The Second Mrs. McCain

I personally think Cindy McCain is a fairly understandable person, prone to excess, slightly vain, and no more or less devoted to her abusive husband than any other battered wife (her beatings being more verbal than physical). She seemed to be tracking well with her husband's standard pre-race palaver when she declared early-on that "John abhors negative campaigning."

But then came the shrinking numbers of the polls, and "the campaign" could no longer permit this ordinary woman to remain outside the pale of the mainline smear. It had her declare -- just prior to the great "town hall" debate in Nashville: "“The day that Senator Obama decided to cast a vote to not fund my son while he was serving sent a cold chill through my body.” At first I was filled with the sense of admiration that one writer feels when he reads another's clever words. (The thought never crossed my mind -- and never will -- that Mrs. McCain actually felt such a chill.)

But after the few seconds of admiration-inspired warmth had run their course, "a cold shiver of dismay ran through my body." It was conveyed in these words.

"My dear lady, if your husband had voted for the version of the funding bill that Obama voted for, your son would be home by now."

That bill, voted-on in early 2006, contained the requirement that U. S. troops should be withdrawn from Iraq within 16 months. It failed because John McCain, other Republicans, and faint-hearted Democrats voted nay.

So ma'am, if you want to take some sort of punitive action against those who have permitted your son to remain in battle, if you truly do feel a mother's regret that her child is being sent underfunded into war, I suggest you knee your dear husband in the balls the next time he has his campaign slanderers give you lines to utter. He deserves that and more.

Oh, and this for you John, words Obama might have offered in his "defense" when you finally spoke to his face of William Ayers:

Yes, John, you're right. I should have asked Mr. Annenberg to vet the background on those college professors and presidents he had invited along with me to serve on that board. I will confess to an error of judgment. But I will do this if and only if you also confess to an error when you pimped from 1999-on for an invasion of Iraq. But be warned. Gentleman that I am, I advise you not to take me up on this offer. The American people may be gullible, but they're not so stupid as to miss the truth that my error caused the death of no one, not a single solitary human being, whereas your error has led to the deaths of over 4200 American soldiers and the wounding of tens of thousands . . . and still counting. Best drop it John.

But McCain, being McCain, would fail to see the logic of Obama's generous warning and would proceed to defend his error as if the order to invade Iraq had been handed down from the almighty. He's that sure of his righteousness.

I'll be voting for Obama, a man of venial sins, rather than for John McCain whose sins are of the mortal sort.