• He once publicly referred to his wife as a “trollop” and a “cunt”

• He said Chelsea Clinton was ugly because Janet Reno was her father (a trifecta of insult implicitly trading on the right-wing libel that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian)

• He intimidated a female reporter on his campaign airplane when asked about his account of being asked to serve as Sen. John Kerry’s running mate in 2004

In 1994, McCain tried to stop a primary challenge to the state's Republican governor, J. Fife Symington III, by telephoning his opponent, Barbara Barrett, the well-heeled spouse of a telecommunications executive, and warning of unspecified "consequences" should she reject his advice to drop out of the race. Barrett stayed in. At that year's state Republican convention, McCain confronted Sandra Dowling, the Maricopa County school superintendent and, according to witnesses, angrily accused her of helping to persuade Barrett to enter the race.

"You better get [Barrett] out or I'll destroy you," a witness claims that McCain shouted at her. Dowling responded that if McCain couldn't respect her right to support whomever she chose, that he "should get the hell out of the Senate." McCain shouted an obscenity at her, and Dowling howled one back.

"If he feels a challenge to his integrity, then he'll say something," Salter said. "If he thinks you betrayed him . . . he'll tell you, he'll be angry. . . . But he's also exceedingly forgiving."

During the early 1990s, McCain telephoned the office of Tom Freestone, a governmental official little known outside Arizona's Maricopa County. McCain had an unusual request. He wanted Freestone, then chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, to reject a job applicant named Karen S. Johnson, whose last governmental position had been in the office of a former Arizona governor and who had just interviewed for a position as an aide in Freestone's office.

A few years earlier, he had an angry exchange with her while she was the secretary for Republican Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham, who was impeached and forced out of office for campaign finance violations.

During roughly the same period, McCain requested the firing of an aide to Arizona's senior U.S. senator, Dennis DeConcini, according to two top figures in DeConcini's office.

The aide, a veterans affairs expert named Judy Leiby, first ran into problems with McCain in the late '80s, when she sought to correct what she regarded as a McCain misstatement about DeConcini's record on a veterans issue. She was attending a Phoenix meeting between McCain and some veterans when she rebutted a McCain assertion that DeConcini, a Democrat, favored a bill that included a cut of some veterans benefits. "That is incorrect," Leiby said, detailing the specifics of DeConcini's position as McCain listened stonily.

Sometime afterward, McCain called DeConcini and asked that he dismiss Leiby, insisting to the senator that his aide had become a toxic, partisan figure.

[In 1982] Arizona Republican Party held its Election Night celebration for all its candidates at a Phoenix hotel, where the triumphant basked in the cheers of their supporters and delivered victory statements on television.

After McCain finished his speech, he returned to a suite in the hotel, sat down in front of a TV and viewed a replay of his remarks, angry to discover that the speaking platform had not been erected high enough for television cameras to capture all of his face -- he seemed to have been cut off somewhere between his nose and mouth.

A platform that had been adequate for taller candidates had not taken into account the needs of the 5-foot-9 McCain, who left the suite and went looking for a man in his early 20s named Robert Wexler, the head of Arizona's Young Republicans, which had helped make arrangements for the evening's celebration. Confronting Wexler in a hotel ballroom, McCain exploded, according to witnesses who included Jon Hinz, then executive director of the Arizona Republican Party. McCain jabbed an index finger in Wexler's chest.

"I told you we needed a stage," he screamed, according to Hinz. "You incompetent little [expletive]. When I tell you to do something, you do it."...

Nick Juliano
RawStory.com
Published: Tuesday April 8, 2008


John McCain's temper is well do*****ented. He's called opponents and colleagues "shitheads," "assholes" and in at least one case "a *ucking jerk."

