John McCain’s daughter Meghan will be coming out with a children’s book based on the life of her father; the book will be published by Simon and Schuster just in time for the Republican National Convention in September. Meghan McCain, known to some as a blogger, said in a prepared statement that “I am truly excited about the opportunity to write a children's book about my father, who is not only a fantastic dad, but also a great American.”
That’s great, and while it’s clear that this will be a cleaned and scrubbed version of her Dad’s American-ness, there are obviously things that won’t be included. Here are a few samples of what you won’t be reading in the book:
1. When Daddy first met Mom, he was already married. But it’s okay, because his old wife was crippled and poor.
2. The Keating Five was a band that Daddy was in back in the 80s. He doesn’t like to talk about it very much, but I remember him yelling a lot about Keating singing like a canary.
3. Daddy wasn’t born in Arizona, but he still got elected to its 1st Congressional District barely two years after he moved there. People called him a carpetbagger, but his war record sustained him. Good thing this was before Swiftboating!
4. Daddy has pet names for Mommy, but they’re not names that should ever be repeated outside the house, or from the mouths of children, and especially not in front of journalists.
5. Having a nickname like “McNasty” in high-school wasn’t so much about his swearing tirades and insulting manner, but was more like “McLovin” from Superbad. Which makes him sort of cool, right?
6. He decided to call his bus the Straight Talk Express in 2004, but couldn’t do that in 2008 because fewer people could see it and not laugh out loud.
7. But all daddies tease their wives and daughters about “plastering the make-up on like a trollop,” don’t they?
8. Daddy used to criticize Jerry Fallwell as being an “agent of intolerance,” but that was before Daddy understood the importance of the religious right to any national Republican campaign strategy, and realized that intolerance wasn’t actually as bad as losing.
9. Flip flopping sounds fun, but it’s got nothing to do with trampolines when reporters talk about it. In that case, they’re talking about boring stuff like the Bush Tax Cuts or Roe vs. Wade.
10. After all, torture isn’t so bad if it’s performed by the good guys! -- Teague Bohlen
