Why is John McCain's right eye always so much more open than his left eye?

[Leo 9]

What could be wrong with him to cause that, or is he just doing a reverse Popeye?

[LisaM]

1. It's probably his puffy left cheek

Pushing up on the eye. I know, I know, I shouldn't make personal comments, but it's hard to resist on this one.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

2. Forest Whitaker syndrome?

[Blue_Roses]

33. I was wondering about that?

what happened to Forest Whitaker...seriously?

[Starbucks Anarchist]

49. It's called ptosis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptosis_ (eyelid)

Apparently, Thom Yorke from Radiohead has it, too.

[BrotherBuzz]

3. He's had a bit of surgery to the left of his left eye

[LakeSamish706]

4. I think it stems from the melanoma skin cancer that he had... Just my guess! n/t

[grannylib]

5. Probably due to surgical scars; he had surgery on the left side

of his face and has quite a scar on that side.

[Leo 9]

9. You can really see how the scar shifts his face in this picture of him and Cindy with Jack Abramoff.

[southerncrone]

12. Perfect depiction! LOL

[Recursion]

6. Melanoma surgery

Not to be Debbie Downer or anything..

[Acadia Blue]

7. surgery...scar tissue pulls on eye

[QueenOfCalifornia]

8. toothpicks

on that one side holding his eye open....

Nah, it's scar tissue.

[Cleita]

10. I have the same problem.

I had an eye injury and stitches on my left eye way back when I was young. As I grew old the skin around the stitching started sagging making one of my eyes look less open than the other. It's starting to "shade" my vision in that eye, so I think I can get it repaired now through Medicare. They wouldn't do it before because it was considered cosmetic, but now that it's starting to impair my vision they can fix it. I don't know McCain's excuse though. Surely Cindy could have given him some money to correct it.

[lonestarnot]

11. He's lumpy. Lumpy McSame.

[southerncrone]

13. Could be

some of the damage from his torture as a POW, or

I suspect he has had a stroke & part of his face is paralyzed.

When I saw a snippet of one of his speeches today, it looked like he was having a mini stroke during the speech. (Don't recall where he was, only that I noticed his odd stopping in mid-sentence.)

[C_U_L8R]

14. cover over half his face - what do you see?

his left side (our right side) looks fairly normal, considering.
his right side looks like a scared demon child hungry for brrrrraaaaains.

[A Brand New World]

15. Ok since we're talking about McCain's body, I have a question.

Why does it look like his arms are so short? Is this from the torture? He just has a very odd body.

[rox63]

29. His arms were broken when he was taken prisoner

And his captors wouldn't reset the bones. So he has limited mobility in his arms. And I wouldn't be suprised if the damage had also shortened them.

[tuckessee]

43. I believe his arms were broken when bailing out.

Not when taken prisoner.

[libodem]

31. I believe that it is from the POW experiences

His shoulders were dislocated from having his hands tied behind his back and then being hung up by them. The same goes for the facial disfigurement. I recall he was badly beaten. We shouldn't poke fun at this tragic situation. I think the OP was just wondering why he looks different. The last comments are for general consumption and not directed toward your question. Just in case it sounds like I was being critical of your particular post. I'm not.

[A Brand New World]

55. That's what I thought.

I figured it must be from being tortured as a POW. I really wasn't meaning to be making light of his horrific experiences, just trying to clarify what I figured was the case. I had never really heard details.

[noamnety]

16. It might just be genetic.

Runs in my family, same eye.

And to all the folks making fun of that like you're on the playground pointing your fingers and name calling cause someone doesn't look "perfect" enough for you: FU.

[lonestarnot]

17. Well I hate those fucking yellow corn kernel teeth and FU too!

[noamnety]

18. I think maybe I don't get "progressive" values.

Is it really about mocking people over physical flaws?

I just ... I dunno, I don't even see that as a flaw, unless it interferes with his life in some way. My dad had to have surgery for his eye, because it got to the point where the droopy lid interfered with some of his vision.

