Should Cindy McCain's Brain Damage Be A Campaign Issue?
I don't know whether Americans care if the First Lady is mentally disabled - that's a question for McCain's pollsters.
What I want to know is why McCain would even subject his poor wife to the rigors of a presidential campaign and worldwide scrutiny in the first place. The question speaks directly to McCain's personal cruelty and unbridled ambition.
Although the true extent of the brain damage has not been publicly disclosed, Cindy McCain's 2004 stroke is not a secret.
In a very flattering September 2007 interview in <i>More</i>, Paul Alexander wrote about the stroke damage:
"In conversation, she will occasionally have trouble remembering certain facts, especially from the recent past, and if you look closely you realize she cannot make her right hand into a complete fist, which has affected her handwriting, if not her ability to grasp a gearshift knob. "It's not bad," she says, describing the damage to her hand. "I can function. I have short-term memory loss. I can remember all the major details of my life, but I sometimes can't remember what happened last week."
I suspect that John McCain, viewed his wife's stroke more in terms of how it would affect his bid for the presidency than else.
From a January 2005 Larry King show:
"MCCAIN: I was the one at home that everyone came to to program their computers, fix their phones, do anything electrical, technical, anything on the computer. I can't get near it now. I'm overwhelmed by it.
And it's weird for me. And I might also say, I suffer from migraines also. And your last caller that called in -- and I just had an episode about a week and a half ago, where I didn't know, I thought I was having another stroke. It was a different kind of...
KING: Has the senator been very sympathetic?
MCCAIN: Yes. And I -- please don't -- let me explain that. He was very confused in the beginning. He didn't -- like everyone in the family, how could it happen to my wife? I'm 18 years older than she is. It doesn't happen to someone that's younger than you are. So on his behalf, I think he's trying to understand all this. It's a lot for him to take in."
In October 2007, Cindy McCain was hobbling around South Carolina as the result of a fall down in a Phoenix grocery store. Was her fall caused by her brain damage? Is the question any of our business?
Inevitably, the issue of the extent of Cindy McCain's brain damage will enter the public arena. So far, Mrs McCain has only had to field softballs lobbed at her by sympathetic journalists. Can the McCain campaign limit her public appearances to three-minute soundbites until November? I don' think so, not in today's political environment.
Some wag is bound to suggest a debate between Michelle and Cindy. And the jokes and parodies are bound to get a lot meaner from there.
Why, Senator McCain, would you do this to your wife?
What I want to know is why McCain would even subject his poor wife to the rigors of a presidential campaign and worldwide scrutiny in the first place. The question speaks directly to McCain's personal cruelty and unbridled ambition.
Although the true extent of the brain damage has not been publicly disclosed, Cindy McCain's 2004 stroke is not a secret.
In a very flattering September 2007 interview in <i>More</i>, Paul Alexander wrote about the stroke damage:
"In conversation, she will occasionally have trouble remembering certain facts, especially from the recent past, and if you look closely you realize she cannot make her right hand into a complete fist, which has affected her handwriting, if not her ability to grasp a gearshift knob. "It's not bad," she says, describing the damage to her hand. "I can function. I have short-term memory loss. I can remember all the major details of my life, but I sometimes can't remember what happened last week."
I suspect that John McCain, viewed his wife's stroke more in terms of how it would affect his bid for the presidency than else.
From a January 2005 Larry King show:
"MCCAIN: I was the one at home that everyone came to to program their computers, fix their phones, do anything electrical, technical, anything on the computer. I can't get near it now. I'm overwhelmed by it.
And it's weird for me. And I might also say, I suffer from migraines also. And your last caller that called in -- and I just had an episode about a week and a half ago, where I didn't know, I thought I was having another stroke. It was a different kind of...
KING: Has the senator been very sympathetic?
MCCAIN: Yes. And I -- please don't -- let me explain that. He was very confused in the beginning. He didn't -- like everyone in the family, how could it happen to my wife? I'm 18 years older than she is. It doesn't happen to someone that's younger than you are. So on his behalf, I think he's trying to understand all this. It's a lot for him to take in."
In October 2007, Cindy McCain was hobbling around South Carolina as the result of a fall down in a Phoenix grocery store. Was her fall caused by her brain damage? Is the question any of our business?
Inevitably, the issue of the extent of Cindy McCain's brain damage will enter the public arena. So far, Mrs McCain has only had to field softballs lobbed at her by sympathetic journalists. Can the McCain campaign limit her public appearances to three-minute soundbites until November? I don' think so, not in today's political environment.
Some wag is bound to suggest a debate between Michelle and Cindy. And the jokes and parodies are bound to get a lot meaner from there.
