Saint McCain

There is no sense of shame or of irony in the Washington press corps. Consider these two comments about John Edwards (fresh off admission of extramarital affair with his campaign's videographer, Rielle Hunter) on Friday, August 8. The first is from David Gregory on "Race For The White House" and the second from Anderson Cooper on AC 360:

"With this hanging over Obama as kind of a skeleton in the Democratic closet...."

"There aren't many politicians who have an affair and then choose to run for President of the United States."

Now consider this report from latimes.com about the relationship of Ronald and Nancy Reagan with a famous senator from Arizona:

In a written statement, she described McCain as "a good friend for over 30 years." But that friendship was strained in the late 1970s by McCain's decision to divorce his first wife, Carol, who was particularly close to the Reagans, and within weeks marry Cindy Hensley, the young heiress to a lucrative Arizona beer distributorship.The Reagans rushed to help Carol, finding her a new home in Southern California with the family of Reagan aide Edwin Meese III and a series of political and White House jobs to ease her through that difficult time.McCain, who is about to become the GOP nominee, has made several statements about how he divorced Carol and married Hensley that conflict with the public record.

In his 2002 memoir, "Worth the Fighting For," McCain wrote that he had separated from Carol before he began dating Hensley."I spent as much time with Cindy in Washington and Arizona as our jobs would allow," McCain wrote. "I was separated from Carol, but our divorce would not become final until February of 1980."

An examination of court documents tells a different story. 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.

Although McCain suggested in his autobiography that months passed between his divorce and remarriage, the divorce was granted April 2, 1980, and he wed Hensley in a private ceremony five weeks later. McCain obtained an Arizona marriage license on March 6, 1980, while still legally married to his first wife.

Anderson Cooper must know of this. He must have heard that John McCain and Cindy Hensley dated for nine months while John was married to his first wife.

This does not- not by a long shot- disqualify John McCain for the presidency, and the extramarital affair occurred twenty years before Mr. McCain first ran for the Repub nomination for president, unlike McCain's recent effort to have Cindy participate in a semi-nude beauty pageant (pickle competition optional, presumably). But it does demonstrate that David Gregory lacks perspective and Anderson Cooper, objectivity. And the sexual instincts of a politician who is not a United States Senator and will not be President of the United States apparently are less newsworthy than those of a United States Senator who might become president.... when that man is John McCain.