Tuesday, September 30, 2008

A Courageous American Steps Forward


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 as 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.
This letter was originally written by: Ana Dubey
And made public by her friend, Mary-Kay Gamel
Professor of Classic Literature & Arts
Cowell College
University of California
Santa Cruz
California.

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing this letter!

Unknown said...

Wow, Mac sounds like a real idiot.
Don't vote for that guy, check!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations, ma'am. You are now on reddit. You'll be famous.

Cynamen said...

After the gross mistreatment of his first wife...this flaw in McCain's character should come as no surprise. However, what is surprising is how many Americans are willing to risk a 10% chance on change by casting a vote for this Republican farce. I've certainly has more than ENOUGH! How's your personal economy?

Anonymous said...

Where did you get this text ? What is your relation with the author ?

Anonymous said...

Good on you for coming forward with this. Be heartened. It's going to be an Obama/Dem landslide.

Unbelievable how Repubs are running a guy who cheated/divorced on his first maimed wife, marries a trophy heiress, gets involved in a horrible banking scandal, picks a Caribou Barbie VP who can't name a single newspaper she's ever read, tries to ban books, fires people who upset her dysfunctional family, and speaks in tongues....and these are their "family values" candidates.

Thanks again for sharing your story about this buffoon.

Anonymous said...

Bless you, Prof. Gamel!

This has got to go viral. We can't have another man like this in the WH.

Reading this, and seeing his obvious disdain for Obama in the first debate, I think he is a racist as well as an a$$hole.

Anonymous said...

Oh my god. I had the feeling that this was the sort of person John McCain was, but until now I wasn't certain. Thanks for sharing this.

Ug. He is a disgusting human being.

Anonymous said...

This woman NEEDS to tell this story on the national news. This is scary stuff.

Anonymous said...

We were bombing Iraq in 2000?

Anonymous said...

Great story, thanks for sharing, I'm not sure why people want this guy in office.

He back peddles so much and is so out of touch.

He disgusts me, especially towards women.

btw, McCain won't read these comments since he can't even use a computer...

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!

GMG said...

Wow. Just wow. If this is true (I have little reason to doubt the substance of this story) than I'm truly frightened for the future of this country if Sen. McCain is elected POTUS ...

Jack Dobbyn said...

Great post,

I hope this gets picked up.

Check out my blog sometime.

I reposted it with a link to your blog.

Anonymous said...

Were we bombing Iraq before the war in Iraq even started? I'm not a McCain fan, but I'd hate for a story like this to shore up only to be malarkey.

Anonymous said...

to the naysayers....you did bomb Iraq before 2000. Since he was referring to Bridget being small enough to ride in a grocery cart...I am assuming that it was the first Iraqi war.

Good God...McCain is a nasty piece of work...Palin is just as bad..and some of you will continue to praise their virtues, or push back anyone with a different perspective.

Obama WILL win this election.

Eddie said...

I would love for this story to be true, suspect it may in fact be true, but it is worthless unless there are other witnesses or video/audio to back it up. Less than worthless, in fact -- his supporters can wave it around as evidence of the kind of "baseless personal attacks" poor John McCain has had to put up with.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

We were bombing Iraq in 2000?

- Yes:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2000/mar/04/weekend7.weekend9

Anonymous said...

"We were bombing Iraq in 2000?"

YES. After Operation Desert Slaughter Part I, in 1991, the US and Britain took it upon themselves to establish "No Fly Zones" in north and south Iraq.

The US and Britain enforced this arbitary move by flying over these parts of Iraq and shooting anything that attempted to fly.

When bored, we used to fly in and shoot up villages and water and sewer treatment plants.

This continued until the start of Operation Desert Slaughter Part II.

With that, let me say THANK YOU to the brave and patriotic writer of this blog, not only in standing up to that tyrant McCain, but in posting this blog.

America needs more like you that aren't afraid to stand up to bullies like McCain and Bush.

Again, THANKS

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
We were bombing Iraq in 2000?

October 1, 2008 9:33 AM


Yes, the US and Britain certainly were bombing in Iraq in 2000. There are over 60 instances of bombing incidents carried out by US/UK planes at
http://www.ccmep.org/usbombingwatch/2000.htm#6/1/00

Anonymous said...

Read through this thread:

http://www.new.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2231653698&topic=57628&ref=mf#/topic.php?uid=2231653698&topic=57628


They've been doing a pretty good job with fact-checking this story.

Anonymous said...

Wow. This is an amazing story- Thank you so very much for sharing it! I am a student at UCSC (just read this in a computer lab on campus) and am deeply appalled at the private demeanor of this buffoon. I figured that he must be quite arrogant, however this was shocking to hear.

Especially after hearing about how Bush launched attack ads against Bridget (his adopted Bangladeshi child) in 2000, I grew sympathetic and it improved his humanity and credibility in my eyes. However, to hear such despicable statements made about that "ugly, black thing," I am deeply upset.

I will share this blogpost with everyone I can.

good girl roxie said...

You have my respect and admiration! I will post this at my blog and link it back to you.

You are awesome!!!

Anonymous said...

You need to change the authorship -- see http://www.ocnus.net/artman2/publish/Dark_Side_4/My_Holiday_With_John_McCain.shtml

"Note from Mary-Kay (Kate): This shocking account was written by Ana Dubey, a friend of my cousin and her husband, who have known Ana for many years. Ana has a PhD in psychology and has a private practice in San Francisco. My cousin’s husband went to business school with Ana’s husband, who has since started and sold a number of successful companies. Ana’s husband is currently a Managing Director of a private equity firm in the Bay Area."

Anonymous said...

I would just like to say that he is an A-hole. However both candidates are not worthy of becoming president. Wish this election term had better candidates.

Kull said...

The bombing of Iraq the story refers to is one of the several incidents when Iraq was bombed due to the "No Fly Zone" imposed over sections of its territory...the largest of which happened to be called "Operation Desert Fox".

Gray Witch said...

It's easy to believe actually.

Anonymous said...

in no way hard to imagine...and his wife gave that bleary eyed " he's the hero of our family etc.,." speech at the convention...just imagine how much she hates him.[and he her , for that matter]
No doubt the plan is to get rid of him and then the same people who run the country now still will.

Anonymous said...

This does not surprise me at all. I read an article in Rolling Stone about McCains life. All he is is an underachieving, opportunist, womanizing, traitor in stead of war hero. I think the article is in the Oct 14th issue of RS. It is very enlightening as to this awful mans character.

Anonymous said...

OMG what a complete ass! Please, please, please don't let these two into the White House! It's time we voted as if we have the brains that demonstrate to the world that we demand change for "we the people!"

Anonymous said...

Why is the real truth held away from Americans? It's a shame Say as you wish...this is America. Land of the FREE or is it? [what ifs]....what if we ended up left with Palin...as our President? There is the AGE circumstance with MCaines AGE

Anonymous said...

Did not vote for his "dude" anyway. Terribly afraid that at his age, when he gets sick the "Avon Lady" might be in charge of my country. Mellie, Oregon