With a huge banking crisis, and John McCain shifting positions in an attempt to place himself on the right side of history (and out of the path of responsiblity), I think it's finally time to go there. That's right - the original McCain crisis - The Savings & Loan Scandal / aka the Keating 5. To be fair, John McCain claims to have learned his lesson and set him upon a path that lead to campaign reform, ethics form, and a refreshing humility that attracted quite a few of us in 2000, and even during the Republican primaries.
But, with the race tightening and the stakes increasing, the layers & lessons have started coming off, and today the John McCain we see is arrogant, angry, defensive, and deceptive.
See below the fold for video of and articles about John McCain during the Keating 5 scandal.
As many of you already know, John McCain faced an ethics investigation in the early 90s for attempting to influence an investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) into the Charles Keating's "Lincoln Savings and Loan". Charles Keating, a wealthy Arizonan banker, had donated money to McCain's campaign, paid for McCain and his wife to fly out to his Bahamas beach home, and engaged in business dealings with McCain's wife, Cindy.
When the story broke, his first reaction was to be resistant, stubborn, and nasty. See, if this attitude sounds familiar:
Keating was no ordinary constituent to McCain.
On Oct. 8, 1989, The Arizona Republic revealed that McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators.
The paper also reported that the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby-sitter, had made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay.
McCain also did not pay Keating for some of the trips until years after they were taken, after he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. Total cost: $13,433.
When the story broke, McCain did nothing to help himself.
"You're a liar," McCain said when a Republic reporter asked him about the business relationship between his wife and Keating.
"That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot," McCain said later in the same conversation. "You do understand English, don't you?"
He also belittled reporters when they asked about his wife's ties to Keating.
"It's up to you to find that out, kids."
The paper ran the story.
In his 2002 book, McCain confesses to "ridiculously immature behavior" during that particular interview and adds that The Republic reporters' "persistence in questioning me about the matter provoked me to rage."
- http://www.azcentral.com/...
A lot has been made of John McCain's recent turn to negative politics and lies recently. This turn has been largely attributed to his loss in 2000, and an embrace of Karl Rove style politics. I'm wondering after reading this article, if this isn't just John McCain reverting, unlearning the lessons he learned from this scandal and looking back on his humility as a weakness.
Here's John McCain displaying that humility and admitting everything in a press conference about the scandal:
I find the humility refreshing here, but condemn him for being on the wrong side of history in the Savings and Loan scandal. His lack of judgement is something that he has internalized, making the crisis about himself and what he learned from it. This would be cute and cuddly, but this lack of judgement cost taxpayers 200 billion dollars, a fact that he has never owned up to.
Once again, John McCain has placed himself on the wrong side of history for his own benefit. Two points
- His economic plan was written by Phil Gramm:
- A lobbyist, working for the banking industry
- A man who pushed for the deregulation that caused this crisis
- And was instrumental in the last financial / energy crisis - the Enron collapse.
- Quite possibly, the most corrupt senator in the last 50 years
- He has consistently pushed for deregulation of the financial industry. Even yesterday, Gov. Palin articulated the McCain position as getting "government out of the way of businesses", when this was precisely to begin with.
The John McCain that owns up to his mistakes is gone, and the John McCain who is arrogant, self-serving, and angry has been resurged by his keepers, in order to run this horrible campaign, based on lies - probably looking back on his own humility as a weakness.