A Little Less Local

Via Nancy Nall, here's an account of a narrow escape:

McCain fields audience question on whether he called wife an expletive

A Clive man drew gasps from fellow audience members at today’s presidential candidate forum by using a four-letter word in a question to Sen. John McCain.

A member of the audience, identified as Marty Parrish of Clive, asked McCain during the event at the Polk County Convention Complex about a rumor that McCain had once used a profane word referencing female genitalia to describe his wife.

A book, “The Real McCain” by Cliff Schecter, accuses McCain of using the word in an exchange with his wife, Cindy, in 1992.


Here’s a transcript of today’s remarks:

PARRISH: This question goes to mental health and mental health care. Previously, I’ve been married to a woman that was verbally abusive to me. Is it true that you called your wife a (expletive)?

MCCAIN: Now, now. You don’t want to … Um, you know that’s the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don’t, there’s people here who don’t respect that kind of language. So I’ll move on to the next questioner in the back.

The audience gasped at the question and applauded at McCain’s handling of it. Parrish was escorted from the event and questioned by Secret Service, but not charged. Parrish had checked in to the event as a member of the press.

Parrish, a 45-year-old Baptist minister and technology business owner, said he attended the event specifically to confront McCain about the rumor.

“This is about character,” Parrish said, when reached by telephone afterward. “And in a moment of intemperance, he called his wife the most despicable name a person can call a woman.

I guess what interested me here was not the business of Old Man Bombs Away being called on his famously psychotic conduct, so much as it was the little bit at the end of the story about how Mr. Parrish was "escorted from the event" -- fair enough, I suppose -- and "questioned by the Secret Service." Once again, what the hell sort of police state are we living in these days, anyway?

At least, as far as we know now, they didn't hand out some summary Taser punishment. Maybe they were feeling kind of lazy and logged up on Krispy Kremes, or something.