On MSNBC this week, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter tried to connect
John McCain to the current financial disaster, saying: "If you
remember the Keating Five scandal that (McCain) was a part of.
... He's really getting a free ride on the fact that he was in
the middle of the last great financial scandal in our
country."
McCain was "in the middle of" the Keating Five case in the
sense that he was "exonerated." The lawyer for the Senate Ethics
Committee wanted McCain removed from the investigation
altogether, but, as The New York Times reported: "Sen. McCain was
the only Republican embroiled in the affair, and Democrats on the
panel would not release him."
So John McCain has been held hostage by both the Viet Cong and
the Democrats.
Alter couldn't be expected to know that: As usual, he was
lifting material directly from Kausfiles. What is unusual was
that he was stealing a random thought sent in by Kausfiles'
mother, who, the day before, had e-mailed: "It's time to bring up
the Keating Five. Let McCain explain that scandal away."
The Senate Ethics Committee lawyer who investigated McCain
already had explained that scandal away -- repeatedly. It was
celebrated lawyer Robert Bennett, most famous for defending a
certain horny hick president a few years ago.
In February this year, on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes,"
Bennett said, for the eight billionth time:
"First, I should tell your listeners I'm a registered
Democrat, so I'm not on (McCain's) side of a lot of issues. But I
investigated John McCain for a year and a half, at least, when I
was special counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee in the Keating
Five. ... And if there is one thing I am absolutely confident of,
it is John McCain is an honest man. I recommended to the Senate
Ethics Committee that he be cut out of the case, that there was
no evidence against him."
It's bad enough for Alter to be constantly ripping off
Kausfiles. Now he's so devoid of his own ideas, he's ripping off
the idle musings of Kausfiles' mother.
Even if McCain had been implicated in the Keating Five scandal
-- and he wasn't -- that would still have absolutely nothing to
do with the subprime mortgage crisis currently roiling the
financial markets. This crisis was caused by political
correctness being forced on the mortgage lending industry in the
Clinton era.