A while back I did a post of John McCain's - in my view - very shabby treatment of his first wife, Carol who lives in nearby Virginia Beach. I did so because I find it ironic that the so-called "family values" crowd that wants strict application of Biblical passages to denigrate gays is steadily coming to rally around McCain, the former adulterer as their standard bearer. Funny how gays never get any slack on Bible passages whereas McCain will be getting a free pass on the strictures against divorce and adultery. Now, the Los Angeles Times has a story on the McCain affair and divorce that is of interest in that it reveals that McCains public statements lo and behold do not agree with the court documents, including the fact that McCain and Cindy got their marriage license while McCain was still married to Carol. Thus, McCain has added lying to his Biblicaly condemned misdeeds. To be clear, I am not anti-divorce and believe there are times when it is the only solution to a marriage that is not working. What I am against is the hypocrisy of McCain and the Christianists who as is too often the case apply one set of rules for gays and a totally different one for themselves. Here are some story highlights:
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In a written statement, she [Nancy Reagan] described McCain as "a good friend for over 30 years." But that friendship was strained in the late 1970s by McCain's decision to divorce his first wife, Carol, who was particularly close to the Reagans, and within weeks marry Cindy Hensley, the young heiress to a lucrative Arizona beer distributorship. The Reagans rushed to help Carol, finding her a new home in Southern California with the family of Reagan aide Edwin Meese III and a series of political and White House jobs to ease her through that difficult time. McCain, who is about to become the GOP nominee, has made several statements about how he divorced Carol and married Hensley that conflict with the public record.
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"I spent as much time with Cindy in Washington and Arizona as our jobs would allow," McCain wrote. "I was separated from Carol, but our divorce would not become final until February of 1980." An examination of court documents tells a different story. McCain did not sue his wife for divorce until Feb. 19, 1980, and he wrote in his court petition that he and his wife had "cohabited" until Jan. 7 of that year -- or for the first nine months of his relationship with Hensley.
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Although McCain suggested in his autobiography that months passed between his divorce and remarriage, the divorce was granted April 2, 1980, and he wed Hensley in a private ceremony five weeks later. McCain obtained an Arizona marriage license on March 6, 1980, while still legally married to his first wife.
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But two years later, while on a trip as a Navy liaison with the Senate, McCain spied Hensley at the Honolulu reception. In a recent television interview with Jay Leno on the "Tonight Show," Cindy McCain joked about how the Navy captain had pursued her. "He kind of chased me around . . . the hors d'oeuvre table," she said. "I was trying to get something to eat and I thought, 'This guy's kind of weird.' I was kind of trying to get away from him."John McCain was 42; she was 24.
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Carol McCain was distraught at being blindsided by her husband's intention to end their marriage, said her friends in the Reagan circle."They [the Reagans] weren't happy with him," Fitzwater said. Carol McCain "was this little, frail person. . . . She was brokenhearted." By that time, Nancy Reagan had come to Carol McCain's aid, hiring her as a press assistant in the 1980 presidential campaign. When the Reagans moved to Washington, she was named director of the White House Visitors Office.
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