Navy officials are refusing to turn over hospital admission records that may shed light on a 1964 car crash McCain is reported to have had that resulted in a serious injury or fatality.News Orgs Investigate Possibly Fatal McCain '64 Car Crash
Huffington Post

For the past two months, a major American magazine and an allied news service have been engaged in a legal battle with the United States Navy over records that they believe show that John McCain once was involved in an automobile accident that injured or, perhaps, killed another individual.

Vanity Fair magazine and the National Security News Service claim to have knowledge "developed from first-hand sources" of a car crash that involved then-Lt. McCain at the main gate of a Virginia naval base in 1964, according to legal filings. The incident has been largely, if not entirely, kept from the public. And in documents suing the Navy to release pertinent information, lawyers for the NS News Service allege that a cover-up may be at play.

"Plaintiffs have also obtained documents showing that law enforcement officers were ordered back to the accident scene to retrieve personal physical effects. The Navy has never publicly acknowledged this information," one document reads. "This request involves federal government activity, as it addresses what may be an attempt by the Navy to protect by concealment the involvement of a former Navy officer, sitting Senator and Presidential candidate in a serious incident involving the injury or death of another human being."

The first request for information concerning duty assignment logs to Portsmouth Naval Hospital -- where McCain was allegedly brought after the accident -- came in the form of a Freedom of Information Act request on August 28, 2008. The Navy acknowledged receipt of the request and advised that it had located the relevant information a few weeks later, only to deny the FOIA on grounds that it didn't prove an "imminent threat to the life or physical safety of an individual" or satisfy the criteria of "a breaking news story of general public interest."

When officials start stonewalling on issues that are obviously in the public interest by claiming they aren't, you know the story has merit. If there was nothing to this story, the records would have been released immediately and the issue would have simply disappeared without ever being reported on.

Now that the incident has come to light, the Navy will try and "run out the clock".

Unlike Bush's DUI, if someone died because of McCain's notorious recklessness, this has a DIRECT bearing in the election.

(And personally, I think Bush's DUI was germane, and revealed a deep character flaw, especially his attempts to minimize it.).