Britain's Daily Mail this weekend tackled head-on an issue most U.S. papers have danced around: John McCain's first wife, Carol, who faithfully raised his children and awaited his return from a North Vietnamese prison. Unfortunately, she was in a terrible car accident while McCain was a P.O.W., and the doctors had to cut away at her leg bones and pump her full of medication, making her both shorter and fatter than the swimsuit model she had once been. McCain bought her a beach house, ran around with other women and left her for his current wife, Cindy, then 25 and rich.

Carol moved out of the beach house because she couldn't really get to it easily without John's help, what with her legs and all. Carol blames herself for the marriage's breakup, and has a McCain bumper sticker on her car, but former presidential candidate Ross Perot is pissed, as are some veterans not unlike the ones who dogged Democratic candidate John Kerry in 2004.

Stateside, the Daily News picked up the story this morning, which begs the question of whether other publications will follow suit. After all, supporters of onetime Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee tried to deploy the Carol issue against McCain in South Carolina earlier this year.

Or perhaps the story will just fizzle out. After all, McCain seems to be doing fine with former Hillary Clinton supporters these days, despite that terrible Chelsea joke he coined.

(Image via Daily Mail)