Cindy McCain: "Kiss My Grits"
by Jean Carnahan

Don’t you have to applaud those White House contenders who think that there is any area of their lives—financial, personal, or religious—that is exempt from public scrutiny?

Well, give a hand to the latest politician’s wife to thumb her nose at the media. Cindy McCain, the multimillionaire “Queen of Beer,” has defiantly set her jaw and denied all requests to release her personal tax returns.  She told Ann Curry on NBC’s Today Show that she would “never” consider making such a revelation—not now, and not even if her husband were elected president!  It’s a “privacy issue,” she cooed.

           Such defiance would ordinarily cause the media to raise their collective eyebrows, stomp their little feet, and wonder what was being hidden from them.  As you remember, Teresa Heinz Kerry was hounded until she was forced to divulge all.

           The Washington Times and Washington Post have called upon Mrs. McCain to come clean.  No word yet from the Wall Street Journal--though they called for the release of Mrs. Kerry’s tax records in 2004.

It’s not just a case of public nosiness that drives this demand.  Americans ought to know just how much the McCains have benefited from the Bush tax cuts and to what extent they make use of tax shelters. 

Having watched the McCain duo on the campaign trail, I now think the public perception of the couple is all wrong.  John is not the straight-talking, maverick he would have us think he is.  His current pandering makes him little more than a sock puppet of George Bush and Rev. Hagee. 

I’m thinking that we’ve misread Cindy, too.  She is not just a cardboard cutout of the perfectly attired and coiffured political wife that some suspected.  She may turn out to be one of those Western “kiss my grits” cowgirls, who knows how to stand her ground on things that matter—like say, money.

I’ll bet’cha a Bud that she gets away with it.

As we await the outcome, look for the McCain campaign to entertain us with a protracted chorus of “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”