montini talks about
1) the senator who was charley keating boy (ie the keating five) and got $100,000 and some nice vacations from mr keating.
2) the senator with the wife that steals drugs
3) the senator with the mean temper that blows up a lot
4) the senator who thinks he is a war hero because he was stupid enough to be shot down in vietnam while bombing women and children and wants to be president
5) the senator who is shaking down the tobacco companies - while promating booze
Arizona Republic
Sunday, November 7, 1999
E. J. MONTINI
Republic Columnist
Dousing Senator Hothead
Once again, the media are getting it backward. It's not McCain's tantrums that matter; it's what sets him off.
This is obvious even to someone like me, for whom McCain has personally demonstrated a vocal range several octaves above Robert Plant in Whole Lotta Love.
The senator melted the telephone wires to my office one day a few years back because he felt I had questioned his integrity.
Probably because I had questioned his integrity.
And for good reason. McCain and other senators had dismissed the testimony of Anita Hill even before she appeared before them in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas.
For this, the senator promised to get me fired, briefly bestowing upon me a mantle of legitimacy I'd neither earned nor deserved.
The makings of, a snit
What's important isn't that McCain gets angry, but that he has a lot to get angry about.
For instance, over the past several years, while trying to boost his national name recognition, Sen. McCain has led a crusade against Big Tobacco. What he isn't often asked is why he doesn't take on Big Alcohol. (the webmaster notes: the place that sells the McCain family booze owned by Cindys father is on hardy drive between broadway and southern in tempe. its called Hensley & Company Beer. Its at 2927 s hardy drive, tempe, az 85282 - (480)968-2471) The an answer is that his fledgling political-career was financed largely by salaries and trust funds tied to the beer distributorship owned by his wife's father.
McCain may go after smokers, but when it comes to getting elected, he goes for the gusto.
The senator also has been the nation's leading voice on the need for campaign finance reform, and the terrible influence lobbyists have in Congress.
At the same time, the 20,000 word profile of McCain by The Arizona Republic Bill Muller (viewable on http://www.azcentral.com) reports the senator has taken tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from corporations under the domain of the Senate Commerce Committee, which he heads.
The makings of a fit
Instead of issues like these, we have pages filled with politicians and hangers on whining about how the mean old senator hurt their feelings. Which proves two things we already knew.
1. McCain speaks his mind.
2. America is full of crybabies.
McCain took vacation trips and more than $100,000 in contributions from Charlie Keating, poster boy for the savings and loan disaster. He can get a little perturbed when asked about that.
He's also not fond of being questioned about the way he manipulated the press to protect his own career after his wife, Cindy, admitted stealing drugs from the charitable organization she ran.
Or how, from the beginning of his career, McCain has told voters he would not capitalize on his having been a prisoner of war in Vietnam. "I'm devoting all my, efforts to being the Arizona senator and not the POW senator," he once said.
Another time he proclaimed, "One of the things I've never tried to do is exploit my Vietnam service to my country because it would be totally inappropriate to do so."
Really?
Then, what's up with the campaign films and TV commercial's highlighting his POW experience?
Or the posters of young McCain in a flight suit, standing next to a fighter jet, that appear behind him at speeches.
Years ago, I wrote a column describing an imaginary campaign spot in which McCain stands in front of a camera and says, "I'm not a POW anymore, but I play one on TV"
I wouldn't write something like that again. It made him really mad.
E.J. Montini can be reached at (602) 444-8978 or at ed.montini@pni.com.