Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The McCain's, Darlings of the Conservative Base?

As John McCain becomes the obvious nominee for the Republican Party, one has to wonder whether the conservative religious base of the the Party will finally embrace him and deny his and his wife's somewhat dark past. Dark at least from the Republican point of view. Will they deny it as they denied George Bush's past as an obvious dodger of the draft, a heavy drinker and admitted user of drugs.

The McCain's met when John was still married to his wife, who had stuck by him when he was a prisoner of war. They had an affair for about a year before McCain divorced her and married this daughter of an Arizona millionaire. Later, Cindy established a charity to provide medical aid to developing countries. After experiencing back pain, she became addicted to drugs, particularly the painkillers Percocet and Vicodin. She hid her addiction, stealing the drugs from her charity. Eventually, her parents confronted her, and she quit in 1992. John McCain hired a powerful Washington law firm to defend her, and a deal was worked out with prosecutors to repay the charity. I'm sure her money and his political power didn't hurt in working out the deal.

Today, Cindy is chairwoman of a business her father started in 1955. Her business, Hensley & Co., is one of the largest Anheuser-Busch distributors in the United States. This fact in itself would seem to be a negative to the Republican evangelical conservatives. However, they always seem to work these things out in their warped way of thinking and turn them into a plus.

They usually simply "forget," or use the word forgiven a lot. The only problem is that they only forgive their Republican friends. Anyone else, ie a Democrat, guilty of the same indisgressions is headed on the fast track to hell, and nothing can be done about it. They certainly would never vote for such an outlaw.