Holiday with McCain

It seems that the McCain campaign has already announced its plans for a(nother) carpet-bombing month of attack ads against Obama. So get your barf bags ready. This guy is such a stinker--all I can think about is burying him in Yucca Mountain. But anyone reading this who still thinks he is an otherwise honorable, decent man stuck in the jungle of a tough campaign, doing whatever it takes to win at all cost--and merely playing politics-as-usual hardball--needs to check this out. It's a testimony written by a woman Professor of Literature and Theater Arts at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and I presume it will circulate profusely on the Internet over the next few weeks. McCain's scuzzy behavior goes way back, and is hardly confined to the political arena. My nightmare scenario is not just McCain and Palin at the helm of this country, but the prospect of the other limbo men--Lindsay Graham, Joe Lieberman, Rudy Giulliani--all of whom will certainly be on board in key positions to assist them. Just think about it, and then read this:

MY HOLIDAY WITH JOHN McCAIN

It was just before John McCain's last run at the
presidential nomination in
2000 that my husband and I vacationed in Turtle Island
in Fiji with John
McCain,
Cindy, and their children, including Bridget (their
adopted Bangladeshi
child).

It was not our intention, but it was our misfortune,
to be in close quarters
with John McCain for almost a week, since Turtle
Island has a small number of
bungalows and their focus on communal meals force all
vacationers who are
there
at the same time to get to know each other intimately.

He arrived at our first group meal and started reading
quotes from a pile of
William Faulkner books with a forest of Post-Its
sticking out of them. As an
English Literature major myself, my first thought was
"if he likes this so
much, why hasn't he memorized any of this
yet?"

I soon realized that McCain actually thought we had
come on vacation to be a
volunteer audience for his "readings" which
then became a regular part
of each meal. Out of politeness, none of the
vacationers initially protested
at
this intrusion into their blissful holiday, but
people's buttons definitely
got pushed as the readings continued day after day.

Unfortunately this was not his only contribution to
our mealtime
entertainment.
He waxed on during one meal about how Indo-Chine
women had the best figures
and
that our American corn-fed women just couldn't
meet up to this standard. He
also made it a point that all of us should stop
Cindy from having dessert as
her weight was too high and made a few comments to
Amy, the 25 year old wife
of
the honeymooning couple from Nebraska that she should
eat less as she needed
to
lose weight.

McCain's appreciation of the beauty of Asian women
was so great that David
the American economist had to move his Thai wife to
the other side of the
table
from McCain as McCain kept aggressively flirting with
and touching her.

Needless to say I was irritated at his large ego and
his rude behavior towards
his wife and other women, but decided he must have
some redeeming qualities as
he had adopted a handicapped child from Bangladesh. I
asked him about this one
day, and his response was shocking: "Oh, that
was Cindy's idea I
didn't have anything to do with it. She just went
and adopted this thing
without even asking me. You can't imagine how
people stare when I wheel
this ugly, black thing around in a shopping cart in
Arizona. No, it wasn't
my idea at all."

I actively avoided McCain after that, but
unfortunately one day he engaged me
in a political discussion which soon got us on the
topic of the active US
bombing of Iraq at that time. I was shocked when he
said, "If I was in
charge, I would nuke Iraq to teach them a
lesson". Given McCain's
personal experience with the horrors of war, I had
expected a more balanced
point of view. I commented on the tragic consequences
of the nuclear attacks
on
Japan during WWII but no, he was not to be
dissuaded. He went on to say
that if it was up to him he would have dropped many
more nuclear bombs on
Japan.
I rapidly extricated myself from this conversation as
I could tell that his
experience being tortured as a POW didn't seem to
have mellowed out his
perspective, but rather had made him more aggressive
and vengeful towards the
world.

My final encounter with McCain was on the morning that
he was leaving Turtle
Island. Amy and I were happily eating pancakes when
McCain arrived and told
Amy
that she shouldn't be having pancakes because she
needed to lose weight.
Amy burst into tears at this abusive comment. I
felt fiercely protective of
Amy and immediately turned to McCain and told him to
leave her alone. He
became
very angry and abusive towards me, and said,
"Don't you know who I
am." I
looked him in the face and said,
"Yes, you are the biggest
asshole I have ever met" and headed back to my
cabin. I am happy to say
that later that day when I arrived at lunch I was
given a standing ovation by
all the guests for having stood up to McCain's
bullying.

Although I have shared my McCain story informally with
friends, this is the
first time I am making this public. I almost did so
in 2000, when McCain
first
announced his bid for the Republican nomination, but
it soon became apparent
that George Bush was the shoo-in candidate and so I
did not act then.
However,
now that there is a very real possibility that McCain
could be elected a s our
next president, I feel it is my duty as an American
citizen to share this
story.
I can't imagine a more scary outcome for America
than that this abusive,
aggressive man should lead our nation. I have observed
him in intimate
surroundings as he really is, not how the media
portrays him to be. If his
attitudes toward women and his treatment of his own
family are even a small
indicator of his real personality, then I shudder to
think what will happen to
America were he to be elected as our President.
--
Mary-Kay Gamel
Professor of Classics, Comparative Literature, and
Theater Arts
Cowell College
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, California 95064
831-459-2381 (office); 831-429-8803 (home)
mkgamel@ucsc.edu