#1
Posted: 9/10/08 at 12:10pm
There's a long, detail portrait of Cindy McCain in this week's New Yorker that proves revelatory. It's loaded with boilerplate bio about being raised in Arizona, about only teaching one year despite being dubbed "a teacher" by her husband (and plenty on the prescription drug stealing, which we mostly know about).
But the really fascinating stuff stems from her loathing of all aspects of the public stage and her penchent for secrecy.
She literally disappears at parties or gatherings that would otherwise highlight her attendance due to an unbearable shyness and a loathing of the meet/greet demands of her spousal position. And it's still not known if she really 'surprised' her husband bringing the daughter home to adopt. This is the most bizarre bit of probable mythology put out by the McCain camp -- one wonders why? What does it suggest about Cindy or the dynamics of their marriage? What spouse springs a child on a partner as a delicious 'surprise?' She did the same thing with her flying lessons, dragging him to the airport and then whoosh, come fly with me, baby. The idea that sneaking a baby home from Africa unbeknownst to your husband to 'get' him, however, is nutty. Sounds like she might've had a pharmaceutical or two in her system on that flight.
The whole issue of adopted children and who's family/who's not is a gnarly part of the McCain biography. Two adopted sons by the cast-aside first wife are barely mentioned. And the article amplifies the telling details circling around Cindy's avoidance of her half sister and her family. Apparently with them in the front row at her father's funeral, she eulogizes as an only child. Perhaps predictably, they loathe her.
Relevant sidebar about adoption: Why are biographies airbrushed to include adopted children when it looks like a moving part of "charity work" (not my word, Cindy's favorite expression -- a term denounced in Disney's POLLYANNA as "insulting" to people by the way -- back in the late 1950s) ... and exclude them when it involes brand new "traditional" families (it's pointed out that the Obamas are actualy far more traditional than the McCains ever could portray themselves). Tom Cruise adopted two children with Nicole, yet is almost never linked to them. Only little Suri with the fringe on top is his REAL child, the subject of tabloids.
Cindy is not an ideal candidate's wife, and frets constantly about what she says in public, and having to face people. The last lines of the lengthy peice say much: she doesn't seem to enjoy any of this.
But the really fascinating stuff stems from her loathing of all aspects of the public stage and her penchent for secrecy.
She literally disappears at parties or gatherings that would otherwise highlight her attendance due to an unbearable shyness and a loathing of the meet/greet demands of her spousal position. And it's still not known if she really 'surprised' her husband bringing the daughter home to adopt. This is the most bizarre bit of probable mythology put out by the McCain camp -- one wonders why? What does it suggest about Cindy or the dynamics of their marriage? What spouse springs a child on a partner as a delicious 'surprise?' She did the same thing with her flying lessons, dragging him to the airport and then whoosh, come fly with me, baby. The idea that sneaking a baby home from Africa unbeknownst to your husband to 'get' him, however, is nutty. Sounds like she might've had a pharmaceutical or two in her system on that flight.
The whole issue of adopted children and who's family/who's not is a gnarly part of the McCain biography. Two adopted sons by the cast-aside first wife are barely mentioned. And the article amplifies the telling details circling around Cindy's avoidance of her half sister and her family. Apparently with them in the front row at her father's funeral, she eulogizes as an only child. Perhaps predictably, they loathe her.
Relevant sidebar about adoption: Why are biographies airbrushed to include adopted children when it looks like a moving part of "charity work" (not my word, Cindy's favorite expression -- a term denounced in Disney's POLLYANNA as "insulting" to people by the way -- back in the late 1950s) ... and exclude them when it involes brand new "traditional" families (it's pointed out that the Obamas are actualy far more traditional than the McCains ever could portray themselves). Tom Cruise adopted two children with Nicole, yet is almost never linked to them. Only little Suri with the fringe on top is his REAL child, the subject of tabloids.
Cindy is not an ideal candidate's wife, and frets constantly about what she says in public, and having to face people. The last lines of the lengthy peice say much: she doesn't seem to enjoy any of this.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
