Two words: "Keating Five".
Ah! How quickly we forget!
The short version (for those of us with ADD) is that in 1989 there was a shifty guy named Charles Keating. He ran Lincoln Saving and Loan Corp. in California which failed after making some questionable loans in commercial real estate. When the Feds, in the person of Federal Home Loan Bank Board chief Edwin Gray, began investigating, a committee of five Senators told him to back off. Those senators: Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John Glenn (D-OH), Donald Riegle (D-MI) and "The Old Straight Shooter" John McCain (R-AZ). As it turns out, McCain had received $115,000 in campaign contributions from Keating and his family. That was the most of any of the five senators. Keating ultimately went to jail and Cranston was censured. McCain and Glenn swore that they only participated because he heard cake was being served.
True, Senator McCain was only "criticized for questionable conduct" by the Senate in 1991 but it wouldn't take much of a "swiftboating" to make this a summer-long story. How about if Charles Keating comes forward to describe how McCain promised to make Chairman Gray, "an offer he can't refuse".
Presumably Senator McCain has learned several valuable lessons:
Never go to a meeting where you're the only Republican.
Always get the money in cash.
Never believe anyone about cake.
Tragically, Charles Keating is not the only skeleton in John McCain's closet. There are also the circumstances surrounding his romance with his current wife; the lovely and wealthy Cindy McCain. Young John met the Phoenix school teacher in 1979 and worked diligently on their relationship. Unfortunately, he arrived for work a little early. He began dating her in '79 but didn't get divorced from the first Ms. McCain until 1980. This isn't much of a scandal (Rudy Giuliani was the king of overlapping love affairs) but it will nonetheless give the bloggers something to write about. Ms. McCain has also refused, for all time, to release her tax records. She has, under extreme pressure, recently published a summery of her finances. Why all the secrecy, Cindy?
McCain will also have to deal with his party-hearty reputation from his days in the military. Unlike George W. Bush, McCain's family doesn't have the resources to bury the transgressions of their offspring. You can expect to see many interviews throughout the campaign with former drinking buddies reminiscing about the good old days in Pensacola.
Yes my friends, the "straight-talk express" will have some 'splainin' to do come Sept. and beyond. By the time it's all over Senator McCain may wish that his biggest problem was a crazy pastor from the church he attended in Phoenix.
1 comment:
Not that this would happen; but I would love to see Obama pick Chuck Hagel as his veep. Failing that, I'm pulling for Jim Webb.
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