Irony has long had a home among the partisans of the conservative persuasion and today’s events are proving no different. McCain apologists like John Ruberry and Pat “Melvinna” Hickey, among others, are attacking a guy who was simply quoting something McCain is alleged to have called his wife…

(In recent days, other McCain apologists have also gone after the recent Democratic National Committee ad which not only quotes McCain’s own words but shows the video clip of him saying those words. Attacking people who quote McCain appears to be par for the course, since more and more of what he says is unfortunately indefensible.)

A fellow who had previously supported Sen. Joe Biden’s primary campaign asked Sen. John McCain during one of his townhall events a question that many people concerned about McCain’s well-known anger management issues have:

“This question goes to mental health and mental health care. Previously, I’ve been married to a woman that was verbally abusive to me. Is it true that you called your wife a cunt?”

Harsh language, but the reality is this questioner was asking Sen. McCain whether or not the reports of that infamous domestic tirade are true (the c-word was precipitated by his wife playfully mussing his hair a bit in front of some other people, who verified that he said it).

McCain’s obfuscation?

“Now, now. You don’t want to …Um, you know, that’s the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don’t …. There’s people here who don’t respect that kind of language. So I’ll move on to the next questioner in the back.”

The source of the c-bomb report? A book called The Real McCain by Cliff Schecter, which includes this paragraph:

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain’s intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and said, “You’re getting a little thin up there.” McCain’s face reddened, and he responded, “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.” McCain’s excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

(emphasis added)

Of course, this townhall question gets to the heart of McCain’s claims that he’s a “straight” talker, “one of the guys” and, most importantly, “prepared and experienced”…

First, he never answered the question. If the fact-checked report was somehow untrue (and the people who verified that he did indeed drop the c-bomb on his wife were for some reason fibbing) he could have just said so and put it to rest. He could have even “condemned” that four-letter-word since “condemnation” is the bar he seems to prefer for rhetoric he doesn’t like. And, we’ve already learned that once McCain “condemns” something it magically disappears down the memory hole with all those rib baskets and wetnaps simply by virtue of the fact that he is the McCain and the press thinks he talks straight.

So much for that “straight” talk.

Second, Sen. McCain is hardly “one of the guys” given that he dumped his first wife, a former model who had faithfully and anxiously waited for him while he was being held prisoner, because she was in a car accident and got chubby. In exchange, the Navy airman cum politician married a beautiful millionaire heiress. Her wealth has supplied McCain with handfuls of homes (including the site of his ribfest for the lackey media near the resort town of Sedona) and a private jet…. about as elitist as they get.

And, unfortunately, she was the target of McCain’s tirade in which he reportedly used the c-word, a word of which he now says, “There’s people here who don’t respect that kind of language.”

I agree.

Third, is he truly prepared to keep his renowned anger in check?

Did he, as reports verify, or did he not use such disrespectful language to verbally abuse his wife, a spouse who has provided him with so much material wealth in life, simply because she was being playful with her own husband?

And if he did, why did he feel a need to use such a harsh, abusive word and then duck a simple question about it?

As one of his apologists, John Ruberry, has already admitted Sen. McCain has been found in the past to have “poor judgment”.

Is ignoring a voter asking McCain to simply deny or verify-and-explain more of that same “poor judgment”?

Is insulting his doting wife by calling her a “trollop” and a “c***” also a sign of anger issues and yet more “poor judgment”?

Finally, another of the McC-word apologists used the headline “Stay Classy Dems” to whine about the guy who quoted McCain… seeing as how the questioner was asking about what McCain said, shouldn’t that read “Stay Classy McC-word”? Nice spin, but the question wasn’t what was offensive. What Mr. McCain called Mrs. McCain in that hot-headed haranguing is what is offensive.

PS conserv-o-partisans: Even former Biden supporters who are now supporting Obama are Americans, as are all the women McCain might call “trollop” or “c-dash-dash-dash” and, if McCain were elected president, he’d be their president too. Go figure.

Here’s video from that townhall with Sen. McCain refusing to either deny the report or condemn the word…

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