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c-u-n-t." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

1. Immigration – He’s not just pro-open borders, he’s Senor Amnesty – co-sponsor of McCain-Kennedy, which would have legalized 15 million illegal aliens, allowed them to bring in tens of millions of their mooching relatives (including the elderly and infirm), given them credit for past Social Security contributions, etc. The Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector said McCain-Kennedy would have constituted the largest expansion of the welfare state in U.S. history (at an estimated cost of $2.6 trillion). A Republican who served with McNasty in the Senate said he was forever haranguing his GOP colleagues about being perceived as “xenophobes” for not supporting amnesty. At CPAC, he told conservatives he’s heard us. He’ll secure the borders first, then push amnesty – which, of course, will negate anything he does at the border. Build it (a suicidal welfare state that embraces alien intruders), and a fence won’t keep them out.
2. Multiculturalism – If his advocacy of open borders wasn’t enough, McCain has also opposed official English and supported bi-lingual education (two more issues where he’s out-of-step with the overwhelming majority of his countrymen). McCain even voted for an amendment that would have codified Clinton’s Executive Order 13166, requiring recipients of federal funding, like hospitals, to provide translation services in any language requested. (When it comes to pandering, cost is no object.) No wonder he’s a hero to LULAC (the separatist League of United Latin American Citizens), Geraldo Rivera and Juan Hernandez (his Hispanic outreach director, who says he’d like 7th. generation Mexican-Americans to think of themselves as Mexicans first). Look for President McCain to make Cinco de Mayo a national holiday, give his inaugural address in Arabic and light an annual Kwanza whatever on the White House lawn.
3. Enviro-Marxism – McCain’s supporters think he’s just the man to lead America in the War on Terrorism. What’s the principal weapon of terrorist states? Oil. What does McCain want to keep America from producing more of? Oil. In 2003, McCain was one of only 6 Republican senators to vote against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. For McCain, keeping America dependent on Middle Eastern oil is a small price to pay to make the caribou comfortable. He’s also the proud co-sponsor of McCain-Lieberman – a $660 billion monument to the myth of man-made global warming (an industry-killing cap on CO2 emissions), which would annihilate tens of thousands of American jobs and make us far less competitive. By what twisted logic does open borders, crippling U.S. industry and energy dependence equal national security?
4. Class Warfare – In the recent debate at the Reagan Library, McCain called Romney a “manager for profits” (would he prefer a businessman who managed for losses?) who has “laid people off” – thus demonstrating how little the Senator understands the market economy. Jobs aren’t permanent -- except for those who’ve served in the Senate for 21 years -- and sometimes they have to disappear so others can be created. In 2001, McCain was one of only two Republican Senators to vote against the Bush tax cuts. In 2003, he was one of only three. Now, he says it’s because there weren’t matching spending cuts. Then he called them “tax cuts for the rich.”  This comes from a man who never held a private-sector job and made his money the old-fashioned way – by marrying an heiress whose father subsidized his early campaigns.
5. Abortion – McCain’s vaunted pro-life voting record reflects the views of his Arizona constituents more than any real commitment. He supports subsidies for embryonic stem-cell research. In 2000, he told the San Francisco Examiner that “certainly in the short term, even in the long-term I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade.” (He later reversed himself under pro-life pressure.) Most critics view McCain-Feingold as an assault on the First Amendment, which it certainly is. It’s also one of the most destructive anti-life measures ever enacted by Congress. Under this so-called Campaign Finance Reform, a pro-life group can’t run ads criticizing the record of a pro-abortion legislator within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary. Needless to say, there’s no similar gag-rule for McCain’s buddies in the mainstream media. Elsewhere on the family-values front, McCain voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment. He says it’s because he wants states to decide the definition of marriage (the only instance in which he’s on record favoring federalism), which is the same as saying he wants activist judges to decide.
6. Judicial Nominations – Though McCain denies it, columnist Robert Novak swears the frontrunner told him prior to confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito that the nominee was too conservative, and that he preferred those who “didn’t wear their conservatism on their sleeve” (like Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy?). McCain was also part of the Gang of 14 which prevented a rules change that would have stopped unconstitutional filibusters on judicial nominations. Former New Hampshire Senator Warren Rudman was responsible for the Supreme Court nomination of David Souter  -- the most disastrous Republican appointment since Earl Warren. (The play was Rudman to then-Chief of Staff John Sununu to Bush Sr.) Rudman has a prominent role in McCain’s campaign. Rudman could be President McCain’s Attorney General, giving him more say on judicial nominations than anyone other than the president. In his 1996 book, Rudman wrote that Christian conservatives include in their ranks “enough anti-abortion zealots, would-be censors, homophobes, bigots and latter-day Elmer Gantrys to discredit any party that is unwise enough” to align itself with them. With Warren Rudman at his side, it’s anyone’s guess whether McCain’s Supreme Court picks would be appreciably better than Clinton’s or Obama’s...