"Mr. 894 McCain" and That Crippled First Wife: Ability and Character

John McCain bases his campaign for the presidency on claims for mental strength and superior virtue. So far these claims have passed Talking Point gut-thinking.

-- Annapolis graduate in 1958 at 894th from a class with 899 graduates. His grandfather and father were both four-star Admirals.

-- McCain has never managed anything outside the Navy

-- Ross Perot: "After he came home, he walked with a limp. Carol McCain (his wife) walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a 25-year old poster girl with big money from Arizona, Cindy McCain, and the rest is history"

-- Mrs. Carol McCain's 1969 auto accident left her 4 inches shorter and on crutches.

After his 1973 return, McCain got spectacular medical care and full rehab. Carol McCain got dumped. John moved to his new honey's state and ran for Congress.

Do we learn ??? Book on Bush43 is that his Hindenberg act results from drug and alcohol-induced mental defect and innate narcissism. Hillary Clinton gets $$$ and votes despite living on Fantasy Island.

What's really under the hood with McCain ???

More below....

Here's what Carol looked like in 1973. (Other links at bottom.)

Greeting John.

Carol is alive and partially disabled. Disfigured to some extent from flying through that automobile windshield in 1969. Not the attractive woman you see today, beside The Candidate.

Carol had a harder Vietnam War than John, based on injuries.

At the end of the 1970s McCain was coming to the end of his Navy career. He had not commanded a ship or led a major flight group. He was not a serious manager. His career prospects were unclear at best. Then he fell into a miraculous honey pot, when the young Cindy Hensley fell for him, despite the inconvenient marriage to a cripple.

McCain, then 42, divorced Carol and he married his 25-year old, millionaire honey the following month. Great career move. The ultimate opportunism.

In 1981 McCain left the Navy, buried his father at Arlington National cemetery, and after honeymooning back in Hawaii where he had met Cindy, went out to his new bride's home in Arizona. He sorta went to work at Hensley & Co., the third largest Budweiser distributor in the country. Arizona is way hot in the summer.

A month later Congressman John Rhodes announced his retirement. McCain immediately switched into gear and ran for Congress with Rhodes's support. After two terms in the House, he got to the Senate in 1986.

Side bets are out that Carol got a fat no-talk, no-show deal from the Hensley money. Nobody disappears from public sight the way Carol has disappeared without encouragement.

The Invisible Woman.

Almost all trace of Carol McCain has been obscured from The Web. Try to find a recent photo. Try to find a medical survey. Try to find anything at all.

McCain's major lifetime achievement has been the toothless McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act of 2002. Not a bad PR effort after his $100,000 campaign contributions from Charles Keating.

McCain earned getting himself admonished by the Senate Ethics Committee for showing "poor judgment" meeting with regulators and trying to protect Keating. McCain used his own ethical problem as a springboard for  campaign finance reform.

Cunning, indeed, McCain. Always wears a lapel flag pin. And he did all this without having his own Karl Rove.

NNDB page for McCain.

Veterans Dispatch page.