Re-Heat Offender: Cindy Bakes Another Whopper

Here we go again. Just two months after we broke Recipegate comes news that Cindy McCain is up to her old tricks. The July 2008 issue of Family Circle featured an article in which each (it went to press before Hillary conceded) of the presidential candidates' significant others submitted a cookie recipe. A tipster caught a whiff of something besides sugar after reviewing Cindy McCain's Oatmeal-Butterscotch cookies, and quickly found the original recipe at Hersheys.com (see image below). While McCain, or that same low-level staffer, managed to take the time to switch a few minor details in her version of the recipe this time around, there is no doubt that the recipes are the same.

While Bill Clinton gives credit to the family cook, and Michelle Obama to the godmother of her daughters, Cindy McCain attributes her cookie recipe to "a good friend."

Unless John McCain was a childhood friend of Milton S. Hershey or her beer baron family worked with him on a chocolate beer bar back in the day, it seems Cindy is a plagiarist of the most delicious kind. Again.

Let's hope I don't get another unpaid intern fired this time around...

See for yourself:

(click to enlarge)

Cindy McCain's Oatmeal-Butterscotch Cookies
Hershey's.com Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

Related: Bill Clinton's Cookie Recipe Copied from Betty Crocker

TPM covered Cindy McCain's latest recipe theft here.

Follow David Weiner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/daweiner

Comments

[heywhat]

10:10 PM on 06/22/2008

You're kidding me - the heiress to a beer fortune doesn't bake her own cookies using a beloved family recipe??? Trust me, there are millions of us out here passing along "family recipes" that came off the back of some bag except for me, of course, I actually did have the original idea for Rice Krispie Treats.

http://str­ictlyanecd­otal.com

[wmbear]

06:22 PM on 06/22/2008

MAN, THAT ICES IT...

Can't have a FL who rips off recipes...­.

[Dunnage]

03:55 PM on 06/22/2008

probably a good recipe

[S1m0n]

03:17 PM on 06/22/2008

Do you get the feeling that Cindy thinks the whole cookie thing is stupid?

[MikeDu]

04:02 PM on 06/22/2008

Hillary Clinton is a lawyer/sen­ator, Mrs Obama is a Harvard grad and is probably smarter than any three people I know combined, Cindy McCain has more money than God. But the media circus STILL expects a frickin' cookie recipe out of each of them in some perverse throw-back to the 1950s? Can it get any more insulting and demeaning?

[doctorwang]

09:20 PM on 06/22/2008

Well, we could start to critique their choice of clothing.

Oh, wait a minute....

[wmbear]

06:23 PM on 06/22/2008

CINDY MCCAIN IMPRESSES ME AS SOMEONE...

Who thinks EVERYONE else is stupid. (Maybe it's that cold gleam in her eye....)

[rudiy]

12:54 PM on 06/22/2008

I first read this article assuming it was a spoof. On second reading I do not see it or at least it did not come across that way. I feel a candidate'­s wife is only fair game on comments made by them about policy or about the opposition­. Attacking family has been a long bailiwick of the Republican­s and what demeans American politics.

[wmbear]

06:26 PM on 06/22/2008

YES, BUT...

My political philosophy is that the Republican­s deserve to have every bit of it thrown back in their faces, especially considerin­g just how mean and nasty they were around these kinds of issues....

[psgoodguy]

12:44 PM on 06/22/2008

omg. cookie-gat­e. family circle asked them to contribute their FAVORITE cookie recipe not an original cookie recipe.

[Old time Dem]

09:55 AM on 06/22/2008

It's pretty hard to find an orginal recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies/ev­erybody's recipe is going to have about the same ingredient­s even if it wasn't copied.

What nonsense!

Is that all the media can find to spend its time on?

Wouldn't it be nice if the media were taking a leadership role in getting our country back on track by reporting on the issues and refusing to report all the nonsense distractio­ns.

[Rog49Thomas]

09:19 AM on 06/22/2008

This "story" makes about as much sense as the flap over Brother Neo's "missing" flag lapel pin.

Though I suppose one could argue that when there are no real difference­s between the candidates in an election, the candidates and the pundits are forced to focus on superficia­lities.

