Earlier today the McCain campaign had the gall to hold a conference call and have McCain's lawyer from the Keating Five scandal, John Dowd, claim that:
...he vehemently disagreed with the judgment of the Senate Ethics Committee that McCain had made some serious mistakes. "That's not something that as his counsel I accepted," Dowd said.
Dowd singled out the late Sen. Howell Heflin (D-AL), who vocally criticized McCain at the time, for particular scorn. "But you know, Sen. Mitchell was the majority leader, and Howell Heflin was his stooge," said Dowd. "And he was doing what he was told because the rest were Democrats in the hearing. So it's sort of a classic political smear-job on John."
And what did John McCain have to say about it...back in the day when he wasn't losing a presidential campaign, that is?
I created the appearance of impropriety so it was my -- I was guilty, and therefore did not represent the people of my state in the manner which they expected of me. [CNN, Larry King, 10/12/02]
The biggest mistake that I made in my life was attending a meeting with four other senators and four regulators because of the appearance of impropriety, and it is something that will always be a mark on my record, and something that people will judge me for the rest of my life. [GOP Presidential Primary Debate, 1/7/00]
Despite my recovery, the Keating Five experience was not one that I have walked away from as easily as I have other bad times. Twelve years after its conclusion, I still wince thinking about it and find that if I do not repress the memory, its recollection still provokes a vague but real feeling that I had lost something very important, something that was sacrificed in the pursuit of gratifying ambitions, my own and others', and that I might never possess again as assuredly as I once had. [McCain, Worth the Fighting For Page 204]
For nearly 20 years, John McCain has talked about his involvement in the Keating Five scandal as the biggest mistake of his political career, but now that it's become a part of the campaign conversation, McCain is too much of a coward to stand up and accept responsibility for his past words and actions.