Why, Senator McCain, would you do this to your wife?
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Let me get the ball rolling. Cindy McCain would make a great attorney general because she really wouldn't remember.
February 24, 2008 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL!
February 24, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Paybacks are a bitch.
John McCain at a 1998 Republican fundraiser:
Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno.
February 24, 2008 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
No. Cindy is a Republican. The rules for Republicans are quite different. The health status of the spouse of a former Democratic candidate was front page news for quite awhile. And a "60 Minutes" hack job. But that's appropriate, because we're talking Democrats here.
Any mention of Cindy McCain's health problems will be treated as a below-the-belt attack. The older white males on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC just love Cindy. I'm betting these health issues won't ever make it into widespread mainstream media.
Different rules. There are Republican rules, and Democratic rules.
February 24, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The rules for Republicans are quite different."
And the rules for McCain are even more so. If Cindy McCain was a Democrat, mainstream pundits would already be discussing, in their most serious and concerned manner, about the vital role the modern First Lady plays on the global stage. Whether she was up to the job would be ever so thoughtfully debated by everyone from Chris Matthews to Bill Kristol.
The networks would bring in various medical experts who would explain what causes a stroke, complete with graphics of what the brain looks like before and after. The experts would then field delicately phrased questions from the likes of Katie Couric about the possible extent of the Dem's damage.
If John McCain was a Democrat, he most assuredly would be forced into defending his decision to run for president despite his wife's disability. And the media would be sure to make him look like a cad for doing so.
February 24, 2008 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don' think it's very intelligent or warranted to follow the thinking of this post. I've been tough on Hillary in some of my comments no doubt, but this assault on Cindy McCain is evil.
February 24, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
You people are sick. Yes, I know, she's a Republican. Basic rules of human decency still apply.
February 24, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, pmj6 and I agree on something for a change. The idea of attacking McCain because of his wife's illness is sick.
February 24, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with others above. This a really disgusting and snide hit piece on someone who is not even running. We don't need this crap.
February 24, 2008 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
The reason why the Dems have "different" rules is that the Clintons have continually brought up the idea of a "two-fer". Dems tend to rally around that idea -- but it becomes a double-edged sword obviously.
I can't remember a single Republican candidate telling me how much his wife will contribute to formal policy.
And *that* is the reason why there are "different" rules. Some Dems insisted on them!
By the way, no one gave Edwards a hard time about running (viz. his wife's cancer) after the initial announcement. Let's stop thinking that the media is to blame for our particular candidate's woes.
February 24, 2008 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a shitty post. I'm not a republican or mccain supporter, but man this is in such bad taste.
February 24, 2008 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Negative comments
Cindy McCain is being propped up like Charlie McCarthy's dummy and I'm sick and evil for pointing it out? I think you are taking political correctness way too far if pointing out that a candidate's wife has extensive health problems is wrong.
From what I have read, Cindy McCain does not even want to be First Lady. From the same interview I linked to above:
"...Finally, as we look across the way from the terrace, onto Squaw Peak, whose trails helped her grow strong and surefooted again, I end the interview with the obvious question.
"Do you want to be first lady?"
She stops, as if surprised. She takes a long time to answer. "I don't know," she says at last. "I'm not trying to dodge the question." Another pause. "I don't know." she stops again. Then she seems to resolve something in her mind. "If given the opportunity, I would do my absolute very best to do the best job I could." Yet another pause. "I don't know." One last beat. "You know, I've never gotten close to that question, because I don't want to jinx it."
February 24, 2008 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Besides being cruel, this post is really pointless. First Lady is not an elective office as so many have pointed out regarding Hillary's experience.
It is so Republican to use whichever side of an argument serves the ends of the moment.
February 24, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with the others who think this is a destructive post.
Personal and invasive assumptions about McCain and his "cruelty" to his wife ring like out-of-control speculation and mean-spirited gossip.
No need to encourage a race to the bottom of the gutter.
February 24, 2008 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
February 24, 2008 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree -- it's a shitty post.
No class.
Where's the "NOT recommend" button when ya need it?
February 24, 2008 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
No class? John McCain is the one with no class. The other day, I watched his wife painfully try to adjust her facial expression to match what he was saying during his press conference about the NYT story. Cindy McCain will have to struggle every day for the next ten months to keep the extent of her disability from the public.
February 24, 2008 9:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
My first impulse was to ignore this post, just like one shouldn't feed a troll.
But doing that bothered my conscience, so I came back to say:
This is an amazingly ignorant post in so many ways. Let me just cite a few.
It's extremely ignorant about the type of handicaps experienced by those with stroke damage.
