The Keating Five is back

I really am amazed how one of the unspoken rules of this election has been NOT to mention John McCain's involvement in the Keating Five scandal.

Let's remember that this isn't a scandal involving his home or his church. It's a scandal involving John McCain abusing his federal office. It's a scandal that cost the American taxpayer billions. It's also a scandal that deals with failed banks - kind of relevant to today. How is it that John McCain's entire record is relevant, going back to the 1960s no less, but somehow we're supposed to skip the 1980s scandal years because that would be "rude"? Seriously, I don't get it. Only the Republicans could make something John McCain did in office, and was chastised for officially on the Senate floor, and turn it into something "personal' and off-limits, like it's his daughter or his mistress. No, it's his job. And he screwed up, wilfully. And it's relevant to the very economic crisis we're discussing today. It's also relevant to any discussion of his honor.

Anyway, it wasn't so personal and off-limits yesterday:

One of the Senate's most progressive members ripped John McCain on Tuesday for offering a phony populist self-portrayal in the wake of the current crisis in the financial markets. In the process, Sherrod Brown of Ohio raised the Republican nominee's involvement in the Keating Five scandal as evidence that voters couldn't trust McCain's record on both the economy and ethics.

"It is not so much his economic proposals but his economic record," Brown said of McCain. "His main adviser is Phil Gramm -- he was his mentor in the Senate -- and you just tie it all together. Of course John McCain supported the oil industry, he has oil lobbyists working for him. Of course John McCain supported these trade agreements, he has got Wall Street people working for him... It is all wrapped up together. John McCain is a creature of these interest groups in Washington. He is no maverick and, from the Keating Five on, his ethics have been questionable. He's not a maverick and Barack has got to just keep hammering on that."

And when McCain's people say how unscrupulous this attack is, and how they won't even dignify it with a response, someone in the media has to ask the McCain campaign "why is it sleazy and unscrupulous to mention an ethics violation that McCain has admitted to, and one he did on the job?"