Cindy McCain Helping, Michele Obama Still Not Very Proud...

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/cindy_mccain/2008/06/19/105873.html

Cindy McCain Blasts Myanmar's Leaders

Thursday, June 19, 2008

HANOI, Vietnam -- Cindy McCain harshly criticized Myanmar's military
junta Thursday while vowing to make improving human rights there a
priority if she becomes America's next first lady.

Taking a cue from current first lady Laura Bush, who has also been a
sharp critic of human rights abuses in Myanmar, the wife of presumed
Republican presidential nominee John McCain said Myanmar leaders don't
value human life.

"It's just a terrible group of people that rule the country, and the
frightening part is that their own people are dying of disease and
starvation and everything else and it doesn't matter," Cindy McCain
said during a trip to Vietnam, where she has worked with a charity
that helps children born with facial deformities. "I don't understand
how human life doesn't matter to somebody. But clearly, it doesn't
matter to them."

She was traveling in Asia this week to showcase her charity work and
get a close-up look at relief efforts helping victims of last month's
devastating cyclone in Myanmar, otherwise known as Burma.

She said she didn't even bother trying to get an entry visa to
Myanmar, knowing it would likely be denied by the secretive
government. Instead, the U.N. World Food Program in Thailand will
brief her about its work on Friday.

Cyclone Nargis killed more than 78,000 people and left another 56,000
missing, according to the government, which has turned away aid
offered by the United States and other countries.

Cindy McCain has visited Myanmar twice, including once when her
husband met with pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in detention for more than 12 of the
past 18 years.

"The whole human rights issue in general comes down to things that
move me the most," she said. "I'm a mother first and I cannot imagine
what it would be like if No. 1, I couldn't feed my children and two,
they were sick and No. 3, I was raped in the process. This whole issue
is something that, yes, I would stay involved in."

Separately, Cindy McCain said the stir she caused in the presidential
race earlier this year when she took exception to a comment by the
wife of her husband's Democratic rival, Barack Obama, was unplanned
and not a political ploy.

After Michelle Obama said in February that for the first time in her
adult life she was proud of the United States, Cindy McCain pointedly
said: "I have, and always will be, proud of my country."

Asked about her response to Michelle Obama's comment, Cindy McCain
said in a CNN in an interview aired Thursday, "No, it wasn't a
political opening, there was nothing planned."

"I'm an emotional woman when it comes to service to our country," she
said. "I've watched many people's children leave and go serve. This is
something that is the fiber of the McCain family. It was nothing more
than me saying, 'Look, I believe in this country so strongly.' I think
she's a fine woman, a good mother, and we're both in an interesting
line of work right now."

She further explained in an interview aired Thursday on ABC's "Good
Morning America:" "It wasn't about being insulted at all. I don't know
why she said that _ everyone has their own experience. I don't know
why she said what she said. All I know is that I've always been proud
of my country."

Cindy McCain also showed her softer side Thursday while visiting the
Vietnamese coastal town of Nha Trang where about 100 children born
with cleft palates and cleft lips were awaiting free plastic surgery
provided by the U.S. charity Operation Smile. The procedures will take
place offshore on one of the U.S. Navy's floating hospitals, the USNS
Mercy.

Cindy McCain has made several trips to the communist country where her
husband was shot down during the Vietnam War and held for more than
five years as a prisoner of war.

"This is what I do, and this is what revitalizes me, personally," she
said. "The campaign is extremely important, of course, but this is
also important to me, and so you try to balance everything."

Cindy McCain has been actively involved with Operation Smile since
2001 and is a member of its board of directors.

She has a special connection to Vietnam because she and her husband
first helped a baby, Phuoc Thi Le, receive reconstructive surgery on
her cleft palate and cleft lip in 1997 after a chance meeting with the
girl's uncle in Arizona. Cindy McCain reunited with Le, now 11, during
her one-day visit.

The McCains later adopted a daughter from Bangladesh who also was born
with a facial deformity.

"When you see a child anywhere, say a child that doesn't have food or
a child with a cleft palate who's been kept in a back room because the
family is embarrassed or whatever it may be, it takes you back to
really what's basic and what's really important," Cindy McCain said.

She also plans to visit Cambodia to participate in charity work there.
.

Quantcast