Dame rumor and the C-word

Around the "internets," one still encounters progressives who affirm that John McCain once called his wife a "cunt" in front of witnesses. Those telling this story seem to be under the impression that the incident has been firmly established with all the rigor of a geometrical proof. In fact, everything comes down to a brief passage in Cliff Schecter's book The Real McCain.

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.

Cole and Gullett denied the story. McCain called the report "completely fabricated." Schecter -- writing in (but of course!) the Huffington Post -- has thus responded:

No surprise here. It's far from the first time the "maverick" has made himself into a liar...

Schecter then goes on to give his own book the kind of hard-sell treatment that makes a late-night infomercial seem comparatively subtle.

Most people recounting this incident seem to be under the impression that McCain made this outburst in front of three reporters. Do not skim: Read.

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on...

The reporters are never listed as direct ear-witnesses. We may therefore safely presume that Schecter is repeating scuttlebutt. As far as we know, Journalist A got the tale at third hand, while Journalists B and C received it from Journalist A. If Schecter were playing honestly, he could give some indication as to how this game of telephone worked -- and he could do so while keeping his sources anonymous. (If they exist.)

At the time -- 1992 -- who would have been following McCain closely? A handful of print reporters in Arizona and perhaps a couple of home state broadcast journalists. Why didn't anyone publish the story then? Here's Schecter's explanation:

Schecter contends these reporters didn't run the story themselves because they were "squeamish" about repeating McCain's language.

"Back in '92, when people use naughty words, [reporters] don't know as much what to do with it," Schecter told RawStory.com...

In other words, 1992 was a time of prelapsarian innocence . The situation changed (Schecter tells us) only after George W. Bush called a reporter a "major league asshole" in 2000.

This explanation is, of course, horseshit -- as anyone can affirm whose memory goes back to the coverage of Nixon's salty language on the Watergate tapes. I distinctly recall reading a 1972 story in the ultra-conservative San Fernando Valley Daily News and Green Sheet (now the Daily News) in which George McGovern was reported to have told a heckler "Fuck you." Although the report was, I believe, a fabrication, the paper printed the offending word without an asterisk.

Incidentally, the Arizona Republic (a likely home for at least one of the three anonymous reporters) does not have a history of treating McCain with kid gloves.

What stops those three reporters from telling the tale now? The fact that not one of them has ever put this yarn into print, even in this election season, indicates that Schecter's sources were not witnesses, cannot produce any witnesses, and do not place much stock in the claim.

Last weekend, I read a good chunk of Schecter's thin work (printed in large type, like My Weekly Reader). I found it to be a sensational and partisan hit job, written with a fourth grade vocabulary in order to make sure that even the dimmest dimwits catch the propaganda points. In other words, it is the equivalent of an old-fashioned Regnery smear-book directed at the Clintons.

I have no doubt that John McCain has used more than his share of profane language. But the exact phrase ascribed to him here -- "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt" -- simply feels wrong. People don't swear that way -- at least, not in my experience. Those who use the word "Cunt" as an epithet generally confine it to a one-word sentence, as when a foul-mouth yells "Cunt!" at a woman who steals his parking spot. If I were a screenplay reader, I would underline that sentence as an example of unconvincing dialog, and I would suggest a re-write.

(On the other hand, the British director portrayed in The Exorcist might have uttered the words as written. An actor really needs a British accent to sell a line like that. A slightly sloshed delivery would help.)

All of which brings us to the larger story. This is the election season in which progressive "journalism" sank into the same putrescent bog which gave us much of the conservative "journalism" we've encountered over the past twenty years.