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Amazing.

The folks at Pensito Review have been doing a little research this afternoon:

At about 2:30 p.m, when I checked the John McCain website for confirmation that Troy King, the attorney general of Alabama, was McCain’s Alabama campaign chairman, I found this link to a news release on the site. A few minutes after I posted the article, “McCain’s Alabama Chairman Reportedly Outed – Attorney General Troy King Has a Record of Homophobic Rhetoric,” a commenter let me know that McCain webpage was blank.

A search on the campaign site for “Troy King” returned no results, however if you Google “Troy King” and “John McCain

I happened to still have the page open, so made the capture of it above. The news release was just a run-of-the-mill announcement from January of the Alabamians named by McCain to his “leadership team” in the state. Here’s the text:

For Immediate Release
January 29, 2008 Contact: Press Office
703-650-5550

John McCain 2008 Announces Alabama Leadership Team

ARLINGTON, VA — U.S. Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign today announced its Alabama Leadership Team. United States Congressman Spencer Bachus will serve as the Southeastern United States Congressional Chair of the McCain campaign. Alabama Attorney General Troy King will serve as Chair of the McCain 2008 Alabama campaign. Representative Bachus and Attorney General King will continue to lead the growing grassroots organization on behalf of John McCain’s candidacy in Alabama.

“Lots of candidates talk about the issues important to conservatives. But, only one candidate has a record to back up his rhetoric, and that’s John McCain,” said Congressman Spencer Bachus. “For twenty-four years, John McCain has taken bold positions on the cornerstone conservative issues of life, marriage, and limited government. It is with pride and gratitude that I am supporting my friend, John McCain for president.”

“John McCain is the best hope for conservatives to succeed in November,” said Attorney General Troy King. “He is a principled conservative with a clear record of supporting a strong national defense, fighting for fiscal responsibility, and defending the sanctity of life. John McCain has served our country his entire life, and I am honored to lead his efforts here in Alabama.”

John McCain thanked the leadership of his Alabama campaign. “As a representative in the United States Congress, Spencer has displayed his commitment to the people of Alabama,” said Senator McCain. “Troy is an outstanding public servant and passionate advocate for the rule of law. Both of these men are dedicated to the principles of limited government and traditional values that we share. I’m proud to have Republican leaders and dedicated public servants like Spencer Bachus and Troy King leading my campaign to victory in Alabama.”

JOHN MCCAIN 2008 ALABAMA LEADERSHIP TEAM

Southeastern United States Congressional Chair
Congressman Spencer Bachus, Birmingham

State Chair
Attorney General Troy King, Montgomery

Honorary Chair
Former Alabama GOP Chairman Winton Blount, Montgomery

Legislators for McCain Co-Chairs
State Senator Ben Brooks, Mobile
State Representative Cam Ward, Alabaster

Legislator for McCain
State Representative Warren Beck, Geneva
State Representative Randy Davis, Daphne
State Representative Owen Drake, Leeds
State Representative Joe Faust, Fairhope
State Senator Steve French, Birmingham
State Representative Todd Greeson, Ider
State Representative Mike Hill, Columbiana
State Representative Jim McClendon, Springville
State Representative Allen Treadaway, Morris
State Representative Jack Williams, Birmingham

Veteran Chair
Don Fisher, Montgomery

Veteran Co-Chairs
Roland Day, Birmingham
Gen. Charles Ingram, Troy
Capt. Hal Pierce, Daphne

Mayoral Chair
Mayor Pat Thomas, Dothan

Mayoral Co-Chairs
Mayor Sheldon Day, Thomasville
Mayor Tim Kant, Fairhope

Lawyers for McCain Co-Chairs
Judge Terry Butts, Luverne
Matt Lembke, Birmingham

Los Angeles Times: Outside her Bel-Air home, Nancy Reagan stood arm in arm with John McCain and offered a significant — but less than exuberant — endorsement.

“Ronnie and I always waited until everything was decided, and then we endorsed,” the Republican matriarch said in March. “Well, obviously this is the nominee of the party.” They were the only words she would speak during the five-minute photo op.

In a written statement, she described McCain as “a good friend for over 30 years.” But that friendship was strained in the late 1970s by McCain’s decision to divorce his first wife, Carol, who was particularly close to the Reagans, and within weeks marry Cindy Hensley, the young heiress to a lucrative Arizona beer distributorship.

The Reagans rushed to help Carol, finding her a new home in Southern California with the family of Reagan aide Edwin Meese III and a series of political and White House jobs to ease her through that difficult time.

McCain, who is about to become the GOP nominee, has made several statements about how he divorced Carol and married Hensley that conflict with the public record.

In his 2002 memoir, “Worth the Fighting For,” McCain wrote that he had separated from Carol before he began dating Hensley.

