John McCain and Charles Keating

[Popeye]

For those of you all worked up over Tony Rezko, I thought it was time to put things into perspective. That means a short refresher course on the Keating Five scandal:

Charles Keating was a savings-and-loan kingpin from Phoenix who befriended John McCain during his earliest days in politics. While McCain was a congressman, he regularly flew on Keating's private jet, and for three years in the mid-1980s their families vacationed together at Keating's opulent Bahamas resort. When McCain ran for the Senate in 1986, Keating, his family and friends raised $112,600 for the campaign.

Then, in 1987, just a few months after McCain was elected, his pal Charles Keating came knocking at the door. Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan Association was in trouble, facing a probable criminal referral from the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to the Justice Department. Keating requested -- actually demanded -- that McCain join four other senators (all Democrats) to pressure banking regulators to ease up on Lincoln. Unwisely, Sen. McCain attended two meetings on Keating's behalf. When Lincoln finally tanked, it cost taxpayers $3.4 billion along with the life savings of many of McCain's elderly Arizona constituents.

Keating faced 73 counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud, and his friend John McCain faced the ordeal of a highly public Senate ethics investigation. For a man whose honor is the core of his identity, McCain was deeply humiliated. The Keating Five scandal became national shorthand for the kind of political influence money can buy. Robert Timberg, McCain's biographer, says that for three years his Senate office was paralyzed by paranoia and an ever-deepening despondence. McCain said of the eight weeks of televised Senate Ethics Committee Hearings: "This is the worst thing, the absolute worst thing that ever happened to me." Reminded of his years of captivity and torture during the Vietnam War, McCain said, "No, this is worse."

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080613/OPINION12/806130310/1002/OPINION

The actions of the Keating Five cost many their life savings, nothing John McCain can do can change that. This man has demonstrated a distinct lack of ethics and morals throughout his public and personal career. Nothing can change that either.

 

[Pandora]

For those of you all worked up over Tony Rezko, I thought it was time to put things into perspective. That means a short refresher course on the Keating Five scandal:



http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080613/OPINION12/806130310/1002/OPINION

The actions of the Keating Five cost many their life savings, nothing John McCain can do can change that. This man has demonstrated a distinct lack of ethics and morals throughout his public and personal career. Nothing can change that either.

You wrote that "John McCain faced the ordeal of a highly public Senate ethics investigation."

What were the investigations findings where McCain was concerned? And will Obama have similar investigations? If not, why not?

I think this could be good politically for Obama in November, if nothing else to get everyone’s eye's off of Rezco.

 

[Popeye]

You wrote that "John McCain faced the ordeal of a highly public Senate ethics investigation."

What were the investigations findings where McCain was concerned? And will Obama have similar investigations? If not, why not?

I think this could be good politically for Obama in November, if nothing else to get everyone’s eye's off of Rezco.

Of the Keating Five, Sen. Alan Cranston was censured while the other four members, including McCain, were cited for "questionable conduct."

I doubt if this could help Obama politically, because though this was a big deal 20 years ago, that's the problem, it was 20 years ago. Americans are notorious for having short attention spans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five

 

[Pandora]

Of the Keating Five, Sen. Alan Cranston was censured while the other four members, including McCain, were cited for "questionable conduct."

I doubt if this could help Obama politically, because though this was a big deal 20 years ago, that's the problem, it was 20 years ago. Americans are notorious for having short attention spans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five

Yes, you are right voters forget easy but they can be reminded. I guess wait for McCain to attack on Rezco then use this as a rebuttle. Though that type of politics bothers me, it probably would work.

Personally I would have a whole lot more respect for Obama though if he just came out and said:


I messed up. I got caught up in something I shouldn't have.

It bugs me when politicians won't admit their mistakes, or point to another persons mistakes and say see im not the only one, or make light of it, or worse ignore it. I am not just talking about Obama here, I mean all of them.

Has any one asked McCain this year in an interview about this keating thing? If they have not, they should.

 

[Federal Farmer]

The actions of the Keating Five cost many their life savings, nothing John McCain can do can change that. This man has demonstrated a distinct lack of ethics and morals throughout his public and personal career. Nothing can change that either.

I fear you're attempting to construct a mountain out of a mole hill, and doing it using fallacious tactics. Both McCains and Glenns culpability in the incident was deemed by the Ethics Committee to be "minimal", so your assertion that McCain has demonstrated a "distict lack of ethics and morals" is specious on it's face.

