Today at noon the Obama campaign and its agents of change will released a documentary detailing John McCain’s involvement in the Keating Five scandal. For a good summary of Keating Five, check out Arizona Central’s report from March, 2007. Kathy Gill at About.com gives a summary of what she took away from the article:
- McCain on the scandal: “I was judged eventually, after three years, of using, quote, poor judgment, and I agree with that assessment.”
- McCain was a freshman Senator who had been in office for three months when he was pressured by Arizona senior senator Dennis DeConcini (D) to get involved in the meetings.
- The independent counsel was Robert Bennett (better known today for defending President Clinton in the Paula Jones case). Bennett recommended that both McCain and John Glenn be dropped from the Senate Ethics Committee investigation. It was, however, a Democratic Senate; the committee said no. McCain says it “the first time in history [that] the Ethics Committee overruled the recommendation of the independent counsel.”
The question is, will the public see it the same way?
Obama will spin that this is about the economy and issues, not a personal attack as he claims McCain is making when tying Obama with Ayers and Rezko – one a man with ties to domestic terror and failed schools in Chicago and the other with ties to failed housing deals. But since we have no issues with terrorism, education or a housing crisis any Ayers or Rezko talk is just trying to change the subject.
Also of note: three out of five Keating Fivers support Barack Obama:
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers notes that three of McCain’s fellow members of the Keating Five have endorsed Obama: Former senators Dennis DeConcini. John Glenn, and Donald W. Riegle. All three are Democrats — McCain was the only Republican in the group — and DeConcini and Riegle were among the more deeply implicated officials.
UPDATE: Amada Carpenter at Townhall.com asks a good question:
If Barack Obama is so outraged at John McCain’s involvement in the Keating Five scandal, why is John Glenn, another Keating Five member, doing surrogate work for Obama?
UPDATE 2: NYT in 1995:
Even so, this is not the first case of partisanship in the Senate committee. During the Keating Five scandal, committee Democrats resisted dropping the case against John McCain, the Arizona Republican, because that would have left only Democrats accused of improper dealings with Charles Keating, the savings and loan executive.
