Will The Keating Five Scandal Come Back To Haunt McCain?

Last night on MSNBC's Countdown With Keith Olbermann, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter wondered how John McCain is "getting a free ride" in this economic crisis after having been at the center of Keating Five, the last big banking scandal. He also notes that instead of coming out of that mess in favor of more regulation, McCain "did nothing to try to prevent another Savings and Loan crisis. He was missing in action." Watch:

The Wall Street Journal touches on the Keating Five scandal and suggests that McCain may have to answer to it after all:

The latest salvo came on Monday when an Obama spokesman, Bill Burton, invoked Charles Keating in hitting back at the McCain campaign for suggesting that Barack Obama had received a pass from the press. Burton said John McCain had been little scrutiny of his association to Keating despite being "centrally involved" in "the last major financial regulatory crisis, resulting in a huge bailout."

Asked by reporters if the Obama campaign planned to make Keating an issue, senior strategist Robert Gibbs was coy: "If we're going to talk about what's fair game in terms of people in a relationship, I don't see how... that wouldn't be important."

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who was labeled the leader of a "corrupt" machine in a McCain campaign ad yesterday, suggests he's all for it.

"You had the Keating Five. We had the biggest scandal in America called savings and loan. The biggest scandal, Daley told the Chicago Sun-Times. "So, if people start throwing dirt and mud, remember it comes back and hits you right in the face ... It would be a great ad. Remember: People lost their life savings, their own homes for a guy named Keating out of Arizona."

Comments

[DanniD]

Well, it's about freaking time somebody on tv remembered the Keating 5!

Sheesh, if those skeletons were clacking in Obama's closet, they'd have been drug out last year some time!

[grf67]

We certainly hope so. mccain escapeed the Keating Five mess by claiming that he was too stupid to know what was going on, but that he was not a crook. I don't believe that either one qualifies him to be president. If he had been a democrat, he would have been in prison.

[gopSTEALSyourTAXmoney]

William Rehnquist also played a BIG but silent part on getting John McCain from
getting prosecuted.

[yhgtup]

Well, Bring It On!!! I've been waiting patiently to see SOMETHING from the Obama campaign about the Keating 5. They need to talk about it, AND make a national campaign ad about it.

[HerbTee]

Damned straight the Obama Campaign should consider the "Keating Five" scandal fair game. The economic meltdown the country is going through is an excellent time to do it. If the McCain Campaign wants to pull out a knife, the Obama Campaign should pull out a g u n! It's time to fight dirty if needed!

[picval]

We are not in the streach yet....the last 2 weeks of the Campaign will be Keating 5 all the time, saving the Best for Last!

[Whinger]

Oh Johnny boy, the ghost of Christmas past wants a word with you!

[grizhead63]

McCain: Married To The Mob?

http://suzieqq.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/mccain-married-to-the-mob/

If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything. Mark Twain, 1894

[Time2WakeUpUSA]

Keating five = 4 Dems + 1 Repug.....­this is why Obama is not pounding this one.
Better to hit McCain with the MANY other failures and flip-flops McCain has open for us to hit him on

[gopSTEALSyourTAXmoney]

The 4 dems are not running for potus. John McCAIN IS.

[Time2WakeUpUSA]

I totally agree with you, but it's clear that we Dems suck at fighting back. And you can bet the minute an ad is run on the Keating Five the ReThugs will turn it around on the Dems and Obama's camp won't know how to respond...­.it's sad, but Dems just aren't as good at disgusting gutter politics.

[BLinCincinnati]

The 4 dems aren't even in office of any kind anymore either.

[Momma4Obama]

Amen to that, gopSTEALSy­ourTAXmone­y!! If it would have been Obama and 4 of the most Conservative Republicans in the Keating Five Scandal, you can bet your balls that the Repubs would be running ads from primaries.

[gopSTEALSyourTAXmoney]

hello Momma4 Obama---google 'William Rehnquist'-----an Arizonan who had a
lot to do with getting McCain off the hook---------it also is a fact that he tried to prevent
AA in Phoenix from voting during the 60's----

[Cedman]

one Republican­?....LOL!

[quindy]

What? Keating was a Democrat?

[gopSTEALSyourTAXmoney]

keating was a Republican.

[66rock]

He is a Republican and Still treated like royalty here in Arizona by the Republicans.

