Meet the real John McCain

[oldrose]

From a professor at UCSC. She is asking people to

send the letter she wrote

far and wide.




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)
[email protected]

[Barry]

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