How Cindy McCain was Outed for Drug Addiction

Most Black people have paid little or no attention to the life of John Sydney McCain, III and his family in the past, because there was absolutely no chance that most of us would ever consider voting for this Republican, particularly since he never before became the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States. Now we find that we must quickly research and study this would-be president's life, in order to determine what it would mean for us if he ever were to become president.

Because we just took the unprecedented step of publishing here a diary with few citations about Cindy McCain that includes shocking details of her drug addiction and of John Sydney McCain, III, efforts to cover it up, so we are compelled to print the following excerpt from a Salon.Com story, which provides the background information necessary to evaluate all of the sordid details of Cindy McCain's drug addiction, unlawful obtaining and possession of drugs, and the McCain campaign's efforts to cover it up and keep her out of jail:

"She was blonde and beautiful. A rich man's daughter who became a politically powerful man's wife. She had it all, including an insidious addiction to drugs that sapped the beauty from her life like a spider on a butterfly."

What McEachern and the others didn't know was that, far from being a simple, honest admission designed to clear her conscience and help other addicts, Cindy McCain's storytelling had been orchestrated by Jay Smith, then John McCain's Washington campaign media advisor. And it was intended to divert attention from a different story, a story that was getting quite messy.

I know, because I had been working on that story for months at Phoenix New Times. I had finally tracked down the public records that confirmed Cindy McCain's addiction and much more, and the McCains knew I was about to get them. Cindy's tale was released on the day the records were made public.

But the story I was pursuing was not so much about Cindy McCain's unfortunate addiction. It was much more about her efforts to keep that story from coming to light, and the possible manipulation of the criminal justice system by her husband and his cohorts. The irony is that Cindy's secret would have stayed secret if John McCain's heavy-hitting lawyer, John Dowd (of D.C.'s Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld; his most recent claim to fame was serving as co-counsel for fellow partner Vernon Jordan during impeachment) hadn't heavy-handedly pulled out all the stops to protect the McCain family.

Dowd tried to get back at the man on Cindy McCain's staff, Tom Gosinski, who had blown the whistle on her drug pilfering to the DEA. But in the course of trying to get local law enforcement officials to investigate Gosinski -- Dowd and the McCains considered him an extortionist; others might call him a whistleblower -- Dowd set in motion a process that would eventually bring the whole sordid story to light. When that maneuver backfired, the McCain media machine went into overdrive to spin the story.

It's a story of unintended consequences. It's also a story of power politics and media manipulation that's very un-McCain-like -- if you believe his national media hagiography. Salon.Com, October 19, 1999

When we read Cindy McCain story of drug addiction and illegally obtaining, possessing and using barbiturates (and who knows what all else), we cannot but think of the 2.3 million people in jail in the United States, record numbers that are the highest in the world, most of whose offenses were no more serious than the illegal drug-related acts of Cindy McCain, for which she was not punished at all.

We cannot help but feel a deep resentment when we learn that, even as Republicans like John Sydney McCain, III were voting for stiffer drug penalties for Black people, they were taking advantage of white privilege and their political power to assure that their own drug addicted family members would not be affected by those same draconian laws.

Read the entire Cindy McCain story, with all of the sordid and reprehensible details, at Salon.Com.