The Cindy (And John) Show

In the wake of the McCain home ownership debacle, the NYT offers this stinging image accompanying yesterday's background piece on Cindy's fortune.  (Check out the part where Daddy dies, and Cindy cuts off her step-sister's funds.)

A few takes:

1.  So long Snow White act?

2. Marriage power portrait.

3. John's "I don't knows" -- if only the result of being "pre-nuptually" out of the loop -- makes it seem more (the cough-cough paired with the tie fumbling) like he is losing his bearings.

4.  Cindy aside, McCain just never quite prepared.

(image: Gregory Bull/Associated Press.  nytimes.com.  caption: John McCain is one of the richest members of the Senate. His wealth comes from his wife, Cindy, who inherited a $300-million-a-year beer business.)

Comments

[Jerry Holtaway]

All I can say is scary. And it if this country elects this man, I will take the first flight out. I came here after 20 years of living in Europe with the idea that it was a time of change in America. But I am prepared to return. Because what is the hope of this country if it repeats the mistakes of the past in different costumes?

[mudkitty]

That's "winter white."

[Ti molo]

To be a little fair, I am sure he has know idea because the prenup. Ms.Bud's Dad made Johnny-boy sign keeps his hands and eyes off everything. He knew a fellow lady's man when he saw one and despite a couple of brutal long talks with his daughter she went and married him anyway. Won't even get into the whole "older man/father" dynamic. Yuck!

[vicki]

Not even Nancy Reagan would step off the plane first - and wave to the crowd.

I can't wait to see what china she picks out!! < /snrk! >

[black dog barking]

I see Tilda Swinton's memorable White Witch from the first Narnia flick. Also, Miss Buffalo Chips 2008.

I wonder if Cindy wore white at her wedding.

[donna]

Heartless Snow Queen. What a bitch she is. Cutting out her half sister, shafting hospitals and education for kids? Good grief. All so she can have her 7 or 8 houses...

[Cyranetta]

What strikes me about this picture is the total absence of visual context -- no airport buildings, crowds (sizable or otherwise, adoring or otherwise), other planes, just a featureless void or a pea-soup fog. In any case, it gives no idea of direction or a "there" there.

[MonsieurGonzo]

Mary Main => The Woman with the Whip :

“She met the oil millionaire ~ a family friend of the Bush's ~ at a 1985 party hosted by Ann Getty in San Francisco. The couple were married in 1986 at a wedding paid for by Ann Getty, who had declared that she needed to find her a husband. They moved to Washington, D.C., when he was appointed to serve as "Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy". They later established residency in Santa Barbara, California, in order for him to run in 1992 as the Republican for this seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, which he won by a significant margin.”

“He was a political conservative on most issues. She campaigned vigorously for her husband, courting religious conservatives, arguing for ‘smaller government’ and reductions in welfare programs.”

“In 1994 he narrowly lost the race for the U.S. Senate seat from California to incumbent Dianne Feinstein. The couple divorced in 1997, and in 1998 he disclosed his bisexuality. A 1999 magazine article claimed that she "entered the marriage... with full knowledge of his sexual interests in men". The financial terms of their divorce agreement remain undisclosed, but she gained most of her wealth from her husband.”

“Arianna Huffington chose to retain her former husband's surname, although she had been known as "Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington" during the period of her marriage.”

see also => Maria Teresa Thierstein Simões-Ferreira Heinz (Kerry)

[Asta]

My first reaction to the photo was how much it reminded me so much of a scene from "2001: A Space Odyssey" when Dr. Dave Bowman finds himself (and his aged dying self) in the sterile, bleak white room. Despite the furnishings, the room was ice cold.

I know, it's a weird impression, but that's what I'm getting.

[Zzyzx]

Iron fist in a velvet glove.

No. 2 reason Nancy doesn't like John Sidney McCain III: a rival.

The power behind the thrown at her coming out party.

Wasn't her hair blonde a couple of weeks ago????

