This wasn't McCain's first affair

[Razmear]

This might be common knowledge to some folks, but I wasn't aware that McCain admitted to cheating on his first wife.

From Wiki John McCain:
During their time in Jacksonville, the McCains' marriage began to falter.[83] McCain had extramarital affairs,[83] and he would later say, "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."[83] His wife Carol would later echo those sentiments, saying "I attribute [the breakup of our marriage] more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else."

And the source cited:

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

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.

[ronpaulblogsdotcom]

Ya it appears he started cheating on his wife that was remaining faithful while he was in a POW prison and she was made a paraplegic in a car accident.

Very soon after returning to USA he started an affair.

He truly is a Prince of ethics. Vietnam, First Wife, Special Interests, Keating 5, now adultery again with a lobbyist of all people.

[kathy88]

Yeah, leaving his crippled wife for Cindy's daddy's money is my favorite McCain story. Should get LOTS more attention. The GOP has lost it's collective minds.

[newyearsrevolution08]

The GOP is insane to think that people are seriously going to have this nutcase as a president.

Mccain and the GOP are idiots if they really believe that the following will work.

election fraud + lobbyist money + endorsements = an almost bought election


I still cant believe "conservative" is what he is trying so damn hard to keep pushing when he KNOWS it will come back and kick him in his ass.

[Mark]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0607.benen.html


McCain was still married and living with his wife in 1979 while, according to The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof, "aggressively courting a 25-year-old woman who was as beautiful as she was rich." McCain divorced his wife, who had raised their three children while he was imprisoned in Vietnam, then launched his political career with his new wife's family money. In 2000, McCain managed to deflect media questioning about his first marriage with a deft admission of responsibility for its failure. It's possible that the age of the offense and McCain's charmed relationship with the press will pull him through again,

[Mark]

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



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.
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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.

[Truth Warrior]

Gee, what a stellar paragon of traditional conservative "family values". :eek: :p