Obama outlines plans for race against McCain (Keating Five)

Yahoo News ^ | 11 May 08 | CHARLES BABINGTON and SARA KUGLER

[Mr Rogers]

Barely mentioning Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama said he was open to campaigning with McCain in "town hall" events. But he also warned that controversial issues such as McCain's ties to the Keating Five savings and loan scandal are fair game, and he called McCain's proposal for a temporary halt in the federal gasoline tax a pander and a gimmick...

Obama was asked Saturday if the fall campaign might touch on the 1987 Keating Five scandal, in which the Senate Ethics Committee said McCain used "poor judgment" for allegedly pressing regulators to go easy on the owner of a failed Arizona savings and loan who was also a campaign contributor.

Obama said there is no doubt the Keating Five case is "germane to the presidency."

"I can't quarrel with the American people wanting to know more about that," he said.

[Mr Rogers]

Obama wants to go after the Keating Five connection, but believes Wright & his association with terrorists is irrelevant.

McCain's press buddies are going to turn on him big time. Having tossed overboard every conservative he can find, who will rise to his defense?

[montag813]

but believes Wright & his association with terrorists is irrelevant.

Unfortunately, so does McCain

[montag813]

There is no Keating Five scandal for McCain. The Senate Judiciary Chief Counsel said McCain was innocent of all allegations, and should never have been charged, and is now supporting McCain.

[AmericanMade1776]

Advisor to Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama, Robert Malley, seen here in France in 2004, has left the campaign after a British newspaper asked him about meetings with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, media reports said Friday. (AFP/File/Thomas Coex)

[inkling]

Keating Five? It's 20 years old and already has been reported to death.

If that's the best you got, kid, you're headed to McGovern territory.

[Mr Rogers]

Are facts relevant to the MSM? This blogger hopes not:

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15498.html

[MNJohnnie]

Ok, so McCain asks a tough question of Obama and Obama goes into hysterics about “McCain has lost his bearing” and is engaging in “the old politics” then turns right around and goes for the gutter slime politic tactics.

This hypocrisy is going to bite him right on the butt if he doesn't wake up. Cannot be “a different kind of politician” if your are going to run a getter slime political campaign of innuendo, half truth and accusation

[WilliamofCarmichael]

“Bill Ayers’ radicalism? That was long ago. It’s old news. It’s divisive to talk about it. The 90+ percent of the black vote for me proves that we are beyond divisive issues. Let’s get on with the campaign. Now about McCain’s crimes. . . .”

[evad]

Although McCain was censured for poor judgment, I believe that was the extent of the formal charges.

Of course, in the playbook of the dims and their co-conspirator drive bys, a 20 or 30 year "charge" is quite legitimate.

Witness the attacks on GW based on "Rather" dubious information.

[bray]

The gas tax moratorium is a gimmick, it won’t produce one gallon of oil. Nobody is asking where are we going to get more oil and if we don’t how are we going to survive?

Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters

[Jeff Head]

Barack, who is Hussein, Obama, is the absolute apex of the domestic enemy, subversive, anti-American movement in this country.

Polished in a prepared speech, charismatic in his presentation, nonetheless, underneath it all lies a smoldering cauldron of marxism, bigotry, and black liberation theology that is the enemy of America and its traditional values.

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - OBAMA'S CIRCLE OF FRIENDS AND SUPPORT

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - BLACK LIBERATION THEOLOGY AND OBAMA'S CHURCH

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

[Grampa Dave]

One can only hope that Hussein Obama will try use that 20 year old situation where McCain has been cleared.

Then Hussein will open the doors to his $ connections to the Chicago Magia, Terrorists and Black Panthers.

[Alissa]

Obama has already made a smarmy illusion that McCain’s problem may be that he’s getting old in a statement Obama made this week! I thought it was appalling, but didn’t hear much about it at the time other than it was noted, but not discussed. Obama’s is going to make inferences to McCain showing signs of sinility.

[Grampa Dave]

Actually, McCain has opened the door on Hussein Obama re his connections with Ayers:

http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/361268.aspx

McCain Slams Obama on Bill Ayers Connection
April 21, 2008

First it was Hillary Clinton. Now it is John McCain taking shots at Barack Obama over his relationship with 60’s radical Bill Ayers. Read more about the Ayers controversy here and watch John McCain criticize Obama about Ayers here. Read more from The Associated Press below.