“I spent as much time with Cindy in Washington and Arizona as our jobs would allow,” McCain wrote. “I was separated from Carol, but our divorce would not become final until February of 1980.”

An examination of court documents tells a different story. McCain did not sue his wife for divorce until Feb. 19, 1980, and he wrote in his court petition that he and his wife had “cohabited” until Jan. 7 of that year — or for the first nine months of his relationship with Hensley.

Although McCain suggested in his autobiography that months passed between his divorce and remarriage, the divorce was granted April 2, 1980, and he wed Hensley in a private ceremony five weeks later. McCain obtained an Arizona marriage license on March 6, 1980, while still legally married to his first wife.

Until McCain filed for divorce, the Reagans and their inner circle assumed he was happily married, and they were stunned to learn otherwise, according to several close aides.

“Everybody was upset with him,” recalled Nancy Reynolds, a top aide to the former president who introduced him to McCain.

By contrast, some of McCain’s friends, including the Senate aide who was at the reception where McCain first met Hensley, believed he was separated at that time.

Albert “Pete” Lakeland, the aide who was with McCain at the reception in Hawaii in April 1979, said of the introduction to Hensley: “It was like he was struck by Cupid’s arrow. He was just enormously smitten.”

As the pair began dating, Lakeland allowed them to spend a weekend together at his summer home in Maryland, he said.

The senator has acknowledged that he behaved badly, and that his swift divorce and remarriage brought a cold shoulder from the Reagans that lasted years.

In a recent interview, McCain said he did not want to revisit the breakup of his marriage. “I have a very good relationship with my first wife,” he said. In his autobiography, he wrote: “My marriage’s collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity. The blame was entirely mine.”

Tucker Bounds, a McCain campaign spokesman, said: “Of course we will not comment on the breakup of the senator’s first marriage, other than to note that the senator has always taken responsibility for it.”

Carol McCain did not respond to a request for an interview.

About all she has ever said is this to McCain biographer Robert Timberg: “John was turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again.”

After leaving the White House, Carol McCain worked in press relations in the Washington area, retiring about five years ago after working for the National Soft Drink Assn. She now lives in Virginia Beach, Va., and has not remarried. She has two sons from an earlier marriage: Andy, a vice president at Cindy McCain’s beer distributorship, and Doug, a commercial airline pilot.

Carol and John McCain had a daughter, Sidney, who works in the music industry in Canada.

John McCain, who calls himself “a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution,” said in his memoir: “My divorce from Carol, whom the Reagans loved, caused a change in our relationship. Nancy . . . was particularly upset with me and treated me on the few occasions we encountered each other after I came to Congress with a cool correctness that made her displeasure clear.

“I had, of course, deserved the change in our relationship.”

Joanne Drake, spokeswoman for Nancy Reagan, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

The first Mrs. McCain

McCain met Carol Shepp through a mutual friend and fellow midshipman at the Naval Academy, from which McCain graduated in 1958. That friend, Alasdair E. Swanson, married her in 1958. In the early 1960s, the Swansons lived in Pensacola, Fla., where Alasdair Swanson and McCain served as Navy pilots.

But that marriage ended in June 1964 after Carol sued for divorce, alleging that her husband had been unfaithful.

According to McCain, he started seeing Carol shortly afterward. They were married in Philadelphia, her hometown, in July 1965. McCain adopted her two sons, and they had a daughter together. Then in October 1967, McCain’s plane was shot down and he was captured by the North Vietnamese.

She became active in the POW-MIA movement. A former model, she dedicated herself to her children and kept the family together, friends said, while awaiting his return.

“She had the perseverance to carry on,” said Melinda Fitzwater, a cousin of McCain’s who later worked with Carol McCain at the White House. “She had a little baby and small kids. She was a great, unique person.”

On Christmas Eve 1969, while she was driving alone in Philadelphia, Carol McCain’s car skidded and struck a utility pole. Thrown into the snow, she broke both legs, an arm and her pelvis. She was operated on a dozen times, and in the treatment she lost about 5 inches in height.

After John McCain was released in March 1973 and returned to the U.S., he told friends that Carol was not the woman he had married.

Reynolds, working for then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan, said she first met the couple in San Francisco at a reception for ex-prisoners. She later introduced them to the Reagans at their home in Pacific Palisades.

“They were just an attractive couple,” Reynolds said. “The Reagans had great admiration and respect for John.”

In 1974, Reagan invited McCain to speak at a governor’s prayer breakfast in Sacramento. The former prisoner of war told the story of a fellow captive who had scratched a prayer on a cell wall. Ronald and Nancy Reagan were reduced to tears. It was “the most moving speech I had ever heard,” Reynolds said.

In the next few years, family and friends said, there was no sign that McCain was unhappy in his marriage. Fitzwater recalled visiting the family on Thanksgivings, and McCain seemed content barbecuing a turkey on his outdoor grill near Jacksonville, Fla.

