Bush smeared Mac in 2000 - is this true?

Yes, I know this will upset some people. Being a patriot first, I never once spoke ill of Dubya while he was in office but, now that Mac's headed to the WH, I feel that I can finally confess that I never liked either of the Bushes.

The anatomy of a smear campaign:

Having run Senator John McCain's campaign for president, I can recount a textbook example of a smear made against McCain in South Carolina during the 2000 presidential primary. We had just swept into the state from New Hampshire, where we had racked up a shocking, 19-point win over the heavily favored George W. Bush. What followed was a primary campaign that would make history for its negativity.

In South Carolina, Bush Republicans were facing an opponent who was popular for his straight talk and Vietnam war record. They knew that if McCain won in South Carolina, he would likely win the nomination. With few substantive differences between Bush and McCain, the campaign was bound to turn personal. The situation was ripe for a smear.

It didn't take much research to turn up a seemingly innocuous fact about the McCains: John and his wife, Cindy, have an adopted daughter named Bridget. Cindy found Bridget at Mother Theresa's orphanage in Bangladesh, brought her to the United States for medical treatment, and the family ultimately adopted her. Bridget has dark skin.

Anonymous opponents used "push polling" to suggest that McCain's Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the "pollster" determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator.

Thus, the "pollsters" asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black. In the conservative, race-conscious South, that's not a minor charge. We had no idea who made the phone calls, who paid for them, or how many calls were made. Effective and anonymous: the perfect smear campaign.

Some aspects of this smear were hardly so subtle. Bob Jones University professor Richard Hand sent an e-mail to "fellow South Carolinians" stating that McCain had "chosen to sire children without marriage." It didn't take long for mainstream media to carry the charge. CNN interviewed Hand and put him on the spot: "Professor, you say that this man had children out of wedlock. He did not have children out of wedlock." Hand replied, "Wait a minute, that's a universal negative. Can you prove that there aren't any?"

Actually it was Rove who engineered the smear but Bush okayed it. I am no fan of Rove. The man's a snake. He drummed up "wedge issues" like anti-gay crap but his own father is a fag who lives in Hollywood - but he gets on with his dad fine when it suits him.

Yes. I know that all's fair in love, war and politics but...

Anyway, I can console myself that I did not vote for Bush in 2000. My favorite candidate was Mac and, when he didn't win, I simply could not bring myself to vote for Bush. 9/11 wiped that silly frat boy smirk off Dubya's face and so I voted for him in 2004 but I never was that much of a fan so I finally feel vindicated by Mac's nomination.

There's more here: Bridget McCain & the Dirty George Bush 2000 Campaign.