September 23, 2008

• Not an opinion in sight

  In August 1991 the Senate ethics committee reprimanded John McCain for his "poor judgment" in pressuring Federal Investigators on behalf of Charles Keating, then president of Lincoln Savings and Loan.  Charles Keating went to jail for his actions in defrauding his depositors of millions of dollars.  John McCain went on to win the Republican nomination.  

  The Keating Five consisted of Senators Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, John Glenn, John McCain, and Don Reigle.

  McCain and Keating had become personal friends following their initial contacts in 1981,^[11] and McCain was the closest socially to Keating of the five senators.^[25] McCain considered Keating a constituent as he lived in Arizona.^[22] Between 1982 and 1987, McCain received $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates.^[26] In addition, McCain's wife Cindy McCain and her father Jim Hensley 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 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.
  McCain did not pay Keating (in the amount of $13,433) for some of the
  trips until years after they were taken.^[7][2

  The core allegation of the Keating Five affair is that Keating made
  contributions of about $1.3 million to various U.S. Senators, and he
  called on those Senators to help him resist regulators. The regulators
  backed off, to later disastrous consequences.  By the end of 1986, the FHLBB (Federal Home Loan Banking Board) found that Lincoln Savings and Loan had $135 million
  in unreported losses and had surpassed the regulated direct investments
  limit by $600 million.  Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chair L. William Seidman
  would later write that Lincoln push to get depositors to switch [from FDIC insured certificates of deposit to uninsured bond certificates issued by American Continental] was
  "one of the most heartless and cruel frauds in modern memory."  More than 21,000 mostly elderly investors lost their life savings.

  Keating was hit with a $1.1 billion fraud and racketeering action, filed against him by the regulators.^[4]
  In talking to reporters in April, Keating said, "One question, among
  many raised in recent weeks, had to do with whether my financial
  support in any way influenced several political figures to take up my
  cause. I want to say in the most forceful way I can: I certainly hope
  so."^[18]

  McCain said, "I have done this kind of thing many, many times," and
  said the Lincoln case was like "helping the little lady who didn't get
  her Social Security."^[22]

  (From the Wikipedia entry on the Keating Five ... )

  * * * * *

  In today's environment of financial markets gone haywire I want to know whether John McCain's judgment has improved. 

  So let's take a took at a few of the numbers associated with his Vice Presidential choice.

  2007: the year in which Sarah Palin first obtained a passport (Source)

  312: the number of nights during her first 19
  months in office that Palin charged taxpayers a "per diem" totaling
  $16,951 for staying in her own home -- an allowance intended to cover
  meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business (Source)

  $500 to $1,200: the fee that Wasilla charged rape
  victims to pay for post-sexual assault medical exams, after the city
  cut funds during Palin's tenure that had previously covered the exams (Source)

  $150: the cash payment offered by the Palin
  administration to hunters who turn in legs of freshly killed wolves
  gunned down from airplanes (Source)

  3: the number of times during her first few weeks as mayor that Palin inquired with the Wasilla librarian about banning books (Source)

  3: the number of months after the censorship discussion that Palin fired the librarian (Source)

  100: the approximate number of Wasilla residents
  who rallied to support the librarian, prompting Palin to withdraw her
  termination letter (Source)

  0: the number of foreign heads of state Palin has met (Source)

  0: the number of commands Palin has issued as head of the Alaska National Guard (Source)

  0: Wasilla's long-term debt when Palin took office in 1996 (Source)

  $18.6 million: the long-term debt Palin racked up by the time she left office in 2002, amounting to about $3,000 per resident (Source)

  $50,000: the amount of city funds Palin used
  without authorization to redecorate the Wasilla mayor's office. (Source)

  33: the percentage by which Palin increased the
  budget of Wasilla during her tenure, despite billing herself as a
  fiscal conservative and champion of smaller government (Source)

  25: the percentage by which Palin raised the local
  sales tax in Wasilla to pay for a sports center, despite claims that
  she cut taxes (Source)

  $27 million: the total amount of federal earmarks
  Palin secured for Wasilla's town of 6,700 people while she was mayor,
  thanks to the help of a Washington lobbyist with ties to indicted Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and convicted felon Jack Abramoff (Source)

  3: the number of times John McCain specifically
  criticized earmarks requested by Sarah Palin when she was mayor of
  Wasilla, citing them as examples of wasteful spending (Source)

  $453 million: the total amount of earmarks Palin
  has asked U.S. taxpayers to fund for Alaska projects over the past two
  years, despite McCain's insistence that she hasn't sought earmarks or
  special-interest spending from Congress (Source)

  20: the percentage of domestic energy that Palin claims Alaska produces (Source)

  3.5: the actual percentage share of domestic energy Alaska produces (Source)

  $600,000: the loss at which Palin sold the
  governor's jet after making a show of placing it on eBay. It was
  eventually sold to a Palin campaign contributor who paid $2.1 million
  (more than 20% less than the original $2.7 million purchase price). (Source)

  1: the number of private tanning beds Palin installed in the governor's mansion after taking office (Source)

  1.5: the approximate number of hours Palin spent on
  a refueling layover in Ireland, which the McCain campaign cited as part
  of her foreign policy experience (Source)

  0: the actual amount of time Palin spent in Iraq
  during a 2007 visit to the region, despite the McCain campaign's claim
  she had visited the Iraq battle zone. She never made it beyond the
  Khabari Alawazem Crossing in Kuwait. (Source)

  2006: the year in which Palin declared she favors
  abstinence-only education and that "the explicit sex-ed programs will
  not find my support" (Source)

  2008: the year in which Palin's 17-year-old
  daughter was impregnated by a self-described "f***ing redneck," who
  wrote on his MySpace page "I don't want kids" and "ya f*** with me I'll
  kick ass" (Source)

  9: the number of U.S. Geological Survey studies
  concluding that the habitat of Alaska's polar bears is threatened by
  global warming, which Palin discounted as "insufficent evidence" when
  she sued the Bush administration to overturn its decision to list polar
  bears under the Endangered Species Act (Source)

  5: the number of colleges Palin attended over six
  years before graduating in 1987 from the University of Idaho with a
  major in journalism (Source)

  500: the number of Fortune 500 companies Sarah Palin is not qualified to run, according to McCain adviser Carly Fiorina (Source)

  50: the number of days after Palin announced she
  "will fully cooperate" with an ethics investigation into the
  "Troopergate" scandal that the McCain campaign announced she was
  "unlikely to cooperate" because it had been "hijacked" by Obama
  operatives. The probe was unanimously authorized by a bipartisan panel
  of eight Alaska Republicans and four Democrats. (Source)

  28: the number of days prior to accepting the vice
  presidential offer that Palin said she couldn't entertain the idea
  "until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does
  every day" (Source)

  * * * * *
   It won't be the job of the Senate ethics committee to decide what kind the judgment of John McCain adds up to.  That's your job, and mine. 

  Are you registered to vote?

  • 10:28 pm
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