HOW SLIPPERY AND UNTUSTWORTHY IS McCAIN?

I don't think the corporate media, John McCain's base, will cover it the way they covered the Clinton's tax returns a couple weeks ago, but the sly way McCain "released" his taxes is demonstrative of the sly way he has run his entire deceptive political career. When he was caught taking bribes from a close family friend, crooked banker Charles Keating, early on in his career he claimed he had never gained anything financially from his relationship with Keating. That was a lie on many levels but one had to do with lucrative investments the McCain's were able to make  in some Keating projects. Except, it wasn't John McCain who made the investments. It was some other McCain... proving, of course, he didn't benefit. The "other" McCain was Cindy McCain.

Cindy's fortune has financed McCain's climb to power from his very first run for Congress. Today when he "released" his tax returns, they were just his tax returns, not Cindy's. Most of the commotion over Hillary's tax returns was, of course, over the money Bill Clinton had earned. Hillary did what all presidential candidates do: she released the joint tax return. Barack Obama did the same thing. In fact, since 1976 every Democrat and every Republican but Reagan released 5 years of joint tax returns. Do you recall Republican Party chairman Ed Gillespie screaming his head off in righteous indignation in 2004 that Teresa Heinz Kerry must release her tax returns? She did. Gillespie:

"Throughout history, presidential candidates have disclosed income tax information prior to Election Day. We believe Americans value disclosure and transparency in campaigns. During the 2003 filing year, Sen. Kerry made a $6 million loan to his campaign based on the value of a home jointly owned with his wife."

Cindy McCain may not have ever actually worked but she inherited as much as $100 million dollars from her father's alcoholic beverages distribution network. McCain has made it clear that that pile of money-- the family's real wealth-- will not come under public scrutiny. Something tells me Chris Matthews and David Broder have no intention of pulling their heads out of McCain's ass long enough to ask him about that. And the excuse the McCain's use for keeping the family wealth secret? It would violate their children's privacy; they actually say that. But it's a lie, like most of what comes out of McCain's slick mouth. Unfortunately for them, "Tom Ochsenschlager, vice president of taxation at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, said releasing Cindy McCain's tax returns wouldn't violate the children's privacy because details of investments affecting them would be on forms filed by a separate trust."