It just didn't occur to me that grown adults would be pointing fingers at people like my father, calling him popeye or lumpy, or stuff like that.

This is part of the reason I don't hang out on DU too much anymore, and when I do, it's often in the gardening forum. Sometimes it's incredibly discouraging to see the level of hate that people hold for anyone that doesn't act, look, speak just right, for people that live with their parents or are homeless, or live in trailers, or have a thick waist or wear the "wrong" fabric in a dress, or have sex or don't, or couldn't afford plastic surgery, or maybe could afford it but didn't want cosmetic surgery - or for people who do have plastic surgery.

Mostly I hang out on a far left site where there's an honest love of humanity, and acceptance of people in their own skin. I think it's why I have so much respect and love for my mentors within VFP, because they get what that is, and when they have anger, it's generally aimed at the right target for the right reasons. I'm not sure how to say that right. But I know that when I read DU, I don't feel any particular caring for humanity - in all our humanness. I just see a different flavor of hate than what's on the right. I don't understand what that comes from, or why it's here.

I'm not talking about embracing people with fucked up policies, I can hate on McCain along with the best of them. But hating on people, whoever they are, because their face isn't perfectly symmetrical, or making fun of people because they had cancer surgery, I have a hard time getting that.

[grannylib]

19. Thank you; I agree that this thread took a disturbing twist

and I'm not trying to start a flame war or anything...
I too can "hate John McCain with the best of them" but I'd prefer to focus on what I consider to be important things to hate, like his policies, or his lame ideas, or his toadying fealty to Chimpy the Unelected Imbecile, or his pathetic rePigliCon hypocrisy, but I have a hard time hating him because he was tortured or had cancer surgery.

[lonestarnot]

22. I hate his policies first and foremost, I hate him secondly, and thirdly I hate his fucking

appearance, then I hate his wife, and his house, his kids and if he has a fucking dog, well I feel sorry for it. OK?

[noamnety]

24. I'm just asking you to consider collateral damage.

The people on DU are not all airbrushed models. We're too skinny, too fat, our faces aren't symmetrical, we have cellulite, scars, cancer, lazy eyes, thinning hair, we get pressured to have plastic surgery and not to have it, and so on down the line.

When you're on the side that is ridiculing people in the public eye for their looks, like it or not, there IS collateral damage. You aren't hurting McCain here. The odds of him reading your post are a whole lot smaller than the odds of your post making a normal DUer feel self-conscious about a physical flaw they may have. Your kind of comments contribute to GOOD people deciding not to go into politics, because they don't want to deal with small minded people publicly putting their bodies under the microscope and examining and commenting on everything from the shape of their breasts to the bulge of their eyelids.

I understand disliking a person to the point where you can't even stand to look at them. I flip the channel when Bush is on because I do feel all-out repulsion toward him as a human. That's a personal reaction on my part or yours, and it is what it is. That's not what I'm complaining about.

That's a very different thing than using the forum to make a public statement about people with this or that specific flaw and mocking them for it.

I always wonder, for example, what teenage girls feel when they read our comments about Laura Bush's body, or Freeper's comments about Hillary's body. I hate that we contribute to girls feeling like shit about their bodies. I hate that shit like this thread contributes to people feeling like they need to undergo often unnecessary cosmetic surgery just so they can walk around in public without having to deal with reactions like the ones posted here. I don't understand the mindset of people who think they can call a woman in politics a fat cow, without it affecting how real women in general view themselves - just like I don't understand how people can sling racist slurs at a person when they are mad, and think it's only an insult at the intended target, rather than an insult at all people who share that characteristic.

[lonestarnot]

26. Well gee, I had no idea that the weight of everyone's personal cosmetics were on me for my personal

opinions re the appearance of McSame. LOL

[noamnety]

37. No, and if you made one racist remark

it wouldn't mean you shoulder the entire burden of racism in this country.

