Anybody who has tried to play the “family values” drinking game during televised McCain/Palin rallies has probably found themselves in a disappointing state of sobriety.

Why are they silent on this usually exciting buzz phrase? Because to repeat it would expose them to the media’s embarrassing spotlight and the hypocrisy it would reveal.

Let’s expose John McCain first. Carol, his devoted starter wife, was nearly killed in a car wreck on Christmas Eve, 1969. This near-death experience left her permanently scarred and crippled, despite the 3 years of agonizing surgery she had to endure. Her modelesque beauty destroyed, Carol nonetheless withheld the tragic news of her accident from John in order to help him survive his torturous internment in a Vietcong death camp.

Upon his return from Vietnam, John McCain was horrified to discover that his trophy wife had become a hideous gimp. He thanked Carol for her compassion by cheating on, and then abandoning, her and their three children for his new mistress, whose comparative beauty, youth, and ridiculous wealth he had somehow come to appreciate.

So yes, here are John McCain’s “family values”. And John McCain seems to share my bleak assessment of them. Or at least, he did when he wrote the following in his memoir: “my marriage’s collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity…I cannot escape blame”.