Cindy McCain Mother Teresa Story Fabricated

ok, I don't really care as much about Cindy as some people do, but I thought this was kind of interesting just bc I have heard this line repeated in the media ad nauseum. It's nice that Cindy adopted though, but why add in the "Mother Theresa convinced her" stuff? They could even say that she "inspired" Cindy to adopt, but at this point even I had believed this media meme.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/20/cindy-mccain-mother-there_n_120184.html


(Christian Science Monitor)



Cindy McCain Mother Teresa Story Fabricated



Gilding the lily is nothing new to politics. From the 1840s when William Henry Harrison claimed to have been born in a log cabin (it was actually a Virginia plantation) to Ronald Reagan's reminiscing about flying over Germany in World War II (he did, but only in a movie), politicians have taken perfectly good stories and embellished them.

...

The latest embellishments come from the McCain camp. Cindy McCain has repeatedly referred to herself as an "only child." This week came news that she actually has two half sisters, although apparently she had very little contact with them.

The McCain campaign had also put out the story that Mother Teresa "convinced" Cindy to bring home two orphans from Bangladesh in 1991.

Mrs. McCain, it turns out, never met Mother Teresa. (Once contacted by the Monitor, the campaign revised the story on its website.)

snip


The story about Mother Teresa “convincing” Mrs. McCain to bring home two children from an orphanage in Bangladesh has been retold many times. Initially, the “About Cindy McCain” page on the McCain campaign website read: “Mother Teresa convinced Cindy to take two babies in need of medical attention to the United States. One of those babies is now their adopted daughter, 16-year-old Bridget McCain.”

The media picked up the theme. A story earlier this year on ABC’s “Good Morning America” stated, “With Mother Teresa’s encouragement she brought her fourth child, Bridget, home.” An April 2008 Wall Street Journal profile states that Mother Teresa “implored” Cindy to bring the girls to the United States. Other articles say Cindy did it “at the behest” of Mother Teresa.

But a source who was with McCain on that 1991 trip, and who asked that his name not be used because of prior legal dealings with the McCain family, says that Mother Teresa was not at the orphanage when Cindy decided to bring the two girls home.

it is becoming increasingly difficult to count.

It is rather overwhelming.....and for the fact that the media won't cover any of it is tellingly alarming.

As much as I think she's an oddball at least, she is not running for President.

It's probably even more the campaign than Cindy herself. In fact, it would be even more helpful for the campaign to leave the "Mother teresa convinved her" stuff out, let her take full credit for the adoption.

repeatedly.

So he should be called on it.

has used this lie as well. She knew these were lies as were her "recipes" and yet she willingly allowed the falsehoods to be used by the campaign.

No sympathy here.

So, if Michelle is fair game, so is Cindy. Obama won't attack her -- and he absolutely shouldn't -- but it's fair to discuss her comments/lies in the blogsphere and in the media (well, we can dream).

I'm not sure being a tad self aggrandizing disqualifies one's spouse from the presidency. Obama is hitting McCain on the issues. It'd be nice if we could focus on that too.

McLame & his wife lie about a lot of things. Doesn't that display their characters? Are these people the ones that America needs to represent Americans?

It's just kind of petty sounding. McCain is so wrong and so vulnerable on so many issues in this campaign... I just don't see where wife-bashing gets us except to a distraction of petty squabbles.

sure, it's pretty dumb story...I don't think that it should be a campaign issue or anything, I just don't really understand why the campaign felt the need to add in the mother teresa thing. As I mentioned in the post above, they should just let Cindy take full credit for deciding to bring home sick orphans. Again, not a campaign issue, just odd to me.