'Public Lives' vs. 'Private Lives' and the MSM....
Where is the line drawn these days?
A rightwing Blog looks at the Cindy McCain / Enquirer story and the MSM (and touches on the possibly different treatment of Palin):
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Death by 1000 Papercuts
A Rip-Snorting Gang of Hard-Living Right Wing Cutthroats
Cindy McCain Affair: Whispers, Innuendo, and Grainy Photos
Posted by LBG1 on November 13th, 2008
deathby1000papercuts.com
Here we ago again, yet another public figure allegedly caught cheating: this time it’s Cindy McCain, the wife of Arizona Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate who just lost the 2008 Presidential election to Senator Barack Obama.
Our source is the National Enquirer, the same source who exposed ex-Senator John Edwards’ affair while running for President. Not only did the Enquirer post several stories about Edwards’ affair and subsequent “love child” with Rielle Hunter–a woman who was hired by Edwards to film mini-web documentaries–the MSM never bothered to “enquire” of the candidate if he were cheating on his wife, Elizabeth Edwards.
It wasn’t until Edwards was caught sneaking out of Rielle Hunter’s Beverly Hills hotel room back in July by Enquirer reporters and photographers, that Edwards admitted to the affair on ABC’s Nightline. Now we have a new story about a Presidential candidate’s allegedly cheating spouse: Cindy McCain.
According to sources at the Enquirer, the photos of Cindy passionately kissing a man at a rock concert in 2006 were taken by a fellow concert-goer who, unfortunately, had an almost-full memory card. The amateur photog then chose to lower the resolution of his cellphone camera in order to take photos of Cindy and her “mystery” date.
Sources also stated that even though the Enquirer had been “working hard” on the Cindy McCain story, it wasn’t until after the election that they were able to confirm Cindy had a love interest other than her husband, John McCain. According to the Enquirer, the “affair” had been ongoing for several years.
John McCain was still married to his first wife, Carol, whom McCain married in 1965, when he purportedly met Cindy, who is 17 years younger than McCain.
According to the Daily Mail, when McCain returned to the States after his incarceration in the “Hanoi Hilton” North Vietnamese prison, he discovered that Carol had been badly injured in an auto accident three years prior. Carol was no longer the vivacious, long legged former swimsuit model: she suffered a shattered arm and pelvis along with serious internal injuries.
In order to save her legs, doctors cut away “large sections” of leg bone, leaving her wheelchair-bound. Through grit and determination, Carol was able to walk again while anxiously waiting for McCain’s release as a POW. McCain returned from North Vietnam in 1973.
The Daily Mail interviewed Carol, who stated that McCain waited just one month after her and McCain’s divorce before he married Cindy Hensley, an “heir” to an Arizona beer distributorship, in 1980. Carol and John had a daughter, Sidney. McCain also adopted the two sons from Carol’s first marriage.
In 1979, Cindy Hensley was 24, John McCain, 42, and still very married to Carol. John and Cindy met in Honolulu. According to the LA Times, McCain’s friendship with Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy became “strained” after John abruptly filed for divorce from Carol.
McCain and Carol were “close friends” with the Reagans, and the future Attorney General, Edwin Meese. Carol and the kids moved in with the Meese’s for several months until Nancy Reagan hired Carol to work in Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign for President. After Reagan won the 1980 election, Nancy hired Carol as Director of the White House Visitor’s Office.
Cindy Hensley McCain
John: “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.”
Source: Dan Norwicki and Bill Muller, “Arizona, the early years”, AZCentral.com, 03/01/2007
Source - About.com.
According to the Huffington Post, Cindy McCain was on a trip to Kosovo when the photos the Enquirer obtained were taken:
“A reader notes that this story is particularly dubious because Cindy McCain was on a trip to Kosovo at the time of the festival where the photos were supposedly taken.”
Yet Cindy’s trip to Kosovo was in April of 2008, not 2006, when the photos were purportedly shot of Cindy enjoying a concert with a “very close” friend.
DBKP followed the ongoing John Edwards scandal: how the MSM refused to question a candidate for the office of President about a possible mistress. We also wondered: do candidates have the same right to “privacy” as private citizens when running for office? And would these same “standards” also apply to a spouse of a candidate such as Cindy McCain?
Now that the election is over Cindy’s alleged affair could be considered a “moot” point. But if proved true, it would only underscore the lives of politicians: “private” lives can become public lives or “lies” in an instant.
Just ask Sarah Palin, upon whom, after her nomination by McCain to run as his Vice-President, the MSM unleashed literally planeloads of reporters on Alaska to dig up any possible “dirt”. What’s interesting is that after the election, an “unnamed” source within the McCain campaign spread vicious rumors about Palin which proved to be untrue.
Those rumors were fodder for the MSM, an affair by Cindy, and the MSM looks once again “away”. It’s not a stretch to surmise that Palin was considered a “true threat” to the Obama campaign, and therefore there were “no limits” to the amount of “dirt” that should be dug up in the name of “professional journalism”. Now that McCain is no longer a “threat”, his life and marriage have become “off-limits”.
Cindy and John McCain have four children and have been married for 28 years.
By LBG |