[JoeAlvord]

That makes it OK?

[rabprevent]

mcain/palin
unstable and unable

vote no to mccain and all his cronies, the republican party!!!!

[MsDoc]

incontinen­t/incompet­ent ????? Feeling very cranky today...so­rry

[Momma4Obama]

LOL! Hilarious!

I live in Jacksonville, FL; it was so crowded, when i arrived at 7 to volunteer for the Obama Rally, there were people already waiting in line! Ol' liar McCain tried to have it put out that they had over 10,000 at his rally, and it turns out he only had about 1,500.

And the best part? The only protest from the McCain camp we saw was a lone airplane with the words; "Florida is McCain/Palin Country". Now, with 20,000 inside the rally and roughly 10,000 on the outside, who do YOU think has Florida?

OBAMA/BIDEN 2008

[quindy]

hahahaha

[CTtransplant]

Great that MSNBC brought this up!

However, in the midst of all this - and that we are now talking of a major bailout that includes $2.5B in bonuses that are still going to be given out (WTF?), there are millions of us out there with retirement plans and pensions that have now sunk because of what is going on...how can giving these people bonuses be justified??????

[MsDoc]

It can't be justified.­..and you might want to e-mail your elected representatives and reiterate this fact...LOU­DLY!

http://www.senate.gov/

http://www.house.gov/

[Momma4Obama]

They're not justified, and if enough of our representatives started getting some ear-blistering demands about reforming that part of the bill, on BOTH sides, then some sort of justice will be served.

The execs shouldn't get s&^%, and wouldn't if enough of us band together and sound the alarm!

[Chillinout]

That $2.5B is not part of the bailout. That is what the Lehman Bros. executives are getting. That company has already filed for bankruptcy and is not part of the bailout. No taxpayer money is going to their golden parachutes, only stock payer money.

[Momma4Obama]

But if the company is going under, shouldn't the stock holders as well as the execs sink with the ship? if they invested all their stock options within the company, or happened to dump them all before the company fell, they should take a loss like everyone else.

What about the workers with pensions and 401K's? They get shafted as usual.

[quindy]

A woman I know who worked for Lehman most of her life had her retirement in stock options. Last week she told me that she does not have retirement anymore. The biggest part is gone. She is in her 60s. I can only hope that these 2.5 B will be used to replace those lost assets in their retirement plan. But, I could be wrong.

[Pierpier]

keating 5 is the sleping dog in this campaign. ....
and mccain is kicking it hard.....

[jaybs]

McCain seems to change his policy and stance on problems like the weather, they try to sell him as a man of experience, but he is completely out of touch and he does not seem to demonstrate at all that he is fit enough for such a hard task ahead, also his judgement has to be questioned, why pick a woman like Palin, who no one really knows and someone who has such extreme very weird beliefs, in fact someone he didn't even know himself?

[pennyloafer]

"Will The Keating Five Scandal Come Back To Haunt McCain?"

Shouldn't the question be: "Why Didn't The Keating Five Scandal Put McCain Right Out Of Presidential Contention From Day One Of The Primaries?

[pennyloafer]

And the glaringly obvious corollary:

Where the bleep has the Press been all this time?

[Momma4Obama]

Mostly getting full of McCain's BBQ in AZ; however, I wonder if the truth will come out later that they were eating BBQ Moose from AK?

For the McCain campaign to say that the MSM has been kissing Obama's a%$ is like saying Bush has been cutting the Nation's debt down- straight BS!

[jhallbo]

The best thing McCain, his party bosses, comrads,and
deceitful hypocrites can do is, follow OSAMA BIN LADEN through the gates of HELL.

[ProudLiberalDan]

I read Chris Matthews explaining why the media has trouble holding McCain accountable.

According to him, many of the people in a power to do so are men who in McCain's generation who found a way to avoid serving in Vietnam (like the President and Cheney) and they are still reluctant to challenge him because of that.

Rove showed that the way to beat someone is not just attack their weakness, but confront their strength head on.

The truth is that the honor and valor that soldier McCain showed 35 years has no relevance or relationship to the say anything, do anything, pandering campaing of candidate McCain now.

Not from the Obama campaign, but a couple of "What happened to the old John McCain" ads and "he's not the maverick you think he is" ads from 527s may be in order.

[Momma4Obama]

I completely agree with your statement.