McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.
But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.
And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.
She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.
But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.
When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons
had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.
Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.
Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.
For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.
>>>Who do you want to see as the next US president? Leave your views below... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ar...ft-behind.html
__________________

so what?

For over a year he has said the phrase, "Family Values". That's what.

She was having 23 surgeries and he was busy with other women.

exactly

self riteous SOB (McCain)

i didn't realize that there was a 'national enquirer' thread on these boards.

i'm a firm believer in that people who are no longer in love with each other should not have to stay together, just for the sake of staying together.

i don't presume to know what went on in their personal lives to cause the breakup, nor do i care. but i don't see how any of it has a thing to do with how he would run your country.

It shows one's character if they have affairs while still married. It shows a hypocrite if they are always preaching family values.

ewhen it gets tuff he will bail thats how he would run the country. after all this woman was the mother of his kids, great example he set for them, dump their disfigured mom and get married a month later, that must have hurt.

McCain picked a second wife that is a multi-millionaire and her father gave him a job and introduced him to local businessmen and political powerbrokers who would smooth his passage to Washington via the House of Representatives and Senate.

Is that a coincidence?

she was the mother of his children he could have set a good example for his kids and nurtured her he could have allways had an affair if sex was not an option like most of the other celebraties do.

it didn't bother you when the last democratic president was impeached .....but now it bothers you??????

Again, i say so what!

oh?

so you think he should have had an affair?

is sex that important, over and above love and intimacy within his marriage?

you seem to be wavering on both sides



i wholeheartedly agree!

Maybe she was a just a biotch....even before this...

Love conquers all

Morality wasnt part of his platform, he didnt wrap himself in a flag and thump a bible as a qualification for office or have the backing of the christian right.

Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce.



again, maybe "she" was the cause.....and her silence is the result.....

that is hilarious...morality wasn't part of his platform......so it is not a trait that you desire in a president then......Right???? that's your logic here...

Again......So What?????

if it's not a trait that you find desirable in your past presidents...why is it important to you now????

yea she got in a wreck and got disfigured all her fault.........

See, you do agree!!!!