> McCain's Mean Streak: He Only Pushed One Woman in a Wheelchair
>
> Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, Firedoglake at 4:17 AM on September 9,
> 2008.
>
> What's the big deal? It was only one.
>
> On Sunday, McClatchy chronicled some of John McCain's most notorious
> temper tantrums:
>
> There's a lengthy list of similar outbursts through the years: McCain
> pushing a woman in a wheelchair, trying to get an Arizona Republican
> aide fired from three different jobs, berating a young GOP activist on
> the night of his own 1986 Senate election and many more.
>
> McCain observers say the incidents have been blown out of proportion.
>
> Yeah, a senator pushes just one woman in a wheelchair and suddenly
> it's a big deal.
>
> Tom Harkin has the best line in the McClatchy story:
>
> "Look, around here, people lose their tempers once in a while. But it
> doesn't happen very often, and it usually happens in some contextual
> framework. A lot of times there's just not much of a contextual
> framework for his blowing up."
>
> More on the wheelchair incident:
>
> Six people present have written statements describing what they saw.
> According to the accounts, McCain waved his hand to shoo away
> Jeannette Jenkins, whose cousin was last seen in South Vietnam in
> 1970, causing her to hit a wall.
>
> As McCain continued walking, Jane Duke Gaylor, the mother of another
> missing serviceman, approached the senator. Gaylor, in a wheelchair
> equipped with portable oxygen, stretched her arms toward McCain.
>
> "McCain stopped, glared at her, raised his left arm ready to strike
> her, composed himself and pushed the wheelchair away from him,"
> according to Eleanor Apodaca, the sister of an Air Force captain
> missing since 1967.
>
> McCain's staff wouldn't respond to requests for comment about specific
> incidents.
>
> Digby has more on the potential implications of McCain's mean streak.
>
> Lindsay Beyerstein a New York writer blogging at Majikthise.