I Think That In Order [Updated]

to understand Cindy McCain, one really needs to look at the entire story of how John met her in the first place.

I have to give Newsweek a little bit of credit for mentioning it, though:

In the spring of 1979, Cindy joined her parents on a trip to Hawaii. At a Navy cocktail party, a cocky captain came up and introduced himself. John McCain was the Navy's chief liaison to the Senate in Washington. He was 41, but told her he was 37. Cindy was 24, but told him she was 27. By both accounts, it was love at first sight—though for McCain, it was far more complicated. He was a married father of three. His relationship with his first wife, Carol Shepp, was coming apart, and the two were separating, though he didn't divulge any of that to Cindy that first night.

And this:

Shepp no longer discusses the marriage, but has said she doesn't blame McCain. She has told reporters she thinks of him as a friend and supports him for president. The marriage soured because of "John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again," she told McCain's biographer Robert Timberg. Others who know them say McCain pursued Cindy as a way of putting his war years behind him. "I think John very much saw her as reclaiming the life he had lost," Albert (Pete) Lakeland, a former congressional staffer who was with McCain when he met Cindy, told Timberg.

The war had nothing to do with it. McCain was a womanizer BEFORE he went to Nam.


The bottom line is this: John McCain probably cares for Cindy, but he had political ambitions, and staying in the military wasn't going to cut it. Cindy wasn't just any pretty trophy wife--she had money, tons of it, and that money was instrumental in getting him where is today.

The article, which makes much of her personal problems, including miscarriages, a stroke, and drug dependency, is mostly a puff piece.

For the record, a comparison of the two wives using the wedding photos.

The first picture of Carol McCain and her ex, taken at their wedding in 1965, I got from the Washington Post:




One month after Navy veteran John threw Carol overboard, he married the very wealthy Cindy Hensley:



And also for the record, this picture, also taken from the Washington Post website, gives one an inkling of what kind of person the first Mrs. McCain was like:



This was a Thanksgiving picture of the McCain family when he was a POW. We all know how he eventually thanked THEM.