McCain said he was sure Obama was “very patriotic” but said his relationship with William Ayers, a University of Illinois professor who was once part of the violent Weather Underground group, was “open to question.”

[orchid]

There is an error in the story. Keating’s Lincoln S & L was located in Irvine CA not AZ.

[Mr. K]

Where is any infor from the HilLIARy camp? I bet she is tossing ashtrays every time she turns on the news.

I want to see a MELTDOWN

[sergeantdave]

Mr. McCain is fortunate that the rat party has given him an opponent in obama who is more stupid than hillary.

Obama, the ku klux man, will give everyone a good fore-taste of America under a divisive, racist lunatic.

If we had a solid small government conservative, we could’ve seen a Reagan-style electoral sweep.

[NoGrayZone]

“Then Hussein will open the doors to his $ connections to the Chicago Magia, Terrorists and Black Panthers.”

He may open that door, but as mclame has proved, he WILL NOT walk through it.

[Grampa Dave]

McCain has taken Obama on with his Hamas support/friends and Ayers.

[NoGrayZone]

Yes, I remember. However, mclame needs to learn to keep his mouth shut....

"The Obama campaign also pointed out that the attack seemed to contradict comments made on MSNBC last month by McCain campaign senior adviser, Charlie Black, who said, "What Senator McCain has said repeatedly is that these candidates cannot be held accountable for all the views of people who endorse them or people who befriend them. ... He believes that people who endorse you, people who befriend you, are entitled to their own views, but you are not held personally accountable. That when somebody endorses you or befriends you, they're embracing your views, the candidates' views, not the other way around."

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Oh how little you actually know about your hero Juan.

There will be plenty of current ammo for the press to unload on McNasty. Watch out for the Vietnam Veterans against McCain. The scrutiny over his service record (Before he was captured.) will certainly become a national issue. Those 19 medals he received for only 23 absolutely lack-luster missions and the direct relation to his family Military associations. (How he got those medals) Will make John F’n Kerry look like Audie Murphy.

[devere]

If Obama brings up Keating, McCain must bring up Rezko, and also Obama’s “earmark” for his wife’s employer. Obama is ore corrupt than McCain.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

McCain will probably apologize profusely if Obama brings up his past.

[nyyankeefan]

Obama outlines plans for race against McCain (Keating Five)

putting b. HUSSIEN and race in the same sentence....is racist!!!

[HamiltonJay]

He wants to bring up a 30 year old “scandal” where the very investigator is on the record stating McCain had no involvement at the same time one of his main backers is facing conviction.. yea... that’s sounds wise Fauxbama.. keep it up.

Fauxbama is bringing a tooth pick to a knife fight.. my god this man is so not ready for prime time.

[weegee]

Obama has his own crooked land deal and the guy involved is undergoing trial right now. You wouldn’t know it to read the daily headlines though.

[weegee]

Maybe McCain will continue to agree with Obama on all matters and say that Obama is right, McCain will step down and let someone else run for the Presidency as the GOP candidate.

[jwalsh07]

Rezko, Ayers, The Most Lunatic Reverend Wright, and of course Michelle who has a problem keeping the hate oozing from her pores.

[Polybius]

McCain's press buddies are going to turn on him big time. Having tossed overboard every conservative he can find, who will rise to his defense?

Barrack Hussein Obama has flat out promised to bug out of Iraq and voluntarilly lose a war that over 4,000 American servicemembers have died to win. If Obama had had his way, the war would already have been lost.

**********

Published Jan. 30, 2007 ...... Obama wants troops home by spring ’08 ……. Illinois senator, presidential candidate introduces bill to force redeployment

**********

In 2006, by contrast, McCain was championing, almost by himself, the Surge strategy that has turned the war around when even Rumsfeld was dead set against it and Bush was just "staying the course" with Rumsfeld's losing strategy.

