McCain's Keating 5 Scandal's Relevance

Just this morning in Florida, Palin once again announced that she can read. Then she went into her Ayers spiel, like the good Christian that she is. While Ayers isn't relevant, McCain's poor judgment in the Keating 5 scandal is. Visit keatingeconomics.com. This blogger wrote a book on the scanal:

Swamp: The Obama campaign's retaliatory attack today hits much closer to home for McCain, who in fact was embroiled in a scandal with four other members of Congress in the late 1980s - they became known as "The Keating Five.'' When Charles Keating, an Arizona homebuilder and banker who helped bankroll McCain's early campaigns, came calling for help with federal regulators cracking down on his savings and loan, McCain and others met with the regulators. McCain took part in just the first two meetings, and then stepped away as the severity of Keating's trouble grew clear, yet after the case of the senators' interference with regulators came to closure before the Senate Ethics Committee, McCain conceded: "I was judged eventually, after three years, of using, quote, poor judgment, and I agree with that assessment.''

Palin, the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee, insisted over the weekend that her campaign trail attacks against Obama for his association with Ayers are relevant because Ayers once hosted a small, meet-the-candidate event for Obama in 1995, early in his political career and donated $200 to Obama's state legislative camapign. Palin said in California on Sunday: "I think it's fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy's living room."

By that measure, then, it's certainly fair for the Obama campaign to talk about McCain's association with Keating, because Keating and associates raised $11,000 for McCain's first congressional campaign in 1982 and ultimately raised more than $100,000 for McCain's early political campaigns. McCain and his wife, Cindy, also had often been guests of the high-flying Arizona homebuilder, flying aboard his private jet to his vacation home in the Bahamas - trips for which the senator repaid Keating only after his problems with federal regulators surfaced.