[david bacon]

McCain is "worse" than Bush simply because he's a bit older, more befuddled and out of control representation of America's violent paternal, imperial self. If we allow him to be elected, there will be someone worse waiting in the wings when he dies or is term limited.With McCain, we're watching the public face of America's evil persona decay into ugly senility right in front of our eyes.(They somehow kept George looking non decayed anyway) With Obama ( and Biden) we're still watching a deeply imperial, militaristic persona in a younger more palatable package. We'll still be spending more than all the other nations of the world on "defense" under president Obama and killing more people. Until we as citizens are able to generate the energy to rise above and abolish empire and militarism, it will continue to flourish here. The only other path is that of natural decay like all other empirical powers into relatively harmless senility and out of that decay may be born some kind of a relatively civilized nation. We, as a people, have lost a living, breathing vision of what we want our country to be. That visionless vacuum is now filled by the worst neo con nightmare reality which will fight like any demon to stay alive. When we behold the face of John McCain, we behold the face of our own devolving, violent, chaotic national vacuum.There is an excellent new book by Jim Douglass titled, The Unspeakable The Assasination of JFK and Why It Matters Now. Douglass, after 15 years of research,portrays a president who began to confront America's military/industrial/political complex and turn deeply to peace and was murdered for his good work on his nation's behalf. Obama, and all legitimate candidates for president, know what fate awaits them should they try to take on that much stronger complex today. It will be interesting to see if he ( and we) can create a non-personaland functional opposition to American evil.If not, years of hellish devolution will be our fate. Sorry for the tone but just take another look at McCain's visage, and our last eight years as a country, and see if you can really disagree.

[swarmofkillermonkeys]

So close... the angle of that tie just almost lines up to form a virtual leash with the angle of her lower hand. Especially with his bent posture...

I learned two new nasty things from that article. I heard she referred to herself as an "only child" despite her Dad having another girl. But is DIDN'T know she did that at her Dad's funeral, with her half-sister sitting right there next to the corpse of her own father. That's pretty unforgivably cold.

Also I knew at one point she had a childrens' charity. I didn't know they had to shut it down because the was stealing drugs from it to get herself high.

[zzyzx]

Cindy apparently has three siblings: one brother and two sisters. The one sister who is speaking out went to the bank atm the day of her father's funeral and found her card had been cancelled.

Cold!

[MJ]

From looking at this photo, the image in my head is of a dirty old hunch backed man chasing a womans skirt. Kinda funny

[BerkeleyMom]

Just to point out--she cut off her half-sister NOT her step-sister. The woman discussed is her father's daughter too. Cindy's mother also had a daughter that is older than Cindy. Wonder what she inherited.

I have two sons who have two sisters that are 20 years older (from my husband's first marriage). We have never called them half-sisters. They are sisters--period. It would never occur to me or my husband to cut them out of our lives financially or otherwise. Wow--that family is messed up but Cindy sure learned from her Daddy.

[travc]

At least she is wearing something relatively modern and 'age appropriate'. All the shots of her is outfits which were the height of fashion for teenage girls in the '50s really bug the hell out of me. What the hell is that supposed to indicate?

[Molly]

HEE HEE HEE! I wish someone had photoshopped McCain's tie to be about three feet longer. It would look like a leash!

Now, I'll go read the rest of the comments and see where others have already made this point.

[NoContest]

Like Chevy Chase doing an impression of Gerald Ford, all we need is for the buffoon to trip and take a tumble head first down the stairs. Don't worry, it's coming.

[Phil Sheehan]

First take, I saw a caricature of one of the very old couples comedies (where competent and assertive wife has to straighten out the mess created by her bumbling/bungling husband) like the Bickerson, the Bumsteads, or the Honeymooners.

But that's the picture alone, with no outside data. Feed into it what we've learned about Cindy lately -- especially the Times article -- and the picture is of a newly-empowered woman. She always had the credit cards and signed the checks, but tended to stand behind and to the left. Now, suddenly, she's out front, and he's trotting along like Fido at the heel.

Could she recently have come upon some information about Johnny Mac, information with which she could release, or use as grounds for divorce? There have been rumors about his wandering eye and easily-unzipped fly; has Cindy finally had enough?

Yeah, yeah, I know, that's nasty and speculative and unworthy and below the belt (barely) and impolitic and crude. I sound like a Republican. Dirty work, but somebody has to do it.