Exclusive: Obama to hit McCain on Keating Five – Politico.com
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Monday is launching 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 overnight began 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 e-mails urge recipients to pass the link on to friends.
Team Obama is trying to play this as something they were forced to do, in response to Gov. Palin’s weekend whacks against the Messiah’s relationship with Bill Ayers.
There’s a problem with that explanation. As Media Blog’s Greg Pollowitz points out: “Team Obama registered “KeatingEconomics.com” on September 25, days before Gov. Palin’s truthful statement about Senator Obama’s association with terrorist Bill Ayers. This indicates that Obama was going to use “guilt-by-association tactics,” no matter what Team McCain did.”
Based on the timing of that domain registration, a case could be made that, like that idiot Olbermoron, Team Obama are taking their cues from Daily Kos.
Another problem is that Sen. McGrampyPants was exonerated of any wrong doing:
The cloud of scandal did not lift until Nov. 20, 1991, when he was exonerated by the Senate Ethics Committee after an investigation that included weeks of televised hearings. The committee found that Mr. McCain had ”exercised poor judgment” in attending, with four other senators, two meetings with federal banking regulators, but it found no improper action on his part.
”I found nothing in my investigation which caused me to question Senator McCain’s integrity,” said Robert Bennett, the Washington lawyer who was special counsel to the ethics panel during what is called the Keating Five investigation. Mr. Bennett, more recently, has been one of President Clinton’s lawyers.
In fact, Bennett had recommended McGrampyPants (along with Sen. John Glenn) be dropped from the investigation. His recommendation was rejected; many believe it was rejected because it would sever the only Republican involved from the scandal… and, in the name of bi-partisanship, that just couldn’t be allowed… even though the Senate Ethics Committee’s lead investigator told the committee “I got nuthin’.”
Actually, if I trusted the MSM to actually explain the Keating/S&L mess and compare it to the current economic mess–and not just parrot The One’s talking points, I’d imagine that a huge swath of Americans would be saying: “If those politicians got investigated back then, where is the investigation into the politicians involved this time around?”
It’s good to remember that Keating did time for his crime, as did Enron’s officers, because they were cooking the books for personal profit. The exact same thing was happening with Fannie and Freddie. Yet I don’t see their CEOs and/or board members getting hauled into court, nor the politicians involved in running interference for those people catching any Capitol Hill heat… even though this disaster has been brewing since mid-2006. The FBI, currently gearing up a bunch of investigations, admits they probably will NOT result in any serious charges being brought.
Hell, if you watch or read any MSM outlet, you likely don’t even know those people’s names. And–YouTube video evidence be damned–none of Fannie and Freddie’s Congressional enablers seem the least bit worried that their complicity is gonna come back to bite them in the ass.
Can’t really blame them, though. They can read the polls. If The One wins, the most those FBI investigations will produce are a couple of sacrificial lambs culled from Wall Street firms once the Messiah installs a new Attorney General; none of the Beltway insiders with a “D” on their voter registration card will ever see the inside of a courtroom.
More over at Patterico.
UPDATE: The Old Gray Lady buries an important Fannie/Freddie story
Seriously, what other reason explains running it on Saturday, instead of front paging it on Sunday?
UPDATE 2: Yo, Bambi? If you’re gonna play the Keating Card, how do you explain this?
When the astronaut made way for the Boss on the Oval, 10,000 people roared in unison, “Bruuuuce!”
“You don’t get introduced by John Glenn every day,” Bruce Springsteen said, breaking into an impromptu version of Mr. Spaceman.
Kinda odd to have a member of the Keating 5 acting as the MC at your Springsteen-fueled GOTV shindig, don’t you think? Kinda implies you agree with Bennett’s belief that Glenn was guilt-free… same as he considered McCain to be.
So how do you retro-tar Sen. McGrampyPants with malfeasance, while allowing Glenn to introduce Springsteen as if HE came out of the Keating scandal clean?
You think people won’t notice that kind of hypocritical bullshit?
Or is asking that question just as racist as bringing up Bill Ayers?
Stupid tactic, on Barky's part.
McCain was totally cleared of all charges, at that time. All this will do (hopefully) will be to provide McCain's team to go all out on O'Blacka's ass with a sense of moral rectitude.
When I first started checking out McCain as a candidate to support, I researched the whole Keating episode, and there's no there, there.
If I'm working for Grampy, I immediately respond with Rezko. “Yes, I should not have responded to a constituent who I found out was under investigation. When I found out, I removed myself. But if Sen. Obama insists on claiming he didn't know Tony Rezko was a slumlord, operating in his own backyard… well then, what does THAT say about his 'judgement'?”
Supposedly, rumor has it that Rezko is singing. His date was postponed.
I'm to the point where I don't even dare to get my hopes up.