Meghan turns McCain into a storybook hero

Throughout the American primary season, Meghan McCain (pictured), the Barbie-ish daughter of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, has shared her thoughts and passions via her blog, McCain Blogette, addressing such crucial issues as who is the best-dressed reporter on the campaign trail (a Newsweek reporter, apparently), and offering such insider tidbits as: "Ever since we went to Nashville I have been inspired to wear my cowboy boots and hat". Now she's set herself a new literary challenge - a children's book based on the life story of her father.

As yet untitled, it will be published in September by Simon and Schuster to coincide with the Republican National Convention, where big sales, one assumes, will be guaranteed. Says Meghan: "This book will offer children the unique opportunity to see the character-building events that happened over his lifetime, experiences that led up to his current bid to become the future President of the United States.”

Quite how she will tackle her father's five-year incarceration in a VietCong prisoner-of-war camp remains to be seen - as does her treatment of his famously explosive temper. In one of his recent columns for The First Post, Alexander Cockburn told how McCain reacted to two physicians who went to see him in Arizona about a local environmental issue. Senator McCain erupted into a violent fit. "He jumped up and down, screaming obscenities at us for at least 10 minutes," one of his visitors said. "He shook his fists as if he was going to slug us." The other physician left the meeting stunned. "To my mind," he said, "McCain's the most likely senator to start a nuclear war." Still, with cute illustrations, it might just work.