Perot vs. McCain … Did newspaper lift quote?
11:38 AM Fri, Jun 13, 2008 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Nicole Stockdale E-mail Suggest a blog topic

perot.JPGThere’s a quote floating around the Interwebs this week from Ross Perot that slams John McCain (from London’s Mail on Sunday newspaper, posted June 8):

But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.

‘McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory,’ he said.

‘After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.’

That sounded familiar to me. I swore that I had read it before. So I went digging, and I came up with this excerpt of an interview Perot gave to Jonathan Alter, a senior editor and all-around political guru at Newsweek (posted Jan. 16):

Just days before the South Carolina GOP primary, he wants me to know that McCain “is the classic opportunist–he’s always reaching for attention and glory. Other POWs won’t even sit at the same table with him.” …

mccain.JPGThe Perot-McCain relationship goes back to McCain’s five and a half years of captivity in Hanoi. When McCain’s then-wife Carol was in a serious car accident, McCain’s mother called Perot for help. “She asked me to send my people to Philadelphia to take care of the family,” Perot says. Afterwards, McCain was grateful. “We loved him [Perot] for it,” McCain told me in 2000.

Perot doesn’t remember it that way. “After he came home, he walked with a limp, she [Carol McCain] walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona [Cindy McCain, his current wife] and the rest is history.”

So, yes, great quote, Daily Mail — when I read it unaltered the first time, six months ago.

And I ~~~Will Follow Through~~~