A short synopsis of facts most don’t know about Senator John McCain

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936)

To learn more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain

1^st wife Carol Shepp McCain born (1937 or 1938) was a successful swimsuit model, director of the White House Visitors Office, and event planner.

To learn more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Shepp

2^nd wife Cindy Hensley McCain (born May 20, 1954) Junior Rodeo Queen of Arizona in 1968. She went to Central High School in Phoenix, where she was named Best Dressed as a senior and graduated in 1972. Heiress to Hensley & Co. an Anheuser-Busch beer wholesaler and distributor headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.  With her children, she owns a minority stake in the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team.

To learn more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Hensley_McCain#cite_note-bazaar-23

·         At age 29 John McCain Married Carol Shepp age 28, July 3, 1965.  

·         McCain was held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for 5 1/2 years.

·         December 25, 1969 Carol suffered a crippling automobile accident during John’s  captivity, believing he already had enough to worry about, kept it from him.  

·         The McCains were reunited upon his release from captivity on March 14, 1973.

·         Carol’s appearance had changed; no longer the swimsuit model he had married; after 23 surgeries she was four inches shorter, on crutches, and substantially heavier than when he had last seen her.

·         The McCains' marriage began to falter as he had extramarital affairs

·         John McCain met Cindy Hensley in April 1979 and began a relationship.

·         John and Carol stopped living together in January 1980

·         John McCain filed for a divorce in February 1980 to marry Cindy Lou Hensley.

·         John’s divorce from Carol McCain was finalized April 2, 1980. Carol would later say: "The breakup of our marriage was not caused by my accident or Vietnam or any of those things. I don't know that it might not have happened if John had never been gone. I attribute it more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else."

·         John McCain 44, married Cindy Hensley 25, on May 17, 1980

·         McCain became enmeshed Savings and Loan scandal during the 1980s as one of five United States Senators comprising the so-called "Keating Five". Between 1982 and 1987, McCain had received $112,000 in lawful political contributions from Charles Keating Jr. and his associates at Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, along with trips on Keating's jets that McCain belatedly repaid two years later. In 1987, McCain was one of the five senators whom Keating contacted in order to prevent the government's seizure of Lincoln, and McCain met twice with federal regulators to discuss the government's investigation of Lincoln. In the end, McCain was cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee of acting improperly or violating any law or Senate rule, but was mildly rebuked for exercising "poor judgment".

·         April 1986, Cindy and her father invested $359,100 in a shopping center project with Phoenix banker Charles Keating. This, combined with her role as a bookkeeper who later had difficulty finding receipts for family trips on Keating's jet, caused complications for John during the Keating Five scandal, when he was being examined for his role regarding oversight of Keating's bank.

·         McCain made a joke in 1998 about the Clintons widely deemed not fit to print in newspapers: "Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly? — Because Janet Reno is her father." McCain subsequently apologized profusely, which the White House accepted.

·         2008 - Sen. John McCain said in an interview that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own. According to his staff, the correct answer is at least four, located in Arizona, California and Virginia. Although, newsweek estimated this summer that the couple owns at least seven properties.

·         McCain was formally nominated at the 2008 Republican National Convention in September 2008, together with his chosen running mate from Alaska, Governor Sarah Palin. Regarding foreign policy, Palin generally supports the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq.

John McCain was shot down and badly injured over North Vietnam on October 26, 1967, beginning what would be five and a half years as a prisoner of war. During his captivity she raised their children by herself in Orange Park, Florida, with the assistance of friends and neighbors in the Navy-oriented community. She sent frequent letters and packages to him, few of which the North Vietnamese let through. She became active in the POW/MIA movement, while those around her wore bracelets with her husband's name and capture date on them.

While visiting her family in Philadelphia on Christmas Eve 1969, Carol McCain was driving alone in snowy, icy conditions. Approaching an intersection on an isolated country road, she skidded and collided with a telephone pole, was thrown from the car into the snow, and went into shock. She was later found and taken to Bryn Mawr Hospital; she had two smashed legs, a broken pelvis, broken arm, and ruptured spleen. She spent six months in the hospital, and over the course of the next two years had 23 operations as well as extensive physical therapy. She did not tell her husband about the accident in her letters to him, believing he already had enough to worry about, and the U.S. State Department told a surgeon who operated upon her not to mention anything to the press, lest it worsen the treatment for John McCain. Businessman and POW advocate Ross Perot paid for her medical care and she remained grateful to him: "The military families are in Ross's heart and in his soul ... There are millions of us who are extremely grateful to Ross Perot." Years after John McCain found out about Perot's help, he said "we loved him for it." She was interviewed on the CBS Evening News in 1970, and said that Christmas had no meaning for her without her husband present, but that she carried on with it for the sake of their children.

