McCain Myth Buster: John McCain and Ethics
April 3, 2008
This week, John McCain is on a tour that his campaign claims is intended to outline the ways McCain's life experiences inform his political leadership. In truth, McCain is leaving out key parts of his bio that reveal the real John McCain.
Yesterday, John McCain completely ignored a key anniversary in one of the incidents that defined his 26 years as a Washington insider and revealed the reality behind John McCain's "do as I say, not as I do" approach to reform: his involvement in the Keating Five scandal. On April 2, 1987, McCain and the rest of the Keating Five had their first meeting intervening with federal regulators on behalf of a savings and loan executive named Charles Keating. McCain's help for Keating came after he had donated $112,000 to McCain from 1982 to 1987, had taken McCain and his family on nine trips, including three to the Bahamas, and had gone in on a business deal with McCain's wife and father-in-law. [Arizona Republic, 3/1/07; New York Times, 2/21/08]
Either McCain missed a stop on his biography tour, or he's just not interested in telling the American people the truth: that he's just another Washington insider who will put his special interest friends ahead of working families.
John McCain Accepted $112,000 From Keating and Associates. "In 1982, during McCain's first run for the House, Keating held a fund-raiser for him, collecting more than $11,000 from 40 employees of American Continental Corp. McCain would spend more than $550,000 to win the primary and the general election. In 1983, as McCain contemplated his House re-election, Keating hosted a $1,000-a-plate dinner for him, even though McCain had no serious competition. When McCain pushed for the Senate in 1986, Keating was there with more than $50,000. By 1987, McCain had received about $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates." [Arizona Republic, 3/1/07]
John McCain Took At Least Nine Undisclosed Trips at Keating's Expense, Flew on Keating Jet. "The paper also reported that the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby-sitter, had made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay. McCain also did not pay Keating for some of the trips until years after they were taken, after he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. Total cost: $13,433." [Arizona Republic, 3/1/07]
McCain's Wife, Father-in-Law Invested in Keating Company. "On Oct. 8, 1989, The Arizona Republic revealed that McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators." [Arizona Republic, 3/1/07]
McCain Regularly Intervened on Keating's Behalf. "At Mr. Keating's request, he wrote several letters to regulators, introduced legislation and helped secure the nomination of a Keating associate to a banking regulatory board. By early 1987, though, the thrift was careering toward disaster. Mr. McCain agreed to join several senators, eventually known as the Keating Five, for two private meetings with regulators to urge them to ease up." [New York Times, 2/21/08]
After casting himself as a "Maverick" in 2000, the new John McCain is walking in lockstep with President Bush, pandering to the right wing of the Republican Party, and embracing the ideology he once denounced. On the campaign trail McCain has callously abandoned many of his previously held positions, even contradicted himself, in a blatant attempt to remake himself into a candidate Republicans can accept in 2008. So just who is the real John McCain? The Democratic National Committee will present a daily fact aimed at exposing the man behind the myth.