**********

Published December 27, 2006 ..... Novak: McCain's 'aggressive surge' stance backfiring ........ conservative columnist Robert Novak suggests that Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) "aggressive" push for a U.S. troop expansion -- or "surge" -- in Iraq may be costing the top 2008 GOP contender in the polls, especially when matched against another presumed front-runner, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY). "The decline in the polls of [McCain], as measured against [Clinton], reflects more than declining Republican popularity ......... "It connotes public disenchantment with McCain's aggressive advocacy of a 'surge' of up to 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq

"I understand the polls show only 18 percent of the American people support my position. But I have to do what's right, what I believe is right and what my experience and knowledge and background tells me is the right thing to do in order to save this situation in Iraq ... In war, my dear friends, there's no such thing as compromise. You either win or you lose." - Sen. John McCain's reaction to the Iraq Study Group Report, 2006

**********

Now, let's consider the consequences of bugging out and losing the War in Iraq:

1.) The fanatical Islamist mullahs of Iran will move into the power vacuum in Iraq leaving them with military hegemony of the Persian Gulf and 70% of the World's known oil reserves.

2.) With control of 70% of the World's known oil reserves, a fanatical Islamist Iran will have control of the carotid arteries of the economies of the Western World.

3.) Islamist Iran, like North Korea and Pakistan before it, is aggressively seeking nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. With control of 70% of the World's known oil reserves, Iran will most surely achieve its nuclear goals in short order by bribery or economic blackmail of the European nations and/or the Japanese and/or the Russians.

4.) After Cutting & Running from Iraq, Obama will not do what it takes to stop Iran.

5.) At that point, in ten years, those of you who live in or near major cities of the East Coast could be obliterated in an Iranian nuclear strike if the Mullahs in Iran decide that the day for achieving Eternity in Paradise by striking at the Great Satan has finally come.

6.) The deterrence doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.) worked fine with the pragmatic Soviets and the ChiComs, it will probably even work with the nutty North Koreans but M.A.D. means "Winning an Eternity in Paradise" to the fanatical Islamist Mullahs of Iran. M.A.D. will not work with them.

Fanatical Islamist Response to the old M.A.D. Doctrine: "Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt. Now we want the Mother Of All T-shirts."

"Having tossed overboard every conservative he can find, who will rise to his defense?", you ask.

How about conservatives who care more about America's safety and their children and grandchildren's future safety than they care about the pettiness of having their sensitive feelings hurt because a politician did not kiss their collective arse as often as they wished he had?

How about them?

[moose2004]

“but believes Wright & his association with terrorists is irrelevant.

Unfortunately, so does McCain”

But the 527’s don’t.

[Malesherbes]

I want to hear more about the Rezko 666.

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

What an incredulous display of Guilt and shame based rhetoric!

Could we at least have some mustard with that Guilt sandwich?

What on Earth does voting for McNasty have to do with us being attacked on 9/11? Wasn’t McNasty a Senator back then? And what, may I ask, did he do then to stop it? Or what would he do now, other than open our borders and give 30 million Illegal aliens citizenship? Will this stop those threats?

So many questions, so few real answers, only rhetoric and demagoguery.

[WOSG]

Obama counts on his minions to go into the gutter

That's the real story. Dragging up very old news. Obama was still smoking pot back when some of this stuff happened.

[Polybius]

The scrutiny over his service record (Before he was captured.) will certainly become a national issue. Those 19 medals he received for only 23 absolutely lack-luster missions and the direct relation to his family Military associations

Nineteen medals, you say?

What an impressive number. Are you including the "Alive in '65" Medal and the Vietnam Service Medal to bolster your impressive sounding number?

Why don't you list the particular medals and their respective citations you have an issue with and say exactly why you have an issue with them?

"Only 23 missions", you say?

In World War II, 25 missions in the Eighth Air Force got you a one-way ticket back to the States.

But not just any missions, "23 absolutely lack-luster missions", you say.

Please explain to us how a particular A-4 Skyhawk mission over North Vietnam qualifies as "absolutely lack-luster" or "Not-lack-luster" in your book.

*******

On July 25, 1967, Forrestal reached Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin[60] and thereby joined Operation Rolling Thunder, the 1965–1968 bombing campaign against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.[43][62] The alpha strikes flown from Forrestal were against specific, pre-selected targets such as arms depots, factories, and bridges.[63] