McCain's "Keating 5" Scandal Involvement To Be Highlighted By Obama Campaign

Update 12:30pm Monday, October 6:
The Obama campaign has released the full video of "Keating Economics: John McCain and The Making of a Financial Crisis." Watch it below:

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The Obama campaign, in an effort to combat increasingly negative attacks by the McCain camp, is launching an aggressive, multi-pronged effort to highlight McCain's involvement in the "Keating 5" savings-and-loan scandal:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Monday will launch a multimedia campaign to draw attention to the involvement of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the "Keating Five" savings-and-loan scandal of 1989-91, which blemished McCain's public image and set him on his course as a self-styled reformer.

Pushing back against what it calls McCain's "guilt-by-association" tactics, the Obama campaign is e-mailing millions of supporters a link to a website, KeatingEconomics.com, which will have a 13-minute documentary on the scandal beginning at noon Eastern time on Monday. The overnight e-mails urge recipients to pass the link on to friends.

The Obama campaign, including its surrogates appearing on radio and television, will argue that the deregulatory fervor that caused massive, cascading savings-and-loan collapses in the late '80s was pursued by McCain throughout his career, and helped cause the current credit crisis.

The Obama camp released this 30-second trailer for a 13-minute video highlighting McCain's connection to the scandal that will be released in full tomorrow at 12pm EST on the website keatingeconomics.com.

A former federal regulator with intimate knowledge of the savings-and-loan scandal recently told HuffPost's Seth Colter Walls that McCain is repeating mistakes from the Keating era:

William Black -- a deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation during the "Keating Five" scandal that nearly ended McCain's political career -- says the Arizona Republican's chief errors at the time were underestimating the importance of regulation and relying too heavily on slanted advice from captains of industry.

"In the S&L crisis, he took his advice from the worst [kind of] criminal. Charles Keating is the person he went to for his policy advice," Black said. "Now, he certainly is getting advice from Phil Gramm, Carly Fiorina, Rick Davis -- the whole group of economic and top political advisers are lobbyist types. He just doesn't seem to get it, ever, that the advice is going to favor their clients. Even if they just stop being lobbyists, you can't just turn that off instantly. It's their mind state that develops. ... The biggest lesson is that, when you deregulate and de-supervise, you create an environment where control fraud emerges. You hyper-inflate bubbles; you get criminalization."

Click here for more information about the "Keating 5."

Comments

[KISHAGREEN]

Does anybody know if there was a response from the McCain campaign about the Keating video? They're awfully quiet about it, but they had to know that once they brought up Ayers, Keating would come back to haunt them.

[mrsmdressup]

They played a very risky game of "chicken". I remember this vaguely but it is so important to get this out to the younger voters who are completely unaware that history is now repeating itself.

[AZterritory]

Trust me, Arizonans remember this well--because when the savings and loans tanked a LOT of people lost everything (20,000 "Joe Six-Packs"). So it DID impact the younger voters through their parents and grandparents. Please watch the video and talk it up. We're counting on you younger voters--vote early, take a friend!
(Friends don't let friends vote Republican.)

[sparrowgal]

I read on Americablog.com that the McCain camp's lawyer is saying that the Keating 5 scandal was a Democratic-party-led smear job on McCain 18 years ago. Couldn't you just have predicted?!?!?

[leftoflennon]

U caused it McSame!

[AdLib]

Part Two: McCain is a hero?
====================

"What McCain glosses over is that accepting early release would have required him to make disloyal statements that would have violated the military's Code of Conduct. If he had done so, he could have risked court-martial and an ignominious end to his military career.

"Many of us were given this offer," according to Butler, McCain's classmate who was also taken prisoner. "It meant speaking out against your country and lying_about your treatment to the press. You had to 'admit' that the U.S. was_criminal and that our treatment was 'lenient and humane.' So I, like numerous others, refused the offer."

"He makes it sound like it was a great thing to have accomplished," says Dramesi. "A great act of discipline or strength. That simply was not the case."

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain/page/5

[AdLib]

McCain is a hero?
============================

"In fact, his wounds were attended to only after the North_Vietnamese discovered that his father was a Navy admiral. What has never been disclosed is the manner in which they found out:

McCain told them.

According to Dramesi, one of the few P0Ws who remained silent under years of_torture, McCain tried to justify his behavior while they were still prisoners. "I had to tell them," he insisted to Dramesi, "or I would have died_in bed."

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain/page/5
================================

"It was hard not to see how pleased the_Vietnamese were to have captured an admiral's son," he writes, "and I knew that my father's identity was directly related to my survival." But during the course of his medical treatment, McCain followed through on his offer of military information.

Only two weeks after his capture, the North_Vietnamese press issued a report " picked up by The New York Times " in which McCain was quoted as saying that the war was "moving to the advantage of North_Vietnam and the United States appears to be isolated." He also provided the name of his ship, the number of raids he had flown, his squadron number and the target_of his final raid."

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain/page/5

[Quick2822]

The funny part is the McCain campaign is the reason this is out. The video was obviously made awhile ago, and just left in the holster in case they needed it.

Considering that, beyond a doubt, McCain was involved with Keating vs. some loose affiliation with Ayers, it is damning to McCain. On top of it, it is about the economy.

Bye bye McCain.

[sparrowgal]

I was thinking the same thing when I heard about this documentary yesterday...total ace in the hole, to be used in case of McCain Mavaricky Meltdown.

[lawduck]

The link to download the movie (below the you tube vid screen) seems
to be working considerably faster. Those of you having trouble with the
youtube link consider that link.

Finally a Democratic campaign that counter-punches.

[Cheryllou]

This video gives me the chills.

[anleyang]

The debates will be fun. Don't forget! Schedule here.

http://tinyurl.com/4na3vz

[chitown8]

I watched the Video and I am convinced Mccain does not get this economic crisis.

[BARACKOBEZZY1987]

wtf is the rupubs are talking bout bill ayers yeah right you guys are falling faster then the mexican pesos johnny mac would rather lose his life rather then the election news flash repugs his 72 he losing both damn it feels good to be an obama supporter

[yankee48104]

That was definately worth 13 minutes of my day. Very interesting. But what really gave me a smile was Homer Simpson endorsing Obama on The Simpsons:

video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aBaX9GPSaQ

[Terriac]

Watch out, McCain. You can smear all you want, but then out comes Keating Five., with all the video and news of the day to prove it. You're going down. The only question is, how fast and how far.

[Peg head Pete]

I have always been curious about the fact that, among the "Keating Five," the only two members that were let off with (basically) mild rebukes were John McCain and John Glenn. Both of these men share similar backgrounds as former naval aviators and "American Heroes;" the former an "indefatigable" POW survivor, the latter the first American in space. Does anyone out there in HuffPo-land know if this status had any bearing on McCain and Glenn's lower level of discipline by the Senate Committee? I've always suspected that it did, but have never seen any evidence.

[lizr]

Very interesting question.

[gnarlstone]

Just watched the video. It is outstanding!

[SheriChardonnay]

This is the only time Mcgimmick crossed over to work dems, KEATING 5 LMAO!

KEATING 5, KEATING 5, KEATING 5, KEATING 5, KEATING 5