The McCains were reunited upon his release from captivity on March 14, 1973. She was now four inches (ten centimeters) shorter, on crutches, and substantially heavier than when he had last seen her; he was also visibly hampered by his injuries and the mistreatment he had endured from the North Vietnamese. The McCains became frequent guests of honor at dinners hosted by Governor of California Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Reagan, and the two couples became friendly. Carol McCain worked for Ronald Reagan's 1976 presidential campaign in Florida, as he sought the Republican Party nomination.

During John McCain's assignment as Executive Officer and Commanding Officer of the VA-174 squadron located at Naval Air Station Cecil Field outside Jacksonville, Florida, Carol and John led an active social life together, entertaining other naval personnel at their Orange Park home and Ponte Vedra beach house. However, the McCains' marriage began to falter as he had extramarital affairs.

John McCain's next assignment was to the Senate Liaison Office within the Navy's Office of Legislative Affairs. The McCains separated briefly, then rejoined. His job was aided by the social life the couple conducted, entertaining Navy, government, and other people three to four nights a week at their Alexandria, Virginia home. During this time she worked for Congressman John H. Rousselot. By 1979, the McCains were still living together.

John McCain met Cindy Lou Hensley in April 1979 at a military reception in Hawaii. He was the U.S. Navy liaison officer to the United States Senate, almost eighteen years her senior. McCain and Hensley quickly began a relationship, traveling between Arizona and Washington to see each other.

 John McCain pushed to end his marriage of fourteen years; Carol McCain was described by friends as being in shock from the developments. The McCains stopped cohabiting in January 1980; John McCain filed for a divorce in February 1980, which Carol McCain accepted at that time. When asked by a friend what had gone wrong, she said, "It's just one of those things." The uncontested divorce became official in Fort Walton Beach, Florida on April 2, 1980.

 John and Cindy were married on May 17, 1980 at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix. They made a prenuptial agreement that kept most of her family's assets under her name; they have since kept their finances apart and file separate income tax returns. McCain, by anyone's measure, is well-off, if you account for his wife's fortune. Cindy McCain inherited control of her father’s beer distributorship, one of the largest Anheuser-Busch beer distributors in the United States, and has an estimated worth of more than $100 million.

John McCain would later say, "My marriage's collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam, and I cannot escape blame by pointing a finger at the war. The blame was entirely mine." Carol McCain would later say: "The breakup of our marriage was not caused by my accident or Vietnam or any of those things. I don't know that it might not have happened if John had never been gone. I attribute it more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else. According to Carol, her husband's five-year captivity in Vietnam had left him wanting to "make up for lost time," and John put it this way: "I had changed, she had changed....People who have been apart that much change." Ross Perot would later say, "After he came home, he walked with a limp, she [Carol McCain] walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona [Cindy McCain, his current wife] and the rest is history." Carol’s three children were initially upset with John McCain about the divorce, but later reconciled.

McCain became enmeshed in a scandal during the 1980s as one of five United States Senators comprising the so-called "Keating Five". Between 1982 and 1987, McCain had received $112,000 in lawful political contributions from Charles Keating Jr. and his associates at Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, along with trips on Keating's jets that McCain belatedly repaid two years later. In 1987, McCain was one of the five senators whom Keating contacted in order to prevent the government's seizure of Lincoln, and McCain met twice with federal regulators to discuss the government's investigation of Lincoln. In the end, McCain was cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee of acting improperly or violating any law or Senate rule, but was mildly rebuked for exercising "poor judgment". In his 1992 re-election bid, the Keating Five affair was not a major issue, and he won handily, gaining 56 percent of the vote to defeat Democratic community and civil rights activist Claire Sargent and independent former Governor Evan Mecham.

In April 1986, Cindy and her father invested $359,100 in a shopping center project with Phoenix banker Charles Keating. This combined with her role as a bookkeeper who later had difficulty finding receipts for family trips on Keating's jet, caused complications for her husband during the Keating Five scandal, when he was being examined for his role regarding oversight of Keating's bank.

The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators, Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John Glenn (D-OH), John McCain (R-AZ), and Donald W. Riegle (D-MI), were accused of improperly aiding Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of an investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB).

