Temper, temper, temper...

I admit that I have become a Huffington Post addict this fall.  When I read about McCain's explosive rage story today, which took place at the craps table in 1995, I had to post something that I received in my email last night.  Just an interesting piece written by a professor at UCSC who experienced McCain during her vacation a few years back. 

 MY HOLIDAY WITH JOHN McCAIN
 by Mary-Kay Gamel, Professor of Classics,  Comparative Literature, and
 Theater Arts
 Cowell College, University  of California, Santa Cruz

 It was just before John McCain's last  run at the presidential
 nomination in 2000 that my husband and I  vacationed in Turtle Island
 in Fiji with John McCain, Cindy, and their  children, including
 Bridget (their adopted Bangladeshi child).
 It  was not our intention, but it was our misfortune to be in close
 quarters with John McCain for almost a week since Turtle Island has a
 small number of bungalows and their focus on communal meals force all
 vacationers who are there at the same time to get to know each other
 intimately.
 He arrived at our first group meal and started reading  quotes from a
 pile of William Faulkner books with a forest of Post-Its  sticking out
 of them. As an English Literature major myself, my first  thought was
 'if he likes this so much, why hasn't he memorized any of  this yet?'
 I soon realized that McCain actually thought we had come on  vacation
 to be a volunteer audience for his 'readings' which then  became a
 regular part of each meal. Out of politeness, none of the  vacationers
 initially protested at this intrusion into their blissful  holiday,
 but people's buttons definitely got pushed as the readings  continued
 day after day.
 Unfortunately this was not his only  contribution to our mealtime
 entertainment. He waxed on during one  meal about how Indo-Chine women
 had the best figures and that our  American corn-fed women just
 couldn't meet up to this standard. He  also made it a point that all
 of us should stop Cindy from having  dessert as her weight was too
 high and made a few comments to Amy, the  25 year old wife of the
 honeymooning couple from Nebraska that she  should eat less as she
 needed to lose weight.
 McCain's appreciation  of the beauty of Asian women was so great that
 David the American  economist had to move his Thai wife to the other
 side of the table  from McCain as McCain kept aggressively flirting
 with and touching  her.
 Needless to say I was irritated at his large ego  and his rude
 behavior towards his wife and other women, but decided he  must have
 some redeeming qualities as he had adopted a handicapped  child from
 Bangladesh. I asked him about this one day, and his  response was
 shocking: 'Oh, that was Cindy's idea - I didn't have  anything to do
 with it. She just went and adopted this thing without  even asking me.
 You can't imagine how people stare when I wheel this  ugly, black
 thing around in a shopping cart in Arizona . No, it wasn't  my idea at
 all.'
 I actively avoided McCain after that, but  unfortunately one day he
 engaged me in a political discussion which  soon got us on the topic
 of the active US bombing of Iraq at that  time. I was shocked when he
 said, 'If I was in charge, I would nuke  Iraq to teach them a lesson'.
 Given McCain's personal experience with  the horrors of war, I had
 expected a more balanced point of view. I  commented on the tragic
 consequences of the nuclear attacks on Japan  during WWII --' but no,
 he was not to be dissuaded. He went on to say  that if it was up to
 him he would have dropped many more nuclear bombs  on Japan. I rapidly
 extricated myself from this conversation as I  could tell that his
 experience being tortured as a POW didn't seem to  have mellowed out
 his perspective, but rather had made him more  aggressive and vengeful
 towards the  world.
 My final encounter with McCain was on the morning  that he was leaving
 Turtle Island. Amy and I were happily eating  pancakes when McCain
 arrived and told Amy that she shouldn't be having  pancakes because
 she needed to lose weight. Amy burst into tears at  this abusive
 comment. I felt fiercely protective of Amy and  immediately turned to
 McCain and told him to leave her alone. He  became very angry and
 abusive towards me, and said, 'Don't you know  who I am.' I looked him
 in the face and said, 'Yes, you are the  biggest asshole I have ever
 met' and headed back to my cabin. I am  happy to say that later that
 day when I arrived at lunch I was given a  standing ovation by all the
 guests for having stood up to McCain's  bullying.
 Although I have shared my McCain story informally  with friends, this
 is the first time I am making this public. I almost  did so in 2000,
 when McCain first announced his bid for the Republican  nomination,
 but it soon became apparent that George Bush was the  shoo-in
 candidate and so I did not act then. However, now that there  is a
 very real possibility that McCain could be elected as our next
 president, I feel it is my duty as an American citizen to share this
 story. I can't imagine a more scary outcome for America than that this
 abusive, aggressive man should lead our nation. I have observed him
 in  intimate surroundings as he really is, not how the media portrays
 him  to be. If his attitudes toward women and his treatment of his own
 family are even a small indicator of his real personality, then I
 shudder to think what will happen to America were he to be elected as
 our President.