The fact of the matter is that the seeds of the S&L collapse were planted during the Carter administration when he approved the removal of caps on interest rates, increased the insured amount of investments to the S&L's, and mandated the increase of the amount of investments that would be repaid from 70% to 100%. During the building boom of the 80's and into the early 90's, many S&L's invested heavily in real estate, which increased their net worth from it's value of just over $4 Bn in 1982 when Reagan took office, to well into the hundreds of billions before the bust in the late 80's. The truth is that deregulation worked, but as with all "noble quests", people got greedy and invested too heavily into the "stock of the moment" rather than diversifying their investments enough to ensure stability when the "stock of the moment" began to lose it's juice.

You're also completely ignoring the salient facts about Lincoln's demise, in that it was it's parent company, American Continental Corporation that went bankrupt, which forced Lincoln to fold. Lincoln, which had increased it's assetts from $1.1 Bn to over $5.5 Bn in the four years after Keating acquired it, was doing quite well until new home construction fell to it's lowest level since WWII in the late 80's construction slow down. Simply put, the S&L's were doing everything they could to stay afloat during the recession, but they were overwhelmed by economic factors well beyond their control, and ability to recover from. Also, the accusation that people lost their life savings because of Lincoln is spurrious, as the investors had invested in ACC rather than the fedearlly insured Lincoln, and you've also neglected to mention the fact that those elderly investors were later made whole, or nearly whole, by the liquidation of Lincoln and ACC's assetts by the government. Simply stated, NOBODY "lost their life savings" as you put it.

Let us also not forget that President Clinton appointed Dennis DeConcini, one of the most egregious "Keating Five" offenders, to the Board of Directors of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. Now how's THAT for irony?

 

[Popeye]

I fear you're attempting to construct a mountain out of a mole hill, and doing it using fallacious tactics. Both McCains and Glenns culpability in the incident was deemed by the Ethics Committee to be "minimal", so your assertion that McCain has demonstrated a "distict lack of ethics and morals" is specious on it's face.

My 'distinct lack of ethics and morals" statement is based upon the balance of his career, both public and private. Including, not only the Keating Five, but his admitted adultery and then divorce of his disabled first wife.

The fact of the matter is that the seeds of the S&L collapse were planted during the Carter administration when he approved the removal of caps on interest rates, increased the insured amount of investments to the S&L's, and mandated the increase of the amount of investments that would be repaid from 70% to 100%. During the building boom of the 80's and into the early 90's, many S&L's invested heavily in real estate, which increased their net worth from it's value of just over $4 Bn in 1982 when Reagan took office, to well into the hundreds of billions before the bust in the late 80's. The truth is that deregulation worked, but as with all "noble quests", people got greedy and invested too heavily into the "stock of the moment" rather than diversifying their investments enough to ensure stability when the "stock of the moment" began to lose it's juice.

You're also completely ignoring the salient facts about Lincoln's demise, in that it was it's parent company, American Continental Corporation that went bankrupt, which forced Lincoln to fold. Lincoln, which had increased it's assetts from $1.1 Bn to over $5.5 Bn in the four years after Keating acquired it, was doing quite well until new home construction fell to it's lowest level since WWII in the late 80's construction slow down. Simply put, the S&L's were doing everything they could to stay afloat during the recession, but they were overwhelmed by economic factors well beyond their control, and ability to recover from. Also, the accusation that people lost their life savings because of Lincoln is spurrious, as the investors had invested in ACC rather than the fedearlly insured Lincoln, and you've also neglected to mention the fact that those elderly investors were later made whole, or nearly whole, by the liquidation of Lincoln and ACC's assetts by the government. Simply stated, NOBODY "lost their life savings" as you put it.

Let us also not forget that President Clinton appointed Dennis DeConcini, one of the most egregious "Keating Five" offenders, to the Board of Directors of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. Now how's THAT for irony?

You want to blame the Carter administration and other economic factors for the collapse of the S&Ls, so be it. You wish to diminish McCain's involvement in the scandal.. fine, we can disagree, but there is more to it than that.

Here we have five sitting US Senators meeting with a wealthy contributer who, at the time, was under investigation by federal regulators. Are these the kind of actions you want out of your elected officials? The Senate, a body that is known to go easy on it's colleagues, criticized McCain for "questionable conduct", that's an understatement.

 

[Federal Farmer]

My 'distinct lack of ethics and morals" statement is based upon the balance of his career, both public and private. Including, not only the Keating Five, but his admitted adultery and then divorce of his disabled first wife.

So it's your contention that anyone who has strayed from their marriage bed "lacks ethics and morals"? Does the name Clinton ring a bell? Is it also your contention that anyone who divorces "lacks ethics and morals"? There goes over 50% of the entire adult population of the United States!

