McCain's Sham Marriages

One marriage he admits he made a sham of while the second one may be a sham because John McCain wasn't technically divorced from his first wife Carol when he obtained his marriage licence to Cindy. On Friday The LA Times went where other papers -- beyond foreign newspapers -- have refused to go in this election cycle, talking about John McCain's first marriage and why he left his wife after she had a devastating car accident.

We discussed this on the show on Friday and several callers called in to say that this was his personal life and that it's irrelevant and that we shouldn't talk about it.

But I completely disagree. There are at least four good reasons why this should and must be discussed by the media:

1) For a man who is pushing an amendment in California to uphold the "sanctity" of marriage -- and cut gays and lesbians out of it -- I think it certainly is relevant to look at how he has treated this institution himself, personally and legally. This, for me, is the number one reason why this story is enormously important. It cuts to the core of his own claims on marriage;

2) McCain appears to have lied about when he finalized his divorce and whether or not he was living with his first wife while dating the second one, and that surely raises questions about what else he might be lying about in his past, and certainly a lie of any kind by a presidential candidate is news;

3) How horrendous McCain treated his first wife does reflect on his character, something that once again is front and center in an election; it also brings us back to recent times and his coziness with a female lobbyist, and, as The New York Times reported (and was attacked by Republicans for), the speculation among some on his staff that he was having an affair with the lobbyist. Cindy McCain defended her husband publicly, and said her husband wouldn't be involved with another woman while married. And yet, as the LA Times story reveals, Cindy McCain was dating him while he was still married and was still living with his wife even though McCain has tried to cover up that fact;

4)The Reagans are reported to have been angry with McCain for what he did to his first wife. Surely the fact that a previous Republican president and his wife were angry at a future Republican presidential candidate is news.

Again, some people thought we really were wrong to be discussing this story -- when we talked about after it was reported on in the London papers a month ago, and also now when it was reported on in the LA Times. They argued that it was old news, reported on many years ago in various articles, and was irrelevant. I argued that everything is relevant again when you're running for president, and well, gave the reasons above. What do you think?