PHOENIX, AZ — Republican John McCain’s promotional troops might want to reconsider complaining about how often their candidate is ignored by “the liberal media.” Sometimes it’s nice to focus the spotlight’s harsh glare somewhere — anywhere — else. Those times are becoming more frequent for the presumptive presidential nominee who staunchly refers to himself as a champion of the downtrodden, ignored “regular guys” in an America sick to death of the arrogance and socioeconomic disconnect that pervade Washington.For example, divorcing the cancer-stricken wife who stood by her man through his long stint as a prisoner of war in order to marry a much younger, much wealthier mistress isn’t the sort of action most presidential hopefuls like to see receive copious media play. Thankfully for McCain, most of the media has ignored that unfortunate little blotch on the Arizona senator’s heroic reputation, and almost no one has called on the former naval aviator to explain how such behavior indicates anything resembling the internal fortitude and stellar character McCain would like to cement in the public consciousness.

Likewise, McCain’s current wife and first-lady hopeful Cindy (she of the youth and wealth) hasn’t been the focus of the kinds of malicious gossip and finger-pointing that have dogged Michele Obama, wife of John McCain’s Democratic opponent, Barack Obama. To date, no one has called Cindy McCain her husband’s “baby momma” — pejorative slang often used to denote an unwed mother — questioned her patriotism or intelligence, referred to her as someone who supports fetus murder, or hinted she is a dangerous elitist Muslim feminist activist.

There is no evidence any of the allegations leveled at Michele Obama are valid, but that hasn’t stopped pundits, gossip mongers, and other talking heads in the conservative media from slinging them around with reckless abandon. One can only imagine how gleeful and single-minded conservatives might become if they had the opportunity to flog some as-yet-undiscovered misdeed in Michele Obama’s past that actually deserved scrutiny.

Liberals have just such an opportunity in Cindy McCain. However, for reasons known only to participants in the complicated dance that is media coverage in an election year, Cindy McCain most often is portrayed as an altruistic benefactor of worthy causes. Dig just below the surface, though, and a different picture begins to emerge, and it includes less-than-charitable past actions that have been swept under the rug — right alongside the self-proclaimed only child’s inconvenient half-sisters.

Kathleen Hensley Portalski and her son Nicholas took exception to Cindy Hensley McCain’s portrayal as an only child during a recent National Public Radio broadcast profiling the first-lady wannabe’s benevolent activities. Kathleen Portalski is the eldest child of the late Jim Hensley, a wealthy Arizona businessman who left his younger daughter, Cindy McCain, in the position to be called “the sole heiress to a multimillion-dollar beer distributorship empire.”

In a report published August 18th on NPR’s website, NPR commentator Ted Robbins, who along with The New Yorker, The New York Times, Newsweek, ABC and CNN took Cindy McCain at her word when she claimed to be an only child, revealed the truth behind the myth: McCain has not one but two half-sisters. The second is her mother’s child by her first husband.

In a nutshell, here’s the scoop: Hensley and his first wife, Mary Jeanne Hensley, welcomed Kathleen Anne Hensley into the world February 23rd, 1943, after six years of marriage. In much the same way John and Cindy McCain met, Jim Hensley encountered his second wife as he was recuperating from wounds received while serving as a bombardier during World War II. Hensley subsequently divorced Mary Jeanne and in 1945 married Marguerite Smith, who had a daughter by a previous marriage.

Cindy Lou Hensley was born nine years later. She was raised by both parents, along with Marguerite’s elder daughter, while Kathleen Hensley saw her father and half-sister “a few times a year” as she grew up the daughter of a single parent.

Portalski told Robbins her father “called occasionally” and “provided money for school clothes.” Later on, he gave credit cards and college tuition to Portalski’s children and endowed Portalski and her husband — to whom she is still married — $10,000 gifts. When Hensley died in 2000, he named as heirs not only Cindy McCain, but also Portalski and his stepdaughter. The difference in their status was made all too painfully clear to Portalski shortly after her father’s funeral: The beer baron who abandoned her and her mother to find fortune and happiness with a second family left Portalski only $10,000. He left his stepdaughter a similar amount. The bulk of his estate went to Cindy McCain, for reasons no one has admitted knowing.

Neither the McCain campaign nor Cindy McCain responded to Robbins’ request for comment about why Cindy continues to call herself an only child and whether she would be willing to acquiesce to Portalski’s request for acknowledgement and an apology.

Of course, the half-sister debacle isn’t the only embarrassing example of the McCains attempting to mislead the media and the public. Recently, John McCain was asked how many homes he and his wife own. One might imagine a self-proclaimed “straight-talker” and champion of the common man — in marked contrast to McCain’s well-publicized characterization of the Obamas as social and intellectual elitists — would have a ready answer for such a simple question.

One would be wrong.

McCain stammered his way through a non-answer, finally telling the reporter “I’ll have my staff get [back] to you.”

In fact, according to the watchdog group Progressive Accountability, property and tax records indicate the McCains own 10 ranches, condos and lofts located in Arizona, California, and Virginia. Combined, the properties’ estimated value is $13.9 million.

Of course, the homes represent only a small portion of Cindy McCain’s personal fortune, which has been estimated to be more than $100 million.

In explaining the gaffe, McCain said, “I define rich in other ways besides income. Some people are wealthy and rich in their lives and their children and their ability to educate them. Others are poor if they’re billionaires.”

So where, exactly, does that put John and Cindy McCain on the “regular guy” scale?

More importantly, where does the McCains’ behavior put them on the straight-talk scale to which John McCain is so proud of adhering? The elitist scale? The human-decency scale?

It’s difficult to imagine Kathleen Portalski would find herself stammering over an answer to that question.