Navy officers in the squadron McCain commanded in 1977 said they did not know anything was wrong. “When I went to parties at their home, everything seemed fine,” said Mike Akin, a naval flying instructor. “They seemed to be a happily married couple.”

But two years later, while on a trip as a Navy liaison with the Senate, McCain spied Hensley at the Honolulu reception. In a recent television interview with Jay Leno on the “Tonight Show,” Cindy McCain joked about how the Navy captain had pursued her. “He kind of chased me around . . . the hors d’oeuvre table,” she said. “I was trying to get something to eat and I thought, ‘This guy’s kind of weird.’ I was kind of trying to get away from him.”

John McCain was 42; she was 24. During the next nine months, he would fly to Arizona or she would come to the Washington area, where McCain and Carol had a home.

Carol McCain later told friends, including Reynolds and Fitzwater, that she did not know he was seeing anyone else.

John McCain sued for divorce in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., where his friend and fellow former POW, George E. “Bud” Day, practiced law and could represent him.

In the petition, he stated that the couple had “cohabited as husband and wife” until Jan. 7, 1980.

His wife did not contest the divorce, and Day said that the couple had reached an agreement in advance on support and division of property. By then she was living in La Mesa, in San Diego County, with the family of Meese, a close Reagan aide and future attorney general.

“We knew John and Carol both since he came back from Hanoi in 1973,” Meese said recently. “They have been friends of ours ever since.

“She was with us for maybe four or five months. Their daughter and our daughter were friends, and they went to school together.”

Carol McCain was distraught at being blindsided by her husband’s intention to end their marriage, said her friends in the Reagan circle.

“They [the Reagans] weren’t happy with him,” Fitzwater said. Carol McCain “was this little, frail person. . . . She was brokenhearted.”

By that time, Nancy Reagan had come to Carol McCain’s aid, hiring her as a press assistant in the 1980 presidential campaign.

When the Reagans moved to Washington, she was named director of the White House Visitors Office.

“Nancy Reagan was crazy about her,” Reynolds said. “But everybody was crazy about Carol McCain. . . . And the Meeses were very generous and helpful and comforting to her.”

Fitzwater said that living in Southern California and working on the Reagan campaign helped Carol McCain move past the loss of her marriage.

“It was perfect for her. She was traveling, and it took her mind off a very, very sad time for her.”

Rev. Jesse Jackson appeared on Good Morning America Thursday, continuing to back-pedal after his “hot mic” remark about wanting to castrate Barack Obama.

Loretta Nall has a rather funny YouTube video on the Troy King gay story.

The rumor mill in Montgomery is swirling of news of a potential resignation by Republican Attorney General Troy King, amid rumors that he was caught by his wife having sex with a male aide and subsequently banished from his home by his wife. King, a potential GOP frontrunner for Governor in 2010, succeeded Bill Pryor, one of George W. Bush’s most controversial judicial nominees. In addition, King was also an early endorser of John McCain.

The Locust Fork Journal:

A spokesperson for Alabama Governor Bob Riley denied that Attorney General Troy King is preparing to resign in the wake of a massive rumor campaign that has yet to be fully confirmed. The word is, according to multiple sources in Montgomery and elsewhere, that King was recently caught by his wife in a gay affair with a male aide and banished from his home.

According to Tara Hutchison in the executive office of the governor they have heard of no plans in the works for King’s resignation. She said she had not heard that he had been kicked out of his home because of a gay affair.

Governor Bob Riley’s press office refused to return multiple phone calls from this independent press outlet even though some sources accuse Riley of perpetrating the leak. The attorney general’s press office also declined to return phone calls seeking comment.

The Locust Fork News and Journal heard about this a couple of weeks ago from a Montgomery lawyer, and have had numerous contacts with people trying to confirm the truth of the rumor.

Left In Alabama:

I just heard from a very reliable source that Troy Boy is resigning as Attorney General. No report of King’s official reason, but the unofficial reason almost certainly involves the rumors swirling around Montgomery that he was recently caught in embarassing misconduct. The resignation may be enough to keep King’s personal life out of the papers, but I don’t look for him to run for governor in 2010.

I’m almost sorry to see him go — Troy was like a caricature of the Republican party. Never met a death sentence he didn’t like, against sexual gratification, publicity hound, etc. … life as an Alabama blogger will be harder without Troy King.

Sen. Ted Kennedy returned to the Senate chamber for the first time since his recent brain cancer surgery, and gets a hearty welcome from his Senate colleagues.

A clip of the strange Jesse Jackson “hot mic” moment, where Jesse Jackson says he wants to cut Barack Obama’s nuts off. Oh dear.