You want to blame the Carter administration and other economic factors for the collapse of the S&Ls, so be it. You wish to diminish McCain's involvement in the scandal.. fine, we can disagree, but there is more to it than that.

I'm not "blaming" anything on Carter, merely pointing out the concept of "uninteded consequenses" that so often comes to bite us in the butt, regardless of "the best laid plans of mice and men". As to McCains involvement, I don't have to diminish it in any way, the Ethics Committee already did that.

Here we have five sitting US Senators meeting with a wealthy contributer who, at the time, was under investigation by federal regulators. Are these the kind of actions you want out of your elected officials? The Senate, a body that is known to go easy on it's colleagues, criticized McCain for "questionable conduct", that's an understatement.

The very fact that the Senate Ethics Committee, which, as you correctly pointed out, IS notoriously harsh with it's members when they stray, characterized both McCains and Glenns involvement as "minor" and inconsequential directly contradicts your assertion of "understatement". If his involvement had been substantial, he would have been censured just like Cranston was, but he wasn't, ergo the "harsh" Senate Ethics Committee didn't feel his conduct was any more than "questionable".

 

[SW85]

For those of you all worked up over Tony Rezko, I thought it was time to put things into perspective. That means a short refresher course on the Keating Five scandal:



http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080613/OPINION12/806130310/1002/OPINION

The actions of the Keating Five cost many their life savings, nothing John McCain can do can change that. This man has demonstrated a distinct lack of ethics and morals throughout his public and personal career. Nothing can change that either.

Do McCain's well-documented ethical lapses somehow absolve Obama of rightful criticism over his association with a corrupt slum lord?

So it's your contention that anyone who has strayed from their marriage bed "lacks ethics and morals"? Does the name Clinton ring a bell?

Does Clinton's well-documented philandering absolve McCain of the same charge?

 

[Federal Farmer]

Does Clinton's well-documented philandering absolve McCain of the same charge?

Please don't answer a question with a question, that's terribly rude. The question was; Is it your contention that anyone who has strayed from their marriage bed "lacks ethics and morals"?

 

[SW85]

Please don't answer a question with a question, that's terribly rude. The question was; Is it your contention that anyone who has strayed from their marriage bed "lacks ethics and morals"?

Yes, I generally regard adulterers as being of questionable morality. Not that I feel I need to take lessons in morality from someone who's notion of decorum hinges on punctuation.

Adultery is bad. Everyone agrees on this. The fact that Democrats are unfaithful to their wives doesn't make it OK for Republicans to be unfaithful to their wives. People shouldn't qualify their criticism of objectively immoral acts on the basis of political advantage. (That goes for you, too, popeye).

 

[Libsmasher]

One could predict this canard coming from the desperate Obamabots. It should be mentioned that four of the so called keating 5 were democrats, that McCain did nothing illegal, and that the slap on the hand he got was from a democrat-controlled congress.

Further, it should be mentioned that the roots of the S&L crisis were in

1. State interference in the S&L industry, and

2. The Jimmy Carter mega-inflation

 

[Federal Farmer]

Yes, I generally regard adulterers as being of questionable morality. Not that I feel I need to take lessons in morality from someone who's notion of decorum hinges on punctuation.

And exactly when have I said anything to anyone about punctuation? If you're going to accuse me of something, at least have the decency to accuse me of something I've done instead of pulling crap out of your butt.

Adultery is bad. Everyone agrees on this. The fact that Democrats are unfaithful to their wives doesn't make it OK for Republicans to be unfaithful to their wives. People shouldn't qualify their criticism of objectively immoral acts on the basis of political advantage. (That goes for you, too, popeye).

Good, then we agree that adultery is a bad thing, but if one is going to attempt to make a political point of it, one should be honest about it, and not use it as a selective cudgle against only those one isn't supporting. Frankly, any Democrat even attempting to bring up "morals" in a political race is being utterly and completely disingenuous, and it would be laughable if it weren't so sad.

If you'll also notice, not only did I not even insinuate that adultery on either of their parts was "OK", I wasn't the one that brought up any "immoral acts" as an objectionable point towards either of the candidates, because I don't need to, Olive Oil.

Between the two of them, Obamas inexperience and political naivety is the biggest disqualifier to me. We simply cannot afford another JFK right now as the world situation is too tense, and the last thing we need is a novice to get in the White House and screw it up further because he doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut.

Frankly, if I were to have to resort to the "moral" side of the equation, rather than the strictly political one, to differentiate betwen the current 2 choices, I'd still have to go against Obama, because of his "moral" lapse in attending a "church", for over 20 years, that was presided over by a raving racist and conspiracy freak, and allowing his children to be influenced by it. Real good parenting skills there Obama!