Report: McCain once joked of woman enjoying rape
Blogs unearth 1986 joke by GOP candidate
John McCain's salty tongue and sometimes inartful sense of humor have haunted the Republican presidential nominee on the campaign trail.
Add another alleged gaffe to the list of embarrassments.
The blog Rum, Romanism and Rebellion unearthed a 1986 newspaper article reporting an insensitive and sexist joke McCain was said to have made.
Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’
Women's groups slammed McCain at the time for making the joke; it remains to be seen how much its reemergence will hurt the Republicans' ongoing attempts to woo women voters.
When the article first appeared, McCain's campaign denied he had made the joke, but the reporter who wrote the article stands by the story.
Earlier this year, McCain had to distance himself from a prominent fundraiser, Clayton Williams, when reporters unearthed Williams' own rape joke from years earlier.
The 1986 joke is not the only misogynistic statement from McCain's past to haunt him this year. Reports also have emerged that he called his wife a vulgar insult in 1992.
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