That doesn't mean we should each contribute to something that we know is destructive. What it comes down to here is whether we want to be the sort of people that value people - or devalue them - based on physical appearances, and whether we are setting examples for others to do the same.

I know you're probably going to give me back a snappy remark to prove it's no skin off your back, that you can be dismissive and remain above it all. But I am equally confident that deep down you know right from wrong. I'm asking you to do what's right. And I don't think you really believe that it's right to make fun of people based on their genetics or medical problems.

The thing about the vets I was trying to explain is that they have been in all parts of the world, lived where people were stinky for lack of sanitation, where they didn't have dental care, or had open sores, or the women were shirtless and braless and in a culture where there wasn't that disdain over them appearing in public with saggy breasts, for for daring to be in public while old, you know? And some of the vets openly mocked the people they were supposedly there to "support" - you probably can imagine the behavior and the comments. But the others, the ones I count among my good friends, they are the ones who could look at the local people with pure affection, and feel some sort of common bond with them.

I don't know if you remember this old thread of mine, it's one you commented in: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[lonestarnot]

53. Peace and put me on ignore, because anything that rubs me wrong about McSame, is something

I intend to talk about. Maybe God loves him, but I don't. And don't even try to compare him with indigenous poor. He sucks ass and smells like it!

[FatherTime1408]

40. Well put, we're supposed to be the caring ones

[lonestarnot]

54. Go lovey dovey up to that bastard some place else.

[Sundoggy]

35. It's only a few I think

The other day when Bob Dole read Scott McLellan the riot act regarding why he didn't speak up when it could have done some GOOD, the thread was immediately filled with comments about limp dicks etc. No one actually read what he SAID and realized he was only saying the truth.

When I tried to point out that he was simply saying what a lot of progressive bloggers were also pointing out, some eager preliterate tombstone distributor predicted my early demise.

I don't think there are a lot like that here but there are certainly a few.

[noamnety]

46. I remember that thread.

Also a discouraging one, where we weren't able to move beyond attacking a man by attacking his masculinity. I read that sort of thing and just cringe because I cannot believe our best insult still, even among progressives, is to try to emasculate men, to imply they are more like women (the ultimate low blow).

Just like in this thread, I suspect the people in that one believe they can make those comments in some sort of magic cultural vacuum, where the words and thoughts only affect McLellan, and don't hang in the air floating and landing where we least expect them.

I didn't bother posting in that thread for the same reason I don't post in GD much anymore at all, it just seems so hopeless to try to have a discussion with people who function on the level of "you're fat" "your eye is droopy, mister mcdroopydroop" or "your dick is small."

But yes, you were right, Bob Dole WAS telling the truth. I don't know if you ever read "Lies My Teacher Told Me." One of the points in there is that high school textbooks raise us on this villain-hero version of history. I think we get trained to classify people as good or bad, and public education being what it is (a form of indoctrination), we lose our ability to engage in actual critical thinking beyond that. It makes us unable to look at Dole's words and see the truth in them, just as it often makes us unable to see or acknowledge flaws in our own candidates.

[Leo 9]

56. True, it's the ideology not the individual that most needs attacking, however

since so many votes are so often swayed by such superficial things I say let this be a heads up to all political cartoonists and impersonators...

When portraying McCain...

DON'T FORGET THE REVERSE POPEYE!

[Ganja Ninja]

39. I have the same problem too.

I had an attack of Bell's Palsy back in 2005 and my right eye just doesn't open as wide as my left. It's a little residual nerve damage that never healed. My grandmother had the same problem.

[historian]

20. hes half asleep

his own bs bores him

[unkachuck]

21. he's old, old, old....

....I think his left eyeball is rusting closed....a little WD40 might help....

[Beausoleil]

23. I always thought that

McPopeye is what he is and that's all what he is.

[Sundoggy]

25. He's afraid to look to the left...

...it got him in all that trouble a few years ago.

[FatherTime1408]

41. Now THAT's actually quite funny!

[Bucky]

27. His face is not perfectly symmetrical. Obviously grounds for impeachment.

...should he, you know, ever win elective office again.

