McCain's character seriously called into question; Ross Perot says he is "unusually slick and cruel"

[Update]: I'm reposting this here, with a new title, because it's of a piece with Josh Marshall's and Andrew Sullivan's comments on McCain's mendacious claims to "character" as reported by Chiaroscuro here. It's one thing when your enemies call you a sh**, but it's news when your friends do!!

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Ross Perot says McCain is "unusually slick and cruel." The quote comes toward the end of a link from a link Chiaroscuro gave you in Attack, attack, attack!

This is the article, "The wife John McCain callously left behind", from London's Daily Mail.

Some of McCain’s acquaintances...portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife [Carol McCain] to "play the field." They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

[snip]

And yet despite his popularity as a politician, there are those who won’t forget his treatment of his first wife.

Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights, said: "I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit.

"When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.

"Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better.

"This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol."

And Perot:

But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.

"McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory," he said.

"After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history."

[Emphasis mine]