The core allegation of the Keating Five affair is that Keating had made contributions of about $1.3 million to five U.S. Senators, and he called on those Senators to help him resist regulators. The regulators backed off, to later disastrous consequences.

After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Donald Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB in its investigation of Lincoln Savings. Senators John Glenn and John McCain were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised "poor judgment".

All five of the senators involved served out their terms. Only Glenn and McCain ran for re-election, and they were both re-elected.

The U.S. Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s was the failure of 747 savings and loan associations (S&Ls) in the United States. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around $160.1 billion, about $124.6 billion of which was directly paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.

The concomitant slowdown in the finance industry and the real estate market may have been a contributing cause of the 1990-1991 economic recession. Between 1986 and 1991, the number of new homes constructed per year dropped from 1.8 million to 1 million, the lowest rate since World War II.

The Keating Five scandal was prompted by the activities of one particular savings and loan: Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, California. Lincoln's chairman was Charles Keating, who ultimately served five years in prison for his corrupt mismanagement of Lincoln. In the four years since Keating's American Continental Corporation (ACC) had purchased Lincoln in 1984, Lincoln's assets had increased from $1.1 billion to $5.5 billion. Such savings and loan associations had been deregulated in the early 1980s, allowing them to make highly risky investments with their depositors' money, a change of which Keating took advantage. Lincoln's investments took the form of buying land, taking equity positions in real estate development projects, and buying high-yield junk bonds.

Her father's business and political contacts helped gain her husband a foothold into Arizona politics. She campaigned with her husband door-to-door during his successful first bid for U.S. Congress in 1982, and was heavily involved in campaign strategy. Her wealth from an expired trust from her parents provided significant loans to the campaign and helped it survive a period of early debt. Once he was elected, the couple moved to Alexandria, Virginia. She spent two months in late 1983 writing handwritten notes on over 4,000 Christmas cards to be sent to constituents and others. Not accepted by the Washington congressional social scene, she grew homesick for Arizona. She suffered several miscarriages.

She moved back to Arizona in early 1984, and gave birth to her child, Meghan, later that year. She subsequently had John Sidney IV (known as "Jack") (born 1986) and James (known as "Jimmy") (born 1988). Their fourth child, Bridget, was adopted in 1991. Her parents lived across the street and helped her raise the children while her husband was frequently in Washington; she typically only saw him on weekends.

Cindy Prescription drug addiction

In 1989, Cindy McCain became addicted to Percocet and Vicodin, opioid painkillers, which she initially took to alleviate pain following two spinal surgeries for ruptured discs, and to ease emotional stress during the Keating Five affair. The addiction progressed to where she was taking upwards of twenty pills a day, and she resorted to having an AVMT (American Voluntary Medical Team) physician write illegal prescriptions. In 1992, her parents staged an intervention to force her to get help; she told her husband about her problem, attended a drug treatment facility, began outpatient sessions, and ended her three years of addiction. Surgery in 1993 resolved her back pain.

In January 1993, an AVMT employee, who had discovered her illegal drug use, was terminated on budgetary grounds. Subsequently, he tipped off the Drug Enforcement Administration, and a federal investigation ensued resulting in McCain paying the costs of the government's investigation, and enrolling in a diversion program. In a move that critics described as a preemptive strike, Cindy McCain publicly revealed her past addiction: "Although my conduct did not result in compromising any missions of AVMT, my actions were wrong, and I regret them.

Senator McCain’s temper

The Arizona senator considers himself to be a straight-talking public servant, and acknowledges also being impatient. Other traits include a sense of humor that has sometimes backfired spectacularly, as when he made a joke in 1998 about the Clintons widely deemed not fit to print in newspapers: "Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly? — Because Janet Reno is her father." McCain subsequently apologized profusely, which the White House accepted. McCain has not shied away from addressing his shortcomings, and apologizing for them. He is known for sometimes being prickly and hot-tempered with Senate colleagues.

Regarding his temper, McCain acknowledges it while also saying that the stories have been exaggerated. McCain has employed both profanity and shouting on occasion, although such incidents have become less frequent over the years. Senator Joe Lieberman has made this observation: "It is not the kind of anger that is a loss of control. He is a very controlled person." Senator Thad Cochran, who has known McCain for decades and has battled him over earmarks, has expressed concern about a McCain presidency: "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me." Ultimately Cochran decided to support McCain for president, after it was clear he would win the nomination.

Sighting his comments and "jokes" It seems to me that Sen. McCain is more interested in "model type looks" than morals and ethics.