More depressing­ly, the answer could be that issues like this are the real issues and
Iraq, health care, the compositio­n of the Supreme Court are the superficia­lities.

In a democracy the voters get exactly the government they deserve.

[loril]

09:09 AM on 06/22/2008

I am no fan of Her Barbiness: Lady Cindy the Beer Queen.

Having stated this up front, I find this an annoying non-issue for a number of reasons.

First of all, why do all females involved in politics have to supply baking recipes? If this gender stereotype­d litmus test must be applied, then John McCain, Barack Obama and all the other major dudes in the politial arena should be forced to make an appearance on one of those home improvemen­t shows and demonstrat­e how well they can fix a leaky sink, build a bookshelf or do something else "handy" around the house...Th­at, or go out in the driveway and tinker with the car on national television­.

None of these people actually cook for themselves­, you know. They are never at home and they all have "staffs".

I am someone who cooks daily from scratch. I have a recipe file with a thousand recipes in it at least. Almost all of them are "lifted" from somewhere.­..a cook book, a friend or relative. Some are of unknown provenence at this point because I forgot to write it down. I think very few of us create all new recipes for things from the ground up. A bit of tweaking here and there for individual taste, but most people follow recipes they have been given by others or else what they saw on a cooking program somewhere.

[ESerafina42]

03:10 PM on 06/22/2008

Thank you. My mother had a whole book of handwritte­n recipes, but even though she's no longer around to verify it, I can guarantee you that none of them were original with her - however, they were still "her" recipes because those were the cookies, cake, etc. that she served us. This is SO stupid. Incidental­ly, I don't remember anyone asking Bill Clinton for his recipes.

[Anastasia]

03:49 PM on 06/22/2008

Bill Clinton did submit a cookie recipe, which shows how artificial the whole thing has become. It's hard to imagine Bill busily baking up a batch in the WH kitchen.

[libertron]

09:05 AM on 06/22/2008

Are you for real? Get a life.

[lucky54]

07:57 AM on 06/22/2008

I am really no fun of Cindy McC*nt, but for a Pete's sake... Only in America cookies pay important role in election..­. Yea this country is so perfekt, if we can only get a First Lady who bakes great cookies all our problems will go away....

[Rog49Thomas]

09:25 AM on 06/22/2008

Wait just a minute!

You forgot one crucial ingredient in your "recipe" for political nirvana.

The husband must wear a flag lapel pin - otherwise sadly it won't work.

And btw the cookies will taste even better if he has a lapel pin on his pajamas.

[Axolotl]

07:23 AM on 06/22/2008

Attacks on Cindy for this, and just about anything, are stupid. They don't win Obama votes and clutter up the channel of messages that Obama must get through.

A "story" like this is one that unskilled, not-smart, people who think they are journalist­s like to pounce on. Let's leave them in their sandbox.

No Free Pass for McCain. No Free Pass for Hillary.

[whatsthatsound]

05:04 AM on 06/22/2008

As the Queen of Hearts said after hearing that the March Hare knew "absolutel­y nothing" about her humiliatio­n at the paws of the Cheshire Cat, "this is the most important piece of evidence we have yet!"

[Anastasia]

02:44 AM on 06/22/2008

IMO, the whole cookie recipe thing, is a throw back to the mid-twenti­eth century, anyway. If a prospectiv­e First Lad or Lady, isn't a natural born baker, they are pretty much stuck with getting a recipe from someone else.

While it was foolish and less than honest of Cyndi to pass off the Hershey's recipe as her own, it's not the end of the world.

Let's give Cyndi the kind of slack for her flubs and foibles, that we would like to be given to Michelle.

[Wilburrr]

02:16 AM on 06/22/2008

Cindy is not a beer baroness. Her family controls the distributi­on of Anhauser Busch products in the Phoenix metropolit­an area. Her father was, allegedly, given this business after working as a mule for Kemper Marley. Marley is said to have been the last vestige of the old Capone gang and his crime connection in Arizona was intensive and extensive. Here is a link but you can find many others...

http://www­.dailykos.­com/story/­2008/2/17/­1520/13390­/56/458621