Johnny We Hardly Know Ye: Part III
The last time the mortgage industry melted down, John McCain was receiving money from one of the corrupt Savings & Loan company executives -- the group that ultimately cost the taxpayers $125 billion.
Charles Keating and his Lincoln Savings had illegally invested federally insured deposits in risky real estate developments. (It was a great bet. If the risky investments succeeded, Keating won big. If they failed, the taxpayers picked up the tab.) Keating bought five senators in an effort to keep federal regulators from closing him down.
McCain got a lot.
This from Wikipedia:
McCain and Keating had become personal friends following their initial contacts in 1981. Between 1982 and 1987, McCain had received $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates. In addition, McCain's wife Cindy McCain and her father Jim Hensley had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. McCain, his family, and their baby-sitter had made nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard Keating's jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay.
Though McCain browbeat federal regulators to keep them off Keating’s back and allow him to continue to squander federally insured deposits, the Senate Ethics Committee found McCain broke no laws. The committee did criticize him for exercising poor judgment.
I ran into Keating one evening during his trial as he walked out of a super-premium hotel in Los Angeles. He clearly didn’t enjoy being recognized, squandering money that he obviously stole from the American taxpayers. I don’t know how much Chequers charged Keating for a room, but I do remember a black man in the same neighborhood at about the same time being upset. Clerks in a nearby store would not even tell him the price of one of the shirts in their window. There are places – like certain neighborhoods in Los Angeles and McCain’s inner circle – that are so fine that they are reserved for the super rich, corporate welfare bandits and white collar crooks.
While the careers of three of the senators were ended, McCain used the crisis to re-invent himself as a reformer. It was out of disgrace that he launched his "Straight Talk" and campaign finance reform.
Unfortunately, it was only a show. McCain has always been controlled by lobbyists. It was exposed that he had more lobbyists on his staff than any other candidate. Huffington Post
The McCain campaign announced that all lobbyists would have to leave the campaign because of a "preception problem." Washington Post
Though a few left the campaign, the order was quickly rescinded when it was realized there would be no one left to answer the phone. Reuters
The recent revelation of McCain’s relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman is another case in point. While the New York Timeswas not comfortable saying the two had an affair, the paper said that his campaign advisers took action because they were afraid something was going on.
A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.
The titillation over whether they were having sex misses the point. It was clear McCain was her bitch, frequently writing letters at her request to regulatory officials who appeared before his Senate Commerce Committee.
So what lesson did McCain learn from this phase of his career? You can take money from -- and deliver the goods for -- the special interests, as long as you spout platitudes and put on a brave face. Did you hear that McCain was a POW?
(This three-part biography of McCain begins after his well-known war service, which we thank him for. The first chapter dealt with the connection between his fortune and a famous unsolved murder in Arizona. The second chapter ((a rescued diary, thank you very much)) dealt with Duke Tully, the phony who created McCain’s political persona in his own image.)