Did McCain Learn Anything From His Keating Five Experience?

Early in his congressional career McCain was taking bribes-- to the tune of $112,000 in campaign contributions-- from Charles Keating, a family friend and crooked banker for whom he was caught strong-arming federal regulators. Eventually McCain's interference on behalf of his pal Keating-- who was also involved in very lucrative business deals with McCain's gangster (former jailbird) father-in-law and with his wife Cindy-- cost the taxpayers billions of dollars. You see, even if McCain didn't invent the Blackberry, he did invent the Savings and Loan scandal. At the time the McCains would regularly bundle off in one of Keating's private jets to his private retreat at Cat Cay in the Bahamas. Although right wing propagandists try to say McCain was "cleared," he wasn't. He was formally "admonished" by his colleagues on the very lax Senate Ethics Committee.

McCain calls his Keating Five experience "the worst mistake of my life," although God only knows how that stacks up to the torture in Vietnam he never stops talking about. But the real question is... what did he learn from being caught in the clutches of a crook like Keating and barely escaping with his political career intact? Apparently it wasn't to stop taking bribes in return for political favors and it wasn't to stop associating with unsavory characters who are eager to get at the taxpayers' money. What he learned was to stop going to the Bahamas... Instead he goes to Bermuda to colelct money from Republican fat cats who shelter their wealth so they don't have to pay their fair share of taxes the way the rest of us do. In fact, the head of the McCain economic brain trust-- his probable first choice to run the economy if McCain-Palin is victorious in November-- Phil Gramm is a senior vice president and lobbyist for a shady Swiss bank that is under investigation for helping rich folksshelter money in Bermuda. His clients may be whining about other things-- like the cost of yachts and cays-- but not about taxes.