Not sure if this story is true. (There is evidence that the McCains holidayed at Turtle Island in 1999.)
UPDATE: A comment on this post from Gregg Smith states that the supposed author of this post does not really exist. I can’t find the author via Google. Seems it is a smear campaign. But I’ll leave up the post as an example of a “dirty trick” dreamed up by an anti-McCain zealot.
OOPS. Another comment substantiates that ANASUYA DUBEY is a real person.
Perhaps the story is true, after all.
But it’s the single post I’ve read that makes me most wish that John McCain fades gracelessly into the sunset after losing the election.
My Holiday with McCain
By ANASUYA DUBEY
It was just before John McCain’s last run at the presidential nomination in 2000 that my husband and I vacationed in Turtle Island in Fiji with John McCain, Cindy, and their children, including Bridget (their adopted Bangladeshi child).
It was not our intention, but it was our misfortune to be in close quarters with John McCain for almost a week since Turtle Island has a small number of bungalows and their focus on communal meals force all vacationers who are there at the same time to get to know each other intimately.
He arrived at our first group meal and started reading quotes from a pile of William Faulkner books with a forest of Post-Its sticking out of them. As an English Literature major myself, my first thought was “if he likes this so much, why hasn’t he memorized any of this yet?” I soon realized that McCain actually thought we had come on vacation to be a volunteer audience for his “readings” which then became a regular part of each meal. Out of politeness, none of the vacationers initially protested at this intrusion into their blissful holiday, but people’s buttons definitely got pushed as the readings continued day after day.
Unfortunately this was not his only contribution to our mealtime entertainment. He waxed on during one meal about how Indo-Chinese women had the best figures and that our American corn-fed women just couldn’t meet up to this standard. He also made it a point that all of us should stop Cindy from having dessert as her weight was too high and made a few comments to Amy, the 25 year old wife of the honeymooning couple from Nebraska that she should eat less as she needed to lose weight.
McCain’s appreciation of the beauty of Asian women was so great that David the American economist had to move his Thai wife to the other side of the table from McCain as McCain kept aggressively flirting with and touching her.
Needless to say I was irritated at his large ego, and his rude behavior towards his wife and other women, but decided he must have some redeeming qualities as he had adopted a handicapped child from Bangladesh. I asked him about this one day and his response was shocking –”Oh, that was Cindy’s idea – I didn’t have anything to do with it. She just went and adopted this thing without even asking me. You can’t imagine how people stare when I wheel this ugly, black thing around in a shopping cart in Arizona. No, it wasn’t my idea at all.”
I actively avoided McCain after that, but unfortunately one day he engaged me in a political discussion which soon got us on the topic of the active US bombing of Iraq at that time. I was shocked when he said “if I was in charge, I would nuke Iraq to teach them a lesson”. Given McCain’s personal experience with the horrors of war I had expected a more balanced point of view. I commented on the tragic consequences of the nuclear attacks on Japan during WWII – but no, he was not to be dissuaded. He went on to say that if it was up to him he would have dropped many more nuclear bombs on Japan. I rapidly extricated myself from this conversation as I could tell that his experience being tortured as a POW didn’t seem to have mellowed out his perspective but rather had made him more aggressive, and vengeful towards the world.
My final encounter with McCain was on the morning that he was leaving Turtle Island. Amy and I were happily eating pancakes when McCain arrived and told Amy that she shouldn’t be having pancakes because she needed to lose weight. Amy burst into tears at this abusive comment. I felt fiercely protective of Amy and immediately turned to McCain and told him to leave her alone. He became very angry and abusive towards me, and said “don’t you know who I am” and I looked him in the face and said “yes, you are the biggest asshole I have ever met” and headed back to my cabin. I am happy to say that later that day when I arrived at lunch I was given a standing ovation by all the guests for having stood up to McCain’s bullying.