It's very ignorant about what kind of personal attack politics actually have a chance of working and which kind would be ernomously counter-productive, creating a backlash on the attacker.
Even thought it cites the transcript, the post seems to be cluelessly ignorant about why Mrs. McCain proudly chose to go on a very public television program and talk about this.
Keep it up, and draw acolytes, and you might very well be assuring that the next first lady of the country is one named Cindy McCain whose special issue on which she speaks eloquently is those handicapped by stroke.
A tip, in case you decide to continue with more clueless stuff: making a point of Senator McCain's shoulder stiffness handicap isn't going to get you anywhere unless you are a Republican.
February 25, 2008 7:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. to my last.
Hopefully someone from freerepublic.com didn't see this post before it scrolled to archive. They could do a lot of damage to the rep of this site with a link to it.
February 25, 2008 7:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
P.P.S. Oh, I see, you just won't let go.
Such a wonderful comment you added at 4:09 pm:
Once again, you're extremely ignorant about stroke. Unless you are incredily lucky, someone that is dear to you will eventually have one and your karma will be that you will have to deal with ignorance of people like you.
You don't read well, either. The interview was in January, 2005, not 2008. At the end of your quote, she explains the hesitancy right there:
February 25, 2008 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Doesn't sound like Charlie McCarthy's dummy to me:
The question remains, though, who are you the dummy for?
February 25, 2008 8:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
AA,
You have your head up your ass if you can't see how Cindy McCain's image is being manipulated in the media. Trust me, the freepers aren't going to say a word about this post because they don't want to bring up the fact that Cindy McCain has a mental disability. She is supposed to be babe-i-licious and they are not about to publicly complain about a moonbat's take on McCain's stroke damage.
But it is not just the freepers who are going along with this sham. The media which adores John McCain are all onboard the Cindy McCain Loveboat.
Read this brief 2/22/08 New York magazine article, "Cindy McCain, Meet Everyone. Everyone, Meet Cindy McCain.". The writer, Peter Keating, is practically drooling over his keyboard:
"John McCain’s presidential campaign is rather desperately lacking for youth and glamour. It badly needs to soften the affect of the Senator’s grim hawkishness without soft-pedaling his national-security credentials. And in the last 48 hours, it has had to find a defense against the New York Times’ semi-allegations that McCain had an affair with a lobbyist who had business before his Senate Commerce Committee.
Almost by accident, one answer has emerged to all these conundrums: Cindy McCain...
The members of the media who fell so heavily for John McCain in 2000 developed a bit of a crush on Cindy, too. Her sophisticated presence was hard to ignore as he slogged his way through otherwise gray visits to snowy New Hampshire town hall meetings. (Some reporters covering that run still recall how they riffed on lines from his stump speech to compose lascivious — and unpublished — odes to Cindy.) The story of how the McCains met — at a cocktail party in Hawaii when he was 43 and separated and she was 25 — only added to the Republicanism-with-a-wink that John McCain seemed to embody that year. And Cindy had a charming background: rodeo queen, cheerleader, beer-distributor heiress who turned down a chance to work in the family business so she could work with disabled children. The reporters who liked her then aren’t likely to hold her husband’s flip-flops and hawkishness against her now..."
In my first post here, I linked to a very flattering interview by Paul Alexander. Note that Cindy McCain is portrayed as a race car driver. But even Alexander who has covered her since 1999, felt compelled to write about her obvious memory loss.
Maybe I'm wrong about McCain being cruel to subject his wife to the rigors of a presidential campaign. Maybe Cindy McCain really is willing to endure it.
But what I am not wrong about is the fact that Cindy McCain is being made into someone she is not.
February 25, 2008 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
You people don't know what you're talking about. I had a stroke in 2004, and walked away with no deficits!
But i will tell you this...it does take some time for your brain to re-wire itself. It does. One can be thankful for the people in my age range I think. We saw so many of our relatives become ghosts of themselves, and we agonized because we could not fix it. We can now. Stroke intervention has become one of the best things we have seen accomplished in our lifetime.
Tom Brokaw may've written about the greatest generation, but what they gave the world was a group of people who have done some pretty greeat things also.
Trust me, Cindy McCain is probably doing better than you might think. It probably hasn't been an easy road, and you have days with a lot of physical pain, which may have been what was reflected on her face. don't ask me why about the pain, it's just a given according to Stroke Association.
She's lucky it was her. In my family the men drop dead, the women live but our lives are different. No dementia, no loss of mental capabilities, but the day to day pain is nerve wracking.
Insofar as you people nit-picking on her, get a life. We have.
August 19, 2008 12:19 AM | Reply | Permalink