October 6, 2008
John McCain was 54 during the Keating Five scandal. Stop calling it a 'youthful indiscretion' or suggesting that McCain has learned a lot from that mistake. He was 54. His ethics weren't up-to-par at 54. They aren't up-to-par now. Here's a 13 minute documentary put out by the Obama campaign explaining the Keating Five scandal. This is an interesting move by the Obama campaign putting this out themselves. I think it says a lot for the accuracy of the content included in the video that they are willing to produce and promote this themselves rather than filtering it through a third-party group like the Bush campaign did with the Swift Boat documentary. This has the benefit of being true. And it's timed well, coming directly on the heels of the McCain camp saying they were wanting to steer the focus away from the economy. With this movie and the Dow dropping, I think that'll be a hard task to complete.UPDATE: Wow. [This is one of the dumbest blunders I've heard][1]. It won't be long before this is taking back and spun, but John McCain's lawyer just said in a conference call this morning that the Keating 5 scandal was a 'political smear job' to hurt McCain. John Aravosis notes: " This opens up the entire question of McCain's supposed contrition. If McCain thinks he did nothing wrong, and that it was wrong for the Senate to scold him for his actions during the Keating Five Scandal, then he isn't contrite at all, he isn't sorry at all. He's learned nothing. You can't turn a new leaf when you don't think you did anything wrong. This is one hell of an admission.Perhaps this is a bit 'inside baseball' for those of you not focused on the minutiae of the campaign, but until now, it had been the McCain stance that he "changed" after the Keating scandal and he learned a lot and had changed his ways. That alone is a dumb argument as I implied above because afterall, McCain was 54 when he made this ethical mistake. So he had poor ethics after 54 years of life, but he said he improved them after being caught in this scandal. But now, to say that it wasn't a legit issue to begin with and it was a political smear job implies that they didn't think he had really done anything worth getting in trouble for, so he undercuts his entire message from before. He couldn't have changed his ways if he's now saying he wasn't wrong to begin with. Such a dumb thing to say.UPDATE 2: [Ben Smith is on this too.][2] [1]: http://www.americablog.com/2008/10/mccain-now-saying-keating-five-scandal.html [2]: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Engaging_on_Keating.html
Comments
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Shelby (anonymous) says...
It's funny that both campaigns have been sitting on these big smear stories...this and the Ayers deal. Bringing them up almost exactly 30 days prior to election day....almost as if they both agreed on a date.
October 6, 2008 at 7:05 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
OnShakedown (Chris Tackett) says...
i don't think it's accurate that either camp has been sitting on the stories. they're both items on the public record. what's happened is the mccain camp has realized they won't have a chance to win without going very negative. (you'll recall the clinton camp going negative in the end of their run). it's desperation. so they are going to bring ayers and soon wright back into focus. Palin as attack dog is a new addition too. and the economy really made the landscape more palatable for the keating stuff to be revisited. as did their lawyers comments this morning. for whatever reasons you believe, the keating story had been on the shelf either out of politeness or whatever. glad that's over. as for the timing. i think the obama campaign may have very well gone without bringing up keating like this if the economy hadn't made it such a winning line of attack. and the mccain camp saying this weekend they were wanting to steer the debate away from the economy and attack obama's associations seems to have played the obama hand a bit. as obama said today, "we don't throw the first punch, but we'll sure throw the last." while still not ideal, it's the preferred style of politics for my tastes. above this bs when possible, but willing to fight back hard when pushed.
October 6, 2008 at 11:27 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
DOTDOT (anonymous) says...
The good news is that history provides plenty of blame to go around related to the present economic meltdown and neither party is immune. The bad news is that a gullible public will let Tina Fey guide their decision come November. The good news is that it will be no worse than "Family Values." The bad news is that it won't be any better.
October 7, 2008 at 7:59 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )