by Mark Silva
"Terrorist'' versus corrupt banker:
In the game of guilt by association and mutual assured destruction that the two leading candidates for president appear poised to play, both campaigns are reaching back into the past to find someone who might stick to their rivals today.
But in the case of the McCain campaign's attack, running mate Sarah Palin has reached so far into the past of an associate of Democrat Barack Obama that it has no apparent relevance to the candidate himself, while the Obama campaign today plows an episode of influence-peddling in Washington in which Republican John McCain has admitted his own "poor judgment.''
Palin accuses Obama of "palling around with terrorists'' - one, actually, who isn't really a terrorist anymore, but happens to be a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an author of educational reform books, William Ayers, who - four decades ago - took part in the radical anti-Vietnam war protests of the Weather Underground which he helped form, a group claiming credit for protest-bombings at the Pentagon and the Capitol.
Obama, who was eight years old at the time of those bombings, has denounced the past activities of the radical-turned-professor, and has served on civic boards in Chicago with him.
The Obama campaign's retaliatory attack today hits much closer to home for McCain, who in fact was embroiled in a scandal with four other members of Congress in the late 1980s - they became known as "The Keating Five.'' When Charles Keating, an Arizona homebuilder and banker who helped bankroll McCain's early campaigns, came calling for help with federal regulators cracking down on his savings and loan, McCain and others met with the regulators. McCain took part in just the first two meetings, and then stepped away as the severity of Keating's trouble grew clear, yet after the case of the senators' interference with regulators came to closure before the Senate Ethics Committee, McCain conceded: "I was judged eventually, after three years, of using, quote, poor judgment, and I agree with that assessment.''
Palin, the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee, insisted over the weekend that her campaign trail attacks against Obama for his association with Ayers are relevant because Ayers once hosted a small, meet-the-candidate event for Obama in 1995, early in his political career and donated $200 to Obama's state legislative camapign. Palin said in California on Sunday: "I think it's fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy's living room."
By that measure, then, it's certainly fair for the Obama campaign to talk about McCain's association with Keating, because Keating and associates raised $11,000 for McCain's first congressional campaign in 1982 and ultimately raised more than $100,000 for McCain's early political campaigns. McCain and his wife, Cindy, also had often been guests of the high-flying Arizona homebuilder, flying aboard his private jet to his vacation home in the Bahamas - trips for which the senator repaid Keating only after his problems with federal regulators surfaced.
"Charlie was a real go-getter,'' McCain has written in his 2002 memoir, Worth the Fighting For.
"On several occasions, he invited Cindy and me to his beautiful vacation retreat at Cat Cay in the Bahamas, flying us there, with out infant daughter, Meghan, and her nanny, on his private jet,'' McCain wrote with co-author Mark Salter, his chief of staff and speechwriter. "The place always seemed to have a huge, boisterous crowd in attendance... We would all crowd on his yacht, off for a day of swimming and snorkeling, and then return for another extravagant party with the best wine, food and entertainment available. They were memorable experiences, and even though our trips there would almost lead to my ruin, I would be lying were I to deny just how much I enjoyed them and how eagerly I awaited invitations to Charlie Keating's Shangri-La.''
For more detail on McCain and the Keating Five, see a summary from my book: McCain: The Essential Guide to the Republican Nominee, published by the Chicago Tribune and Triumph Books in September:
Charles H. Keating Jr., a high-flying homebuilder in Arizona who had befriended and entertained McCain and other politicians, wanted to head off federal regulators who were moving in early 1987 to take over the failing Lincoln Savings and Loan, a subsidiary of his American Continental Corp. Keating had contributed thousands of dollars to the campaigns of Arizona's senior senator, Democrat Dennis DeConcini. In March of that year, Keating asked DeConcini to convene a meeting with the thrift regulators and urge them to leave Lincoln alone. DeConcini arranged a meeting with not only the regulators, but also four other senators, including McCain.
McCain had met Keating, a fellow Navy flyer, a few years back. Keating had sponsored a fund-raiser for McCain's first congressional campaign in 1982, raising more than $11,000 from employees of American Continental. In 1983, as McCain prepared for reelection without any prospect of a serious challenge, Keating sponsored at $1,000-per-plate dinner for his campaign. And in 1986, Keating raised $50,000 for McCain's Senate race. By 1987, according to the Arizona Republic's count, McCain had collected about $112,000 in contributions from Keating and associates. The newspaper also found that a partnership involving McCain's wife and father-in-law had invested $359,000 in a shopping center that Keating developed in 1986, and that the McCains had made at least nine trips aboard the American Continental jet, including three for vacations at Keating's retreat in the Bahamas. McCain did not pay Keating for some of the trips - at a cost of about $13,000 - until years afterward, after learning that Keating was in trouble.
Keating had a list of demands for federal regulators, but McCain told Keating that all he intended to do was attend the meeting to see if Keating was being treated fairly. The first session, on April 2, 1987, in DeConcini's office, included McCain and Democratic Sens. John Glenn of Ohio and Alan Cranston of California. The four senators met with the chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, Ed Gray. He told the senators that, as chairman of the board, he had no personal knowledge of Lincoln's situation but would defer to regulators based in San Francisco.
In the next meeting, on April 9, a fifth senator joined in, Democrat Donald Riegle of Michigan. Among them, the five had collected $300,000 in campaign contributions from Keating. The five met with James Cirona, president of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and two other federal regulators. William Black, deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loans Insurance Corp., attended the meeting - which he later called a show of force by Keating -- and told the Republic that Keating hoped senators could pressure the regulators to drop their case against Lincoln. "The Senate is a really small club, like the cliché goes,'' Black told the newspaper. "And you really did have one-twentieth of the Senate in one room, called by one guy, who was the biggest crook in the S&L debacle.''
Black also kept notes of the meeting, and quoted McCain as saying in that second session: "One of our jobs as elected officials is to help constituents in a proper fashion. (American Continental) is a big employer and important to the local economy. I wouldn't want any special favors for them... I don't want any part of our conversation to be improper.'' Still, Black maintained that the regulators were nervous about the senators' intentions. "They were all different in their own way,'' he told the newspaper. "McCain was always Hamlet... wringing his hands about what to do.''
The other senators were more direct: Glenn telling the regulators to charge Lincoln or leave it alone, DeConcini calling it unusual for regulators to be putting a company out of business. But the regulators advised the senators that Lincoln's abuses were so serious that they were sending a criminal referral to the Justice Department. "This is an extraordinarily serious matter,'' one said.
McCain was finished with the matter after this meeting. He maintained later that he had been "troubled by the appearance of the meeting'' and "only wanted them to be fairly treated.''
The government's case against Lincoln moved forward, though it was taken out of the San Francisco-based regulators' hands and moved to Washington. In April 1989, the government seized the bankrupt Lincoln. Its federal bailout, $2 billion, was the costliest of the nationwide S&L scandal. In 1990, Keating was charged with 42 counts of fraud. In 1993, a federal jury convicted him of 73 counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud and sentenced him to 12 years in prison. He served four years before the conviction was overturned, and in 1999, at the age of 75, he pled guilty to four counts of fraud and was credited for time served.
The senators had become known as "The Keating Five.'' In August 1991, the Senate Ethics Committee passed judgment on its own: Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle had substantially interfered with federal regulators. The committee, deeming Cranston the worst offender in the matter, reprimanded him for "improper conduct'' in November and recommended censure. Cranston retired from the Senate the following year. The committee found that Glenn and McCain were only minimally involved, and accused McCain of "poor judgment.'' The committee's counsel had wanted to drop McCain from the case, but leaders kept him in it to maintain an appearance of bipartisan scandal. McCain later concluded: "I was judged eventually, after three years, of using, quote, poor judgment, and I agree with that assessment.''
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Comments
Well it's nice to see the lack of journalistic equality. You minimize the Obama issue and maximize McCain issue.
Certainly McCain should be taken to task. To minimize Obama's association with radicals the way you have is disgraceful. Ayers is now a professor. Wow, does that make him a Boy Scout? The next thing you will tell us is that the Weather Underground held bake sales and never killed cops.
Do you wonder why there is a movement to no longer allow many organizations to be called the "press"? If the left or right publications are going to shill for one candidate or the other then it is no longer freedom of the press because you are no longer the press.
Posted by: Jetta | October 6, 2008 10:08 AM
Why hasn't McCain pressed the Bush Administration to arrest and try Ayers for treason? Seems like empty rhetoric to call him a terrorist yet sit there and do nothing about apprehending him.
Posted by: mark marx | October 6, 2008 10:18 AM
John McCain has never been asked about Oliver North, the Contragate criminal who illegally funneled government money and weapons to support the terrorist activities of the Contras along with helping Iraq in its 8 year war against Iran. Wasn't Saddam Hussein supposed to be the bad guy according to Dubya?
Posted by: BC | October 6, 2008 10:42 AM
Bring up the Keating 5 and watch Obama loose Ohio. Both John McCain and John Glenn were cleared of any criminal involvement in the scandal. Both worked the rest of their political careers fighting corruption.
Does Obama care so little for the good names of Democrat Senators, Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John Glenn (D-OH), and Donald W. Riegle (D-MI) ? Its throwing the baby out with the bath water. The Dems have more to loose on this issue.
But hey, all’s fair in love, war and politics.
Posted by: Dan O29 | October 6, 2008 10:44 AM
"You minimize the Obama issue and maximize McCain issue."
That's because the Obama issue is a non-issue! What's there to tell? Unless you have further facts to enlighten us with.
Posted by: Mark O | October 6, 2008 10:54 AM
Many of us decry what the Weathermen did. Sen. Obama has stated, and it seems reasonable, that he didn't know about Mr. Ayers' past in 1995, when he first entered politics. How could he have known?. He was only 8 years old when Ayer's organization conducted itself so abhorrently. In addition, Mr. Ayers' life and conduct in the ensueing decades earned him a respected professorship, and he hws active in charities and in other good deeds. People DO change. This is the 'terrorists' (plural) that Gov. Palin says Sen. Obama is 'palling around' with, though it's been years since Sen. Obama has 'palled around' with 'terrorists.' Mr. Ayers would be in prison if that were the case, instead of a professor at a university.
In contrast, Sen. Mccain actually promised to 'stay away' from lobbyists after his career nearly being destroyed by his 'palling around' with a criminal who went to prison. "The Keating Five" were all deeply involved in that scandal--and one of those men was Sen. McCain, who confessed to 'poor judgment' -- just what we need in a President. Sen. Obama didn't bring up "The Keating Five' because it was in Sen McCain's past, but fair is fair. There's a big difference between associating with somebody who did something very wrong in the 1960's, but wose life has completely turned around, and associating with a criminal who ruined many people's lives, in the late 1980's, who promises to stay away from lobbyists, and then fills his campaign personnel with those very same people. Just as sen. Obama said, "they are not there (the lobbyists running McCain's campaign) in order to lose their jobs."
Please, people, wake up and choose good judgment over broken promises and poor judgment. This is the first time I have ever written tletters to support a Presidential candidate-- but the stakes are very high. Four more years of failed economic policies, run by a man who has admitted that he's not good at economics --who made fun of Sen. Obama's wise advice to check tire pressure to save millions of gallong of gasoline in this country --that ignorance, that kind of hubris -- we don;t need. Sen. Mccain was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and I know from personal experience, having lived and worked with the Apaches in Arizona, that high-rolling, partying Sen. McCain doesn't care about the poor.
When things go so wrong, we need to change the pattern.
I'd say the same to an alcoholic: change the pattern, don't viote Republican again.
Our country is going down the tubes, and Sen. Mccain was one of the strongest voices against regulation of our wildcard economic processes.
God help us if you can't see that Sen. Mccain means more of the same.
Thanks for reading this.
Posted by: J. Anne Baker | October 6, 2008 11:03 AM
Mark Marx,
McCain can't pressure bush to do anything about Ayers. The FBI got careless with how they went about evidence gathering.
So, nothing can be done about Ayers.
Rezko though, a good friend of Obama's and convicted felon, is going to jail.
I've heard nothing about why Obama had Saul Alinksy, a promenent radical muslim, write his letter of admission to Harvard. Why do you think that is? And I cannot understand why we are giving this quasi-criminal a free pass on sitting in a racist church for 20years.
Keating 5, big deal, the democrats wanted to completely exhonerate McCain for that. They couldn't, because if they did, it would have been only democrats that would have been on the hook.
Obama is way scary.
Posted by: Bobo4bush | October 6, 2008 11:04 AM
Which is worse: the terrorist who paid his debt to society 40 years ago and has since become a fully functioning member of society, or the terrorist who not only worked to cause our current economic crisis decades ago but is STILL doing it to this day.
Hell, McCain only really started saying Wall Street needed to be regulated after everyone else was screaming for blood, and even then you'll notice he never really says what he plans to do other than mumbling about "supporting main street not wall street" and "cleaning up corruption and greed".
He has no intention of regulating anything except his own bowel movements, and is far more dangerous to the US than Ayers will ever be. And when you add that to the fact that Obama has had no ties whatsoever to Ayers aside from him throwing a fundraiser once a long time ago, it seems like a shakey argument to say he's more dangerous than McCain is to this country.
Posted by: isiseyes | October 6, 2008 11:13 AM
Posted by: Bobo4bush | October 6, 2008 11:04 AM
Moron. Alinsky was Jewish, not Muslim. And so what if he was a muslim? Are you afraid of all muslims? Are their rights as american citrizens inferior to yours?
It's fearfull, ignorant, bigots like you that are a danger to the United States.
Posted by: Nel | October 6, 2008 11:18 AM
Dear God, can we at least stick with current events, you know, the economy and the war? I'm so sorry that the Rep's are so desparate to employ the scum tactics that drove MY President, Kerry, to the ground. Yes, politics indeed.
Posted by: Mark | October 6, 2008 11:37 AM
The sad part is that the McCain campaign is so DESPERATE that they have created a smear campaign. McCain realizes that Americans don't trust him or PaLIAR so let's change the subject.
I say that we should focus on the ECONOMIC TERRORISM that McCain't-stop-LYING and PaLIAR want to levy on the American people. They want to establish policies that will widen the wealth gap, destroy our healthcare system, and rape our environment. They then call it capitalism.
He also wants to distract everyone because Americans are starting to see that McCain't wants to RAISE EVERYONE'S TAXES. His healthcare SCHEME seeks to call employer paid healthcare costs TAXABLE INCOME.
Who will this hurt more? You got it. THE MIDDLE CLASS.
Posted by: Truth Defined | October 6, 2008 11:39 AM
Everyone talks about radical Muslims without forgetting there are Christian radicals too. Thank GOD it wasn't James Dobson who wrote that letter. Obama is "way scary" just because he is black. He, nor non selfish white rich people don't want to promote the rich white right wing agenda, because it's destoying the middle class. It's NOT fair and I'm white. Look at what the rich white agenda has gotten the whole financial world into? LOOK at what your ignorant GEORGE W BUSH got us into! Obama wants peace, he wants to restore the dignity and prestige America once had, because thanks to the Right Wing policies -- AMERICA has fallen several notches. YOUR right wing agenda thinks torture is FINE. Your right wing agenda thanks starting an immoral war is all DANDY. Your right wing agenda is destroying FREEDOM by changing the constitution. YOUR GREAT CELEBRITY president REGAN thought medicare was a the evil end to the American way of life.
RIGHT WING agenda = selfish, individualism, hypocritical lies.
Posted by: Julie | October 6, 2008 11:47 AM
McCain admitted "poor judgment" in the Keating scandel, following the Senate Ethics Committee's finding of McCain "poor judgment" , should be put in context. The delay in prosecuting Keating, by the 5 senators involved in pressuring the investigators, including McCain, may have increased the number of depositors who lost most of their life savings from Keating's Lincoln Saving and Loan. McCain's
"deregulation" stance since that scandal, makes a lie of his claimed regret.
Posted by: terri ellison | October 6, 2008 12:07 PM
Jesse Ventura would make a better VP than Palin.
Posted by: Rob Winslow | October 6, 2008 12:15 PM
Obama was 8 years old for God's sake and he was supposed to know about Ayer's past? Besides they both served on a charity boards to improve education. Some crime! Ayers wouldn't be a professor in good standing today if he hadn't reformed. Don't Republicans think people can change? Whereas, McCain was a 45 year old man making his own choices when he decided to "pal around" with a banker who bought his interest with parties, private jets, yachts and free goodies of all kinds. Which showed bad judgemment? You tell me...not that I don't believe he could change as well. I just don't see it in his actions.Once the pot starts calling the kettle black, everything is fair game. Do we really want to go there instead of addressing the nation's servere and present problems? On that account, with economics front and center, Obama wins hands down. Are you ready to have your children and grandchildren handed an even bigger debt with endless wars and the exact same Bush approach that has been disastrous for our country? God forbid.
Posted by: lindaka | October 6, 2008 12:30 PM
Actually, I guess, I do have to remind everyone, none of the other four defendants, in the Keating Five Scandal, are running for our highest Office in our land, the Presidency !! I don't want a person that showed extremely poor judgement in our Office of the President. Had Senator McCain faced a trial by jury, or by a judge, I don't think he would have fared as well !! Senator McCain's associations with the Keating Five, pales in comparison with the The Bush-Cheney Republican associations. They have done a lot more damage to America than Charles Keating ever did and Senator McCain has been hand in hand with this disastrous duo, presently hiding out, in our White House !! Let the American electorate show the disreputable Republicans the door and do not return to our capital, until you have reconnected with your real constituencies, The People !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, Chicago | October 6, 2008 12:39 PM
Nobody cares about Ayers and nobody cares about the Keating Five. That might as well be ancient history.
The election will be decided on the economy. Obama will defend himself against these ridiculous attacks and the fruits of the GOP deregulation efforts led by McCain's economic guru Phil Gramm will do the rest. Obama '08.
Posted by: Tom O | October 6, 2008 2:09 PM
----------------------
Why would America REWARD complete Republican failure ?
We wont.
Posted by: PulSamsara | October 6, 2008 2:37 PM
Remember,
you MUST take one of the candidates who forced you to pay for the Wall Street bailout.
Deal?
"The two parties should be
almost identical, so that
the American people can
'throw the rascals out'
at any election without
leading to any profound or
extensive shifts in policy."
-Carol Quigley
Posted by: ryanshaunkelly | October 6, 2008 3:37 PM
http://www.keatingeconomics.com/
http://www.keatingeconomics.com/
http://www.keatingeconomics.com/
http://www.keatingeconomics.com/
http://www.keatingeconomics.com/
I've pasted a few extra links for the website that shows exactly why jonny mcBUSH has no business running business, much less a country. Please use the extra links to send to all your friends all over the country so all Americans kow exactly what sort of person jonny mcBUSH really is.
Posted by: tried and true Americand | October 6, 2008 3:56 PM
Republicans like to complain about "journalistic equality" and how the media focuses on Republican gaffes and Republican mistakes more than Democratic ones. This is true, but the Republicans never think why the media is often on the "liberal" side.
Have Republicans ever considered that this is because one side is right and the other is totally wrong, and not because the media is liberal?
The story is this. Obama met Ayers serving for charitable causes. He was not friends or "palling around." They went to *work* together and were never close (How much do *you* know about all your co-worker's personal lives 40 years ago? Would you know if one of them was a terrorist?). Meanwhile McCain was definitely friends with Keating.
McCain and Palin are totally wrong about Obama, and Obama is totally right about McCain. The Republicans should be grateful for *any* coverage the media puts on Ayers+Obama, because there's nothing there to talk about. Wow, they met out of work in a park by accident because they live in the same neighborhood... once.
Posted by: Brian | October 6, 2008 4:04 PM
The difference here is clear. John McCain has been open and honest about the Keating matter, and even the Democratic special counsel in charge recommended that Senator McCain be completely exonerated. By contrast, Barack Obama has been fundamentally dishonest about his friendship and work with the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers, whose radical group bombed the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol. Nor has Barack Obama come clean on his close friendship with Tony Rezko, a felon convicted on bribery charges who subsidized the purchase of Barack Obama’s home. It’s obvious that Barack Obama is frantically attacking because he knows that most voters find these kinds of friendships, and the failed judgment they expose, to be unacceptable for our next president.
In 1991, the Senate Ethics Committee cleared McCain of corruption charges but cited him for “poor judgment” in meeting with federal regulators on behalf of Charles H. Keating Jr., a political patron who went to prison for fraud in connection with the collapse of the California-based Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which at the time was one of the biggest financial failures in the nation’s history.
The Keating episode took a searing toll on the senator and his wife, Cindy. Robert Timberg, in his 1999 biography “John McCain: An American Odyssey,” wrote that the trouble began with the senator “carelessly choosing his friends.”
And when has Obama made a similar admission? McCain has character and learns from his mistakes. Obama obfuscates. Obama cannot be trusted by his friends. Obama cannot be trusted by his enemies. Obama cannot be trusted.
Posted by: Bemused | October 6, 2008 7:35 PM
Look to be honest with you, my family is a hardcore republican clan. We have bled red for years. I alway thought it was my duty to vote republican. I mean our party has always been the moral compass for all leaders to be judged. I still would vote for GW if he could run again. I also think he is unfairly being judged by the public. I really can't see myself voting for Barack "Hussein" Obama but right now after learning about how bad this Keeting thing was, my whole family is contemplating not voting. I went and saw that documentary on Keatingeconomics.com and then read more about who it affected. God, it is horrible. Many people lost their life savings, homes, college funds, jobs, retirement. It was horrible. To think that Senator McCain had this in his past is a bit much. My father then remembered his friends grandparents losing their retirement funds and having to start over and go back to work at 72yrs old. They eventually lost their homes. Still I figured this was a one time mistake but to find out his campaing managers are even in anyway tied to what is going on right now is just disturbing. Even Hussein is smarter than that. It kept getting worst, I looked into his legal documents on his marriage to Mrs. Cindy McCainn, come to find out he was still married to his previous wife and got remarried before a divorce. I can't vote for this man. He is detesting, a liar, fraud enabler, a cheater, just a plain jerk. I would rather know the worst of it is I also found out that Govener Palin's Husband was a part of a Group which wanted Alaska to leave the United States Union. My god, this is why I wish Bush was still running. The Republican Party is really reeling if this is what we have to offer our country.
Posted by: Ohio Youngster | October 7, 2008 1:50 AM
It would appear that the Republican Party is becoming very nervous.,rehashing 40 yr 0ld events aimed at a 8 yr old. Stay current Ms. Palin , the Mayor of Oakland is a former Black Panther
Posted by: Michael Wilborn | October 7, 2008 11:57 AM
Bobo4bush said, "I've heard nothing about why Obama had Saul Alinksy, a promenent radical muslim, write his letter of admission to Harvard. Why do you think that is?" It might be because Alinsky never wrote such a letter. How do I know this? I know this because Alinsky died in 1972 when Obama was 11 years old!
Posted by: GaGirl40 | October 8, 2008 1:31 PM