Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Cindy McCain has frequently described herself as an "only child."  She may have been raised as an only child without any familial relationship with her siblings, but she actually has two half-sisters from her parents previous marriages.  Cindy is estranged from her half-sisters.  Not quite the same thing (as any genealogy researcher … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Pastor Rick Warren at his Saddleback civil forum last Saturday asked both candidates about a project that he and his congregation are particularly interested in – adoption. CNN.com – Transcripts  This was rather a softball question for McCain, who has an adopted daughter:

WARREN: John, most people don’t know that there are 148 million orphans in the world growing up without parents.

What should we do about this, and would you be willing to consider or even commit to something similar to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS — which he said AIDS is an emergency — a PEPFAR. Could we do a PEPFAR for the emergency plan for 148 million orphans?

Most of these – they don’t need to grow up in orphanages. They need to be in families, and many of those families could take them in if they had some kind of assistance.

MCCAIN: Well, I think we have to make adoption a lot easier in this country. That’s why so many people go to other countries to get – to be able to adopt children.

(APPLAUSE) My great hero and role model Teddy Roosevelt was the first modern American president to talk about adoption and how important it was, and I promise you this is my last story.

Seventeen years ago Cindy was in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She went to Mother Teresa’s orphanage. The nuns brought her two little babies who were not going to live. Cindy came home. I met her at the airplane. She showed me this 5-week-old baby and said, "Meet your new daughter." She’s 17, and our life is blessed – and that’s what adoption is all about.

First, let me be clear that I believe the McCains love their daughter Bridget very much, and that she has had a far better life as a result of their love and kindness than she could have ever imagined in Bangladesh. That being said, the Christian Science Monitor reported today Watchdogs make it harder for politicians to stretch the truth | csmonitor.com:

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 on that trip. (Once contacted by the Monitor, the campaign revised the story on its website.)

* * *

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.

A 1991 article in the Arizona Star at the time of the adoption only mentions that the children were from an orphanage that was started by Mother Teresa. It does not mention a meeting with Mother Teresa or her asking McCain to bring the girls to the US.

According to biographies of Mother Teresa, in 1991 she was in Mexico where she developed medical problems. From there, she went to a hospital in La Jolla, Calif.

A McCain source acknowledged that Cindy McCain did not meet Mother Teresa during the 1991 trip to Bangladesh but said McCain did meet her later on, although the source could not say when or where. The campaign has since reworded the reference to the adoption on its website.

(The December 25, 1991 Arizona Daily Star article is reproduced below the fold).

As Paul Harvey would say, "and now the rest of the story." For Cindy’s account of her experience in Bangladesh and bringing home Bridget see Cindy McCain: Myth vs. Reality – Bazaar.com. Cindy tells a slightly different version of the airport scene than John told:

By the time she landed in the United States, Cindy "realized I couldn’t give up this child" and called her husband, telling him about her charges and asking him to meet her at the airport. "When I disembarked carrying Bridget, John said, under his breath, ‘Where’s she going?’ I said, ‘To our house.’ He laughed. ‘I thought so.’" She chuckles. "I brought home a baby without telling him, and he not only took it in stride but loved it, immediately embracing Bridget, who shares John’s very dry sense of humor, so she and her dad do pretty well together. If I hadn’t taken Bridget out, I think she would have become a prostitute or, worse, died."

The adoption was not without controversy.  The Arizona Daily Star reported on August 26, 1994, Lawyer denies allegation Mrs. McCain asked ex-worker to lie during adoption (no link):

"Cindy McCain did not ask Mr. Gosinski to misrepresent any facts in the adoption proceedings for Bridget McCain,” said attorney John Dowd in a statement. “Specifically, Cindy McCain did not ask Mr. Gosinski to testify that Bridget’s father had died in a rickshaw accident, as he has alleged.”

* * *

The Maricopa County Juvenile Court ended up approving the adoption without proof of the father’s death, instead determining the father abandoned the baby.

(Tom Gosinski had sued Cindy McCain for wrongful termination from her charity organization and threatened to expose Cindy’s theft of prescription pain-killers from her medical-aid charity before she publicly confessed to her addiction to pain-killers in 1994. See Phoenix New Times reporting).

But wait, you ask, what happened to the second baby Cindy brought home to the U.S.?  She was adopted by McCain’s administrative assistant, Wes Gullett.  Getting to Know John McCain – WSJ.com  "We were called at midnight by Cindy," Wes Gullett remembers, and "five days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport wearing the only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she bought in the Bangkok airport." Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr. Gullett told me, "I never saw a hospital bill" for her care.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: In an earlier post I discussed how the blogosphere was abuzz about John McCain’s "cross in the dirt" story he told at the Saddleback civil forum on Saturday (and wrote about in his book, Faith of My Fathers).  It turns out the story may be just an urban legend of several origins … Read more

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