First of all, McCain was totally exonerated of any wrong doing in this case and he admitted to poor judgement by associating with Mr. Keating. In other words, he acted like a man as did Senator John Glenn (D-Ohio), another member of the Keating Five. Has Obama admitted to poor judgement concerning his associations with "shady characters"? I think not. Second of all, how many of the Keating Five were founders of a terrorist group that planned, conspired, and executed plans to blow up US government buildings and then launched the political career of John McCain from their home(s)?
Monday, October 6, 2008
McCain and "The Keating Five"
First of all, McCain was totally exonerated of any wrong doing in this case and he admitted to poor judgement by associating with Mr. Keating. In other words, he acted like a man as did Senator John Glenn (D-Ohio), another member of the Keating Five. Has Obama admitted to poor judgement concerning his associations with "shady characters"? I think not. Second of all, how many of the Keating Five were founders of a terrorist group that planned, conspired, and executed plans to blow up US government buildings and then launched the political career of John McCain from their home(s)?
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When I saw this from BO I was thinking "man if McCain's camp was smart they could sure use this issue to make BO look like an idiot" but they won't.
I was for McCain in 2000 but his behavior(selling his soul to win) this year is causing me to lose faith in him...I still think he would be a hell of a lot better than Bush so I can still live with him as President..but as for voting for him....TBD. Now it's Brodad fact check time again-He was NOT exonerated in the Keating 5 scandal(he WAS one of the 5), as much as his supporters like to claim, but he did step up to his mistakes like a man. From a conservative paper(Chicago Sun-Times):
Breaking down the facts on McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal
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October 7, 2008
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Political Reporter/apallasch@suntimes.com
Here are the truths and falsehoods regarding Sen. John McCain's role in the Keating Five savings and loan scandal:
1) John McCain was "exonerated" of any role in the scandal.
False.
The Senate Ethics committee censured McCain, saying he "exercised poor judgment in intervening with the regulators."
Bob Bennett, the high-powered Democratic attorney who headed the investigation, said he recommended McCain and Democratic Sen. John Glenn be dropped from the inquiry because he found them far less culpable than the other three senators. But the Senate's Democratic majority refused his recommendation because it would have taken the only Republican out of the inquiry.
2) McCain's actions in meeting with federal regulators cost Americans $2 billion.
Partially True
After McCain and the other senators met twice with regulators, they backed off their plans to close Keating's savings and loan. Former regulator William Black, one of the people in on that meeting, said the cost to taxpayers of that biggest-ever failure of a savings-and-loan grew from $1 billion to $3.4 billion during those two years. Bennett said the other senators were more culpable than McCain and kept up the pressure on regulators even after that second meeting, while McCain dropped the effort.
3) McCain paid back the $13,433 to Keating for nine corporate and charter jet flights McCain and his family took to Keating's home in the Bahamas, among other places, from 1984 to 1986 but which McCain initially failed to disclose as required.
True.
4) McCain was the only one of the five senators to "throw Keating out of his office."
True, but that was before the two meetings.
5) Keating and friends donated $112,000 to McCain's campaigns over the years.
True.
6) McCain's wife and father's company invested $359,000 in a Keating shopping center
True. In a conference call Monday, McCain's attorney John Dowd said McCain was not aware of his wife's investment. But the Washington Post reported that McCain admitted knowing about the investment during Senate hearings on the issue.
6) When told federal regulators were preparing to recommend criminal charges against Lincoln Savings and Loan, McCain backed off his pressuring of regulators. McCain expressed contrition about his role and became an advocate for campaign finance reform.
True
And then we have this little nugget...McCain was a member of the board of Americans for World Freedom...right wing death squads, secession agenda, and Nazi collaborators, and his name was on their letterhead??....Isn't this worse than attending a fundraiser at a friend's house where a former radical happens to also show up? I am really losing faith in Mac. From the Associated Press:
McCain link to private group in Iran-Contra case
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer 18 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - John McCain's campaign is criticizing Barack Obama for his ties to a former radical who engaged in violent acts four decades ago, but McCain himself was closely connected to a private group that supplied aid to rebels trying to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua during the Iran-Contra affair.
The U.S. Council for World Freedom was part of an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. The group was dedicated to stamping out communism around the globe.
The council's founder, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub, said McCain became associated with the organization in the early 1980s as McCain was launching his political career in Arizona. Singlaub said McCain was a supporter but not an active member in the group.
"McCain was a new guy on the block learning the ropes," Singlaub told The Associated Press in an interview. "I think I met him in the Washington area when he was just a new congressman. We had McCain on the board to make him feel like he wasn't left out. It looks good to have names on a letterhead who are well-known and appreciated.
