John McCain and Keating 5
06 October 2008 10:03 am by Taylor Marsh
BY TAYLOR MARSH
In the middle of the most serious economic crisis in modern times, John McCain’s infamous history in his involvement with the Keating 5 scandal is worth revisiting. The Obama campaign has plenty of research available for those of you who don’t remember it.
During S&L Crisis, 747 Savings & Loans Banks Failed, Costing US Taxpayers $124 Billion; Deregulation Allowed Riskier Investments By S&Ls, Leading To Widespread Collapses And Fraud. In the 1980’s and early 1990’s the US economy was badly shaken by the failure of 747 savings and loan (S&L) institutions that had to be taken over and bailed out by the federal government. In total, the failures cost taxpayers $124 billion. One of the main causes for the epidemic of failures was the unregulated expansion of S&L’s, which had traditionally only dealt with home loans, into more exotic and riskier investments. When many of those investments failed, the institutions collapsed. (Chicago Tribune, 7/3/98; Los Angeles Times, 9/17/08)
McCain’s horrific bad judgment ended in Senator McCain being investigated.
John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee launched investigations and formally reprimanded Senator McCain for his role in the scandal — the first such Senator to receive a major party nomination for president.
Do voters really want John McCain as the steward of our economy? People don’t often link it, but nothing makes us more vulnerable than the current state of our financial affairs. It’s at the core of our national security .
The Review Journal also picks it up today:
Temperamental. Erratic. Unstable.
When it comes to John McCain, it all depends on who’s talking.
For Arizona activists and a handful of former federal government officials, a long controversy over the Mount Graham telescope project in southeastern Arizona provided a series of quintessential John McCain moments.
The flare-ups started in the late 1980s, around the time that McCain and four other senators were under investigation for improper relationships with Charles Keating Jr., an Arizonan who oversaw a failed savings and loan institution.
MSNBC has picked up the Keating scandal, which looks even worse as Lehman Brothers big shots testify in front of the House. McCain’s associations are one thing, but his involvement in the criminal Keating scandal is another.