Fishbowl America Round-Up for July 9th:

• ‘Ha-pi-tu-mi-te-yu:’ Beijing welcomes the Olympics – In the seven years since the Olympic movement anointed Beijing as host of the 2008 Summer Games, China’s capital has undergone a transformation so thorough that “makeover” doesn’t begin to describe the change.
• Senate Passes Controversial Foreign Intelligence Law – The Senate Wednesday passed controversial legislation meant to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
• Boulder DA: New DNA Clears Ramsey Family – KUSA – 9NEWS has learned that newly discovered DNA evidence in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case does not match any Ramsey family members or anyone in law enforcement DNA databases.
• Jesse Jackson Apologizes For Comments Critical Of Obama – The Rev. Jesse Jackson issued an apology to Barack Obama Wednesday for criticizing the Illinois senator’s recent comments directed toward some members of the black community.
• Kennedy Returns To Senate – Sen. Ted Kennedy on Wednesday made his first appearance in Congress since having brain surgery, arriving on foot.
• Russian Official: ‘Russian state killed former spy Alexander Litvinenko’ – The Russian state was behind the killing of the former secret agent Alexander Litvinenko, a senior official has disclosed in private.

Fishbowl America Round-Up for July 9th:

• John McCain Kicks Librarian Out of Town Hall Event – From Tuesday’s Denver McCain town hall meeting, where a 60-year-old librarian was fined and kicked out for holding a sign that said “McCain=Bush.”
• Top Democrat May Back New Offshore Drilling – A top U.S. Democratic senator said in a newspaper interview published Wednesday that he would consider supporting opening up new areas for offshore oil and gas drilling.
• Meet The Obamas – The Obama Family sits down for their first television interview.
• LGBT Adults Read, Respond To More Blogs Than Heterosexuals – According to a recent national survey conducted by Harris Interactive®, gay and lesbian adults online are reading more blogs than their heterosexual counterparts.
• Milestone Gay Film “The Boys in the Band” To Be Released On DVD November 11 – One of the most iconic (and impossible-to-find) films of gay cinema will finally be released on DVD November 11th. The Boys in the Band was released in 1970, and over the years has been both reviled and revered by gay viewers.
• Brea Grant Moves Quickly On “Heroes” – As if Heroes wasn’t already one of the most inspired shows on TV: The producers of the hit series have announced that they’re adding the gorgeous Brea Grant to the cast for next season. Grant, who you may recognize from her guest spots on Friday Night

The McCain campaign had 60-year-old librarian Carol Kreck fined and thrown out of his Denver town hall. It seems the crazy lady was holding a sign that said Bush=McCain.

Fishbowl America Round-Up for July 9th:

• Ventura denies he’s running for Senate – Former Gov. Jesse Ventura today quickly dismissed news reports that he’s going to run for the U.S. Senate, saying that he won’t decide until next week.
• Crescenzi: Obama Win Could Cut $40 Off Oil – CNBC Guest Blog – CNBC.com – If Barack Obama wins the presidency, the price of oil could fall by $40 per barrel. The financial markets will discount the possibility before hand, at least partially.
• Iran Gen.: Our Finger Is Always On The Trigger – Iran test-fired a long-range missile on Wednesday in response to what it says are threats from Israel and the United States, Iranian officials said.

Barack, Michelle, Malia and Sasha Obama sit down for their first TV interview together, with Access Hollywood.

Fishbowl America Round-Up for July 8, 2008.

• “Bruno” Pranks It Up In Arkansas – Lured by $1 beer and the prospect of “hot chicks” and “hardcore fights,” thousands of Arkansans were duped last month into appearing as extras in comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest staged mayhem.
• U.S.-Czech missile deal raises Russian ire – CNN.com – Russia’s Foreign Ministry Tuesday threatened a “military-technological” response if the United States deploys a missile defense system in former Soviet-bloc nations near Russia’s borders.
• Polygamist Warren Jeffs taken to Vegas hospital – CNN.com – Jailed polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was taken to a hospital in Las Vegas on Tuesday, but police would not say why.
• Shepard Smith: A Cuddly Gay Icon For Fox News – Rachel Sklar points out that Fox News anchor Shepard Smith is “a handsome, affable and hard-working straight-up news guy” who’s been “under-covered.”
• Ron Paul’s Campaign Manager Dies; Uninsured, His Family Left With $400,000 In Medical Bills – Xpatriated Texan calls this an unbearable irony of life. Kent Snyder, 49 years old, died of pneumonia on June 26. He was uninsured and left his family about $400,000 in medical bills. Snyder was the guy who convinced Paul to run for president.
• Iran To “Hit Tel Aviv, U.S. ships” If Attacked – Iran will hit Tel Aviv, U.S. shipping in the Gulf and American interests around the world if it is attacked over its disputed nuclear activities, an aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader was quoted as saying on Tuesday.