"I don't recall talking to McCain at all on the work of the group," Singlaub said.
The renewed attention over McCain's association with Singlaub's group comes as McCain's Republican presidential campaign steps up criticism over Obama's dealings with William Ayers, a college professor who co-founded the Weather Underground and years later worked on education reform in Chicago alongside Obama. Ayers held a meet-the-candidate event at his home when Obama first ran for public office in the mid-1990s.
Obama was roughly 8 years old when Ayers, now at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was working with the Weather Underground, which took responsibility for bombings that included nonfatal blasts at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol. McCain's vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, has said that Obama "pals around with terrorists."
In McCain's case, Singlaub knew McCain's father, a Navy admiral who had sought Singlaub's counsel when McCain became a prisoner of war and spent 5 1/2 years in North Vietnamese hands.
"John's father asked me for advice about what he ought to do now that his son had been shot down and captured," Singlaub recalled in one of two recent interviews. "I said, 'As long as you don't give any impression that you care more about him than you care about any of the other prisoners, he won't be treated any differently.'"
In the Iran-Contra affair, the Reagan White House arranged covert arms shipments to the Contra rebels financed in part by secret arms sales to Iran.
Iran-Contra proved to be the undoing of Singlaub's council.
In 1987, the Internal Revenue Service withdrew the tax-exempt status of Singlaub's group because of its activities on behalf of the Contras.
Elected to the House in 1982 and at a time when he was on the board of Singlaub's council, McCain was among Republicans on Capitol Hill expressing support for the Contras, a CIA-organized guerrilla force in Central America. In 1984, Congress cut off CIA funds for the Contras.
Months before the cutoff, top Reagan administration officials ramped up the secret White House-directed supply network and put National Security Council aide Oliver North in charge of running it. The goal was to keep the Contras operational until Congress could be persuaded to resume CIA funding.
Singlaub's private group became the public cover for the White House operation.
Secretly, Singlaub worked with North in an effort to raise millions of dollars from foreign governments.
McCain has said previously he resigned from the council in 1984 and asked in 1986 to have his name removed from the group's letterhead.
"I didn't know whether (the group's activity) was legal or illegal, but I didn't think I wanted to be associated with them," McCain said in a newspaper interview in 1986.
Singlaub does not recall any McCain resignation in 1984 or May 1986, nor does Joyce Downey, who oversaw the group's day-to-day activities.
"That's a surprise to me," Singlaub said. "This is the first time I've ever heard that. There may have been someone in his office communicating with our office." "I don't ever remember hearing about his resigning, but I really wasn't worried about that part of our activities, a housekeeping thing," Singlaub said. "If he didn't want to be on the board that's OK. It wasn't as if he had been active participant and we were going to miss his help. He had no active interest. He certainly supported us."
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Good job on the talking points, Vance. Guys like John Glenn or John McCain should never be President. What have THEY ever accomplished in their lives compared to someone like Barack Hussein Obama? I'm halfway tempted to vote for Obama myself just so we can all experience the euphoria and utopianness of a Democratic Congress and President. Talk about a "ship of fools". It would be fun to watch. To compare McCain's relationship to Keating to Obama's relationship with an unrepentent terrorist responsible for the deaths of US citizens is ludicrous. Oops, I'm sorry it wasn't Bill that killed those policemen , it was his wife.
No talking points in the above posts...just facts from the "mainstream media"(meaning anything but faux news). I think John Glenn would be a fine President and McCain would be "acceptable"....as far as "relationships" go, what is disqualifying?? The fact that someone served on the same charitable board with a person who had a criminal past?? Went to the same house for a fundraiser?? That would probably disqualify most Americans....how many people were in the same PTA I served in years ago who were tax evaders, child molesters, wife beaters, alcoholics, reformed drug dealers, etc.?? Guilt by association is an age old red herring tactic.....but a moot point now as it appears that Palin has moved beyond this attack and is just content to stir up the "lynch mob" at her rallies with cries of "sit down boy, treason, and off with his head"(that one must have come from one of the few who took high school english/lit in Pensacola).
The fact is Obama's political career was launched in Bill Ayers' living room. Now why was that? There was something about Obama that Ayers and his wife was attracted to. What could that have been? Obama's ignorance of Ayers' background? Obama's socialist views and membership in Chicago's New (Socialist) Party? His anti-capitalist views? The excellent way he trained ACORN activists? Did you invite any of the tax evading, wife-beating, sex abusers from the PTA over to your house? I know, not that you know of. But what if you did know? Would that show good judgement? Obama was well into his 30's when he met Ayers. If he didn't know his background, then he's not near as smart as the media gives him credit for. That's the big question about Obama. His associations show poor judgement and his refusal to explain them show his lack of honesty. Simple enough.
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