There has been a lot of talk going on about attacking spouses in the general election. Now the McCain campaign is insisting that the Democrats have unfairly attacked Cindy McCain:
The article that the DNC drew attention to reported that the McCain campaign had failed to reimburse Mrs. McCain for a flight in her company’s private jet to New York City, where she attended a fund-raiser for her husband. The article quotes two Republicans criticizing the campaign for this.
Asking about McCain’s campaign reimbursing Cindy McCain’s company for a flight is an attack? No – it’s asking about the law, yet the McCain campaign thinks this is some sort of “attack”. It isn’t. It’s a simple statement of fact, like this:
In 1989, following two back surgeries, Cindy McCain became addicted to the painkillers Vicodin and Percocet. To keep up with her daily need of 10 to 15 pills, she used other people’s names for prescriptions and stole drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, a mobile surgical unit she’d begun in 1988 to provide emergency medical services around the world. A 1993 DEA audit of the amount of painkillers her charity had obtained quickly uncovered her thefts. She avoided prosecution for those crimes through an agreement with the Justice Department in which she submitted to drug testing, paid a fine, performed community service in a soup kitchen, and joined Narcotics Anonymous. She also closed her medical charity
That isn’t an attack either – that is fact, and one the DNC hasn’t brought up. So perhaps the McCain campaign should be thankful that the DNC is simply asking about the reimbursement of campaign expenses, instead of asking about Cindy’s drug addiction (and it is an addiction – once an addict, always an addict).