Kathleen Troia McFarland says she was beaten, kicked, threatened with gun.
Posted on 07/15/2006 11:33:45 AM PDT by neverdem
Associated Press
Says Senate hopeful's claim of abuse by father was made up, punishment was "acceptable'
NEW YORK - The ongoing family drama involving Republican Senate hopeful Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland took a new turn Thursday when a brother publicly denounced McFarland as "evil" for accusing their father of child abuse.
"It's a complete fabrication," McFarland's brother, Tom Troia, told the New York Post in an interview published Thursday. "If I had one word to describe my sister, it would be "evil.' "
The story came the same day McFarland prepared to host the first major fundraiser of her campaign, a $1,000-per ticket reception in Manhattan featuring several high-profile members of the Reagan-era national security and defense establishment, including former National Security Adviser Bud McFarlane and John Lehman, the former Navy secretary and recent member of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission.
McFarland served in the Pentagon under Ronald Reagan until 1985, when she moved to New York.
Asked about her brother's remarks at a campaign event in Brooklyn, McFarland refused to comment.
"I don't have anything to say about that . . . I didn't choose to have this issue come up, but when it did, I addressed it. I don't have anything to add," she said.
McFarland is competing with former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer for the GOP nomination to challenge Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Clinton, D-N.Y., is widely favored to win re-election.
Stories of McFarland's messy family relations have dominated her campaign since June, when she went public with allegations that she had endured years of physical abuse at the hands of her father.
That announcement came after New York magazine published excerpts in June from letters McFarland wrote to her parents 14 years ago, blaming them for pushing a gay brother, Michael, into a reckless sexual lifestyle that led to his death from AIDS in 1995.
"I was beaten up, I was whipped with a belt, I was kicked, I was shoved, and my father took a gun to us on a couple of occasions at a very young age," McFarland said in an interview with the Associated Press in June.
Her father, Augie Troia, angrily denied the allegations in a New York Post interview late last month. In Thursday's interview, Tom Troia acknowledged that his father was prone to flashes of anger and would sometimes discipline his children by spanking them with a belt. But, he said, the standards of the era were different than they are today.
"It was a different attitude in the early 1960s," he said. "The punishment was on an acceptable level of the time."
Troia added that his father never kicked him or his sister, and that "there was never ever a gun in the house."
Kathleen Troia McFarland says she was beaten, kicked, threatened with gun.
Why was this relevant to her campaign.
Just shut up and run on the issues. Geesh! I'm surrounded by stupid people.
Hmm...I think caution is the byword on this one. It's impossible to tell who's telling the truth. I don't see that she has much of a chance, anyhow, so perhaps this whole ugliness should be left alone.
Stupid people are EVERYWHERE.....they don't even KNOW they're stupid!
Wow! And I thought holidays with my in-laws were a war.
It may or may not be impossible,but a way to get a good sense of what's true is to learn which way the brother leans politically/philosophically.
For that matter,the article mentions "discipline" (my word) with a belt.That suggests to me that the candidate could well be telling the truth.Families with "skeletons" in their closet often scream bloody murder when one tried to open the door to that closet.
Please check out reply #7.
I've known too many women that thrive on being 'the victim' to gain sympathy. In this case, sympathy from potential voters.
Just my opinion, I could be wrong...
"It may or may not be impossible,but a way to get a good sense of what's true is to learn which way the brother leans politically/philosophically.
For that matter,the article mentions "discipline" (my word) with a belt.That suggests to me that the candidate could well be telling the truth.Families with "skeletons" in their closet often scream bloody murder when one tried to open the door to that closet."
Man, the John Spencer/Kathleen McFarlane primary gets weirder and weirder. At times, it resembles a bad soap opera.
"...and would sometimes discipline his children by spanking them with a belt."
I remember when dad would pull a long switch off a bush just to scare us when my sisters and I were acting up. Always frightened the jeebies out of us and we stopped whatever we were doing immediately.
"Man, the John Spencer/Kathleen McFarlane primary gets weirder and weirder. At times, it resembles a bad soap opera.
"
No fooling. Since it's incredibly unlikely that either will win against Hillary, it seems to have brought out the wierdos to run. This seems to happen a lot in races where the Dem has a lock on the actual election. Very strange stuff.
Just say no, I say.
I've seen the most monsterous people defended by their children and relatives. It isn't whether they know but whether they wish others to know. Also politics plays a role in this race so you can't trust anyone especially the opposition. The Clintons have shown a willingness to do and find people who will say and do ANYTHING to win. I believe she should just focus on the issues and leave this stuff alone. The pity vote is what Dems want to run on because they don't have anything they can offer otherwise, Republicans should be ashamed to resort to such tactics and even if true the leftist media never responds with any consistency on these kind of issues.
They're all wacko nuts, narcissistic a-holes, commies, criminals, carpetbaggers and generally - scum sucking maggots. And this 'oddity' isn't something new..
I think the republican parties in NY and IL are on the dem's payroll. Must be. It's the only explanation.
Take yourself out of the box and look at this from the perspective of the other side. Played properly, this story can be turned into a weapon to attack McFarland's integrity.
Imagine, for example, how we would play it if this was Hillary and her father and brother came out calling her a liar.
This is going to be an issue throughout McFarland's campaign.
NYC's drinking water comes from the upstate watershed. The wooden piers in and around the waters of NYC have resumed rotting again. That's how much the pollution has been reduced. It used to act as a preservative because few microorganisms could tolerate it.
I grew up the same way (sometimes worse). That was then, this is now.
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