McCain: Drinking contest with Hillary didn't happen

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Sen. John McCain is denying a report in the New York Times that claimed he and fellow Sen. Hillary Clinton engaged each other in a vodka-drinking contest in Estonia two years ago.

"It didn't happen," McCain said on NBC's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno." "Don't believe everything you read."

On July 28, Anne E. Kornblut of the New York Times reported:

Two summers ago, on a Congressional trip to Estonia, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton astonished her traveling companions by suggesting that the group do what one does in the Baltics: hold a vodka-drinking contest.

Delighted, the leader of the delegation, Senator John McCain, quickly agreed. The after-dinner drinks went so well – memories are a bit hazy on who drank how much – that Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, later told people how unexpectedly engaging he found Mrs. Clinton to be. ''One of the guys'' was the way he described Mrs. Clinton, a New York Democrat, to some Republican colleagues.

But when pressed last night by Leno for more information, McCain said, "We had dinner and that's it. ... I'm sorry it isn't a better story."

Leno drew a large laugh in his monologue when he recounted the Times report of the alleged drinking contest.

"That showed me how two sides can get together, when a McCain and a Clinton can both end up acting like a Kennedy," he clowned. "It's kind of interesting when Hillary asked him if he wanted to go out for a cold one, Sen. McCain said, 'No thanks, I'm married.'"

As WND exclusively reported last summer, McCain appeared on Leno's show to defend his cameo appearance in "Wedding Crashers," the sexy comedy the Drudge Report called a "boob raunch fest."

"In Washington, I work with boobs every day," joked McCain. "In Washington, D.C., there's a lot of qualities. A sense of humor is not one of them."

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