[wvbygod]

28. Could be the same reason mine is...a sucker punch

Mine is from a mugging and his could be from the Hanoi Hilton. Hard to know.

Egad! After reading this I just hope people are not whispering about my crookedness right now.

[Barack_America]

30. It seems to be getting worse.

That's for sure. Sometimes it looks as if he's struggling to keep that eye open at all.

[Throd]

32. My left eye does that too.

It is from an injury I suffered when I was three years old. If I were ever to go into politics, I could only hope that people would critique my policies, rather than something I have absolutely no control over.

[northernsoul]

45. 100% agreement here

well-said, Throd.

[Wizard777]

34. Left brain dominance. Obama is right brain dominant.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

36. He blinks a lot, especially when he's lying - I call him "Blinky"

when I don't call him "McCainiac".

[Marrah_G]

38. He has alot of permanent injuries from his days of being tortured as a POW

Probably not the best thing to pick on.

[northernsoul]

44. Agreed

It happens to people who've had their cheekbones broken. I'd leave this topic well alone. Plenty of other things to criticize the Senator from Arizona for.

[tuckessee]

42. Jeez that comic is in horrible shape.

Probably grades in no better than "fair".

[TahitiNut]

47. His wife, Cindy, is right-handed.

He obviously sleeps on the right side of the bed. The Far Right.

[weezy2736]

48. I heard that he keeps his eye closed a little because it's trying to escape! n/t

[bdamomma]

50. you notice that the corporate MSM just focuses on his

apparent good side of his face. The man has health problems.

[SoCalDem]

51. Probably residual nerve damage from the surgery on his face

[dembotoz]

52. borg implant

[Blaze Diem]

62. ha ha haaaaaa

.

[LeftishBrit]

57. Probably because he only ever considers the Right-wing side of issues!

[Leo 9]

59. His campaign seems to only want to show or light his right side in their ads.

[eShirl]

58. if you look closely, you will see most people's faces are asymmetrical

in some way or another

different-size eyes are fairly common

[kskiska]

60. They looked the same in 1974

[Blaze Diem]

61. "You just can't hide that lying eye"

Think there was a great song about it once..

[Leo 9]

63. One Face: McCain likes to show his healthy side

One Face: McCain likes to show his healthy side

by OWCH

Thu Jun 05, 2008 at 08:50:20 AM PDT


In modern day politics, a candidate's image means a lot. Nothing is left to chance, everything is calculated. Even kos mentions, a candidate needs to invest in good photos.

The day after Barack Obama clinched the Democratic Nomination, and egged on by the observation that McCain is killing himself via lack of good video, I spent a couple of minutes perusing John McCain's website.

What I noticed after only a couple of pages, is that it seemed to be every picture of McCain only showed him from his right side.

I have performed a rudimentary analysis of the self-promoted (and thus carefully controlled) images of the Republican presidential nominee, the results after the jump.

OWCH's diary :: ::
I'm no human-face modeling expert, hell, I'm not even an amateur, so if there are people out there who do this for a living, cut me a break (or at least suggest the real way to do it). But I at least wanted to give everyone a diary worth reading, not just questions and work for other people.

Methodology

I have looked around at nearly every page I could find on McCain's website on one specific day (June 5th 2008), and graded each photo of McCain based upon this scale:

Full left profile (FL) -- one can only see the left side of his face, opposite eye not visible
Quarter left profile (QL) -- one can see the left side of his face, opposite eye visible
Full frontal (FF) -- one can see both eyes, cheeks, and ears
Quarter right profile (QR) -- one can see the right side of his face, opposite eye visible
Full right profile (FR) -- one can only see the right side of his face, opposite eye not visible

snip

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/5/115020/2210/...

[Blaze Diem]

64. He's being prepped and propped up for the viewing audience, just like Bush was

repugs are fake.
one big damn advertising campaign, no substance beneath the glossy handouts, photo-ops, and pre-selected audience.