40. So now was it mclame turning 70 and wanting to be more like 40?

:rofl:

[NikolaC]

41. What Does This Have To Do With His Policies?

I really don't give a flying crap if he had affairs, that was between him and his wife. Same with Bill and Hillary. My problem with McCain stems from his votes and what his policies will be if (heaven forfend) he is elected. Can we focus on those issues please?

[femrap]

43. K and R

I read the article...thx for posting. The more I know about the enemy, the better I feel. Knowledge is power.

Sounds like he's another one who can't keep his pants zipped. However, if we are not careful, we'll end up with Huckabee...and he truly scares me. Has Huckabee had affairs??? Maybe after he lost all the weight??? From my experience, men lose weight for 2 reasons: 1. a big medical scare. 2. an affair.

I want dirt on huckabee...and it has to be sexual.

[chat_noir]

46. McCain is a serial adulterer

In 1984, as a Member of the House of Representatives, John McCain gave a speech in Congressman Duncan Hunter’s San Diego district.

At the end of the speech a woman approached Representative McCain and introduced herself as the wife of a Marine pilot shot down and still missing in Southeast Asia.

Eyeing the attractive woman, the married McCain replied, “Why don’t you ride with us and have dinner?”

Congressman Hunter and an aide sat in the front seat of the car, McCain and this woman in the back, as they drove to Hunter’s house. Not long into the short ride, McCain ran his hand up the woman’s skirt. Stunned, she pushed him away and resisted his advances. He continued trying to grab her, even after she moved as far away from him as possible.

As this time, McCain’s wife, Cindy, was pregnant.


Read the rest ("ETHICS COMPLAINT OVER ATTACKING A GRIEVING WOMAN"):

http://borderfirereport.net/john-leboutillier/mccains-history-of-abusing-the-public-trust.html

[Virginia Dare]

49. Just "youthful" indiscretions..

I'm sure it has nothing to do with his character, which is impeccable you know..:eyes:

[hisownpetard]

58. If the only fact I knew about John McCain was that he said it's ok for us to be in Iraq for 100 yrs,

that would be more than enough to make me run the other way.

All this other stuff is just icing on the decrepit old cake.

[PetraPooh]

59. Except as an example of hypocrisy, this is a non-issue. . . .

When Bill Clinton was getting BJ's under the desk, it was none of our business. And this is none of our business.

Only if somehow he was giving away secrets or giving special legislation should this be an issue.

Everyone who thought Bill's impeachment was a crock of crap and yet makes an issue of this is a hypocrite as well.