1130 Architectural Digest Cover

John McCain and his rich trophy wife are on the cover of this month's Architectural Digest. Even with the record of the Kennedys and the Clintons, I think the Democrats fare better in the marriage marathon. McCain's first wife Carol worked for his release all those years, hid from him her terrible health problems caused by an accident so he wouldn't worry in prison, and then he drops her and marries within the month. Sweet. The marriage was "broken," he claims. Well, I guess! It would have been at least a kindness to pretend loyalty and fidelity for a year or so to let the poor woman save face. Without his current wife's money and connections, he wouldn't be where he is today--on the cover of my second favorite magazine--with awards and medals on the wall behind them. Doesn't fool me.

"It seems that McCain, who had once revealed to fellow prisoners of war in Vietnam that he wanted to be president, was restless in 1979. As Navy liaison to the Senate, he didn't have the career momentum he had counted on to propel him into an admiralty and on to the White House. He was 42, mired in stifling ordinariness. (Civilians call it "midlife crisis.")

But McCain was making bold career moves on the home front, hotly pursuing a 25-year-old blond from a wealthy Arizona family -- while married. Carol, his wife at the time, had once been quite a babe herself apparently, until a near-fatal car accident (while her husband was in Vietnam) left her 4 inches shorter, overweight and on crutches. The couple had three children, whom Carol cared for alone while her husband was in Vietnamese prisons.

McCain's strategy worked perfectly: After chasing Cindy Hensley around the country for six months, he closed the deal late in the year, had a divorce by February and was married to Hensley shortly thereafter. Bingo! McCain was a candidate for Congress by early 1982, his coffers full, his home in the proper Arizona district purchased." Jennifer Sweeney, Mothers who think.

Behind every great man--is a babe or two.