Although I have shared my McCain story informally with friends, this is the first time I am making this public. I almost did so in 2000, when McCain first announced his bid for the Republican nomination but it soon became apparent that George Bush was the shoo-in candidate and so I did not act then. However, now that there is a very real possibility that McCain could be elected as our next president, I feel it is my duty as an American citizen to share this story. I can’t imagine a more scary outcome for America than that this abusive, aggressive man should lead our nation. I have observed him in intimate surroundings as he really is, not how the media portrays him to be. If his attitudes toward women, and his treatment of his own family are even a small indicator of his real personality, then I shudder to think what will happen to America were he to be elected as our President.
Anasuya Dubey is a clinical psychologist in California.
Thanks Dana.
The image of McCain was posted by a fellow P.O.W. named Phillip Butler who calls John McCain a “HotHead”& NeoCon Who Shouldn’t Be Prez” and a “Racist Bush”.
Rick McCharles 
This story seems to be a hoax. There is no Anasura Dubey, the alleged author, in the California telephone directory. (If she is a clinical psychology she would be easy to find.)
The story may be ‘true’ symbolically, but there is no evidence it is true. Speading it will only hurt the Obama campaign.
GS
Yea, I’m so sure he would make comments about his Indian daughter and other Asian women to an INDIAN woman!!!
He may be outspoken, but he’s not a complete idiot. He knows that whatever he says will be quoted as a known politician
. When I see the “real” Dubey (who apparently has not address or office in SF and does not seem to really exist) on tv saying this with witnesses from this supposed holiday, then I will see it as credible. Please stop spreading such defamation and garbage without any real substantiation.
Check out this link to the Gradpsych magazine March 2005 issue
>http:gradpsych.apags.org/Mar05/cover-parttime.html
The last third of the article quotes Anasuya Dubey, explaining why she took a part-time internship in San Francisco while she is writing her dissertation.
Mr. Smith:
There is an internet search device called “google.” You may have heard of it.
Anyway, if you “google” Anasuya Dubey, you will indeed discover she is a real person.
So, it seems your “logic” that “if she is a clinical psychology she would be easy to find” is not only faulty, and ungrammatical, but also wrong.
FYI, I have been trying to disprove the McCain vacation story, through internet research, for a couple of weeks now.
If you, Gregg Smith, can come up with actual evidence, not fallacious logic, of its falsity, please inform me: mcshane@pacific.net.
I’m trying to confirm this. I just received this same story via e-mail, but the supposed author is Mary-Kay Gamel, Professor of Classics, Comparative Literature, and Theater Arts Cowell College, University of California, Santa Cruz. She does exist on the web at UC Santa Cruz. The fact that this story is attributed to at least two people makes me doubt its authenticity.
I too was/am quite suspicious of this “eye-witness” account, but to clarify: the e-mail was sent by Anasuya Duvey (a real person) but the letter was written by a friend of hers: Mary-Kay Gamel (also a real person. Frankly I believe the sanitized version of John McCain is scary enough – and we don’t need this to convince us to vote against this trigger-happy maverick. His actions in the past month should compel conservatives and liberals alike to join together and cast their ballots in favor of a less gut-reactive, more calm, informed, and thoughtful governing style, which Barack Obama has certainly demonstrated throughout this entire election process.
My firm uses a search engine called Locateplus and, according to the results from that site, there is an ANASUYA DUBEY living at 499 MARINA BLVD APT 303, SAN FRANCISCO, California.
The description of McCain’s personality in this story is very similar to the description that I have heard from a former member of Congress who knows him well. This is not the person we want making life and death decisions for our troops or our country, let alone civil rights or judicial appointments.
I sent an email to Mary-Kay Gamel who responded to me that she was NOT the author but had simply forwarded the story to friends.
Mark,
Either name the former member or shut up. If your source is going to talk, he or she should have the guts to say it “to his face” to coin a phrase. Also, until you produce two eye witnesses, you are as guilty as the people you denounce for defaming Obama.
Hello everybody. I can say nothing about Turtle Island story but I am here to say that Anasuya Dubey exists, her father Sushil Dubey is a great diplomat. I worked with him in Brazil at the Indian Embassy in the early 70s for 3 years.I´ve been posting wherever I see this story because I´d be more than delighted to hear from her. I really loved that family.