The Real McCain
From today’s LAT, though rearranged for chronological emphasis:
Reynolds, working for then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan, said she first met the couple [John McCain and his first wife, Carol] in San Francisco at a reception for ex-prisoners. She later introduced them to the Reagans at their home in Pacific Palisades.
“They were just an attractive couple,” Reynolds said. “The Reagans had great admiration and respect for John.”
In 1974, Reagan invited McCain to speak at a governor’s prayer breakfast in Sacramento. The former prisoner of war told the story of a fellow captive who had scratched a prayer on a cell wall. Ronald and Nancy Reagan were reduced to tears. It was “the most moving speech I had ever heard,” Reynolds said.
In the next few years, family and friends said, there was no sign that McCain was unhappy in his marriage. Fitzwater recalled visiting the family on Thanksgivings, and McCain seemed content barbecuing a turkey on his outdoor grill near Jacksonville, Fla.
Unfortunately ...
... while on a trip as a Navy liaison with the Senate, [the still married] 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. During the next nine months, he would fly to Arizona or she would come to the Washington area, where McCain and Carol had a home.
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.
...
[15 days later] McCain obtained an Arizona marriage license on March 6, 1980, while still legally married to his first wife.
Posted by poputonian on 07/12/08 at 09:22 AM • Permalink
Categories: Politics • Election '08 • St. McSame •
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