{OT:} Cindy Bailed out McCain's Gambling Debt

The more you know about McCain the more frightening he becomes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-posner/the-questions-for-perot-a_b_130277.html

Gerald Posner
Posted September 29, 2008 | 02:00 PM (EST)

The Questions for Perot about McCain and Gambling

Yesterday's New York Times front-page investigative story about John
McCain's long time ties to the nation's gambling industry ("For McCain
and Team, a Host of Ties to Gambling"), jogged my memory about an
unsettling bit of information I was given by Ross Perot in 1995.

In November 1995, my wife and fellow author, Trisha, and I,
interviewed Perot for several days for an unauthorized biography
(Citizen Perot: His Life & Times, Random House, 1996). During one of
our conversations, outside of the 'on the record' taped interviews,
Perot discussed with us how he had utilized private investigators to
uncover information about other people. Perot never used, from what I
could determine, any of the personal details he assembled about
others. Rather, he was merely a collector of information, never
knowing when it might come in useful.

I discussed this with my editor, Bob Loomis. Without independent
reporting, much of it was no more than informed gossip. Perot had
passed along personal details about Barbara Walters family, Clinton
chief of staff Leon Penneta, and business tycoon Peter Ueberroth,
someone Perot had seriously considered as a vice-presidential
candidate in his own 1992 presidential run.

From our interviews with Perot about the Vietnam POW/MIA issue, it was
clear there was no love lost between Perot and a number of public
officials who opposed his efforts to keep looking for soldiers he
believed had been left behind and were alive. On Perot's most disliked
list was George Herbert Bush, who as Reagan's vice-president had shut
the door to any further government probe on the matter. Richard
Armitage, George W. Bush's ex-deputy Secretary of State, had earned
Perot's eternal animosity because of his conclusion that there were no
MIAs left in Southeast Asia. And the final person to earn Perot's
enmity was John McCain, who as a decorated war hero, and then Senator,
had also closed the door to any further MIA investigations.

Bob Loomis and I decided that I should not report Perot's personal
details about these men and women, with two exceptions. Regarding
Ueberroth, I wrote in Citizen Perot that one Perot campaign insider
had concluded that "Ueberroth was the perfect match," but that "Perot
and Mort Meyerson (Perot's top business executive at EDS) personally
made inquiries about him and eventually opted for a stand-in
candidate."

And as for Armitage, Perot's information was so detailed, including
even surveillance photos of Armitage in supposedly compromising
situations, I did report it. And Armitage was generous in giving me
extensive interviews that helped explain the background and put into
context Perot's one man war on him.

I am only reporting now Perot's rumor/information about McCain because
of today's New York Times story. Perot told me that McCain had a
gambling problem and he had uncovered details that McCain was bailed
out in the late 1980s from a big gambling debt by his wife, Cindy.

If true, it raises a question as to whether McCain's gambling might
ever have put him in a situation where he was pressed to repay his
debt through Senatorial favors.

An enterprising reporter has to ask Ross Perot if he will acknowledge
what he shared with me 14 years ago, and if so, if he will now provide
the evidence to back up the assertion. Perot hasn't talked to me since
I published my unauthorized biography, so unfortunately, I am not the
person to ask. And some reporter should ask McCain, directly, if he
has ever had a gambling debt that his wife had to pay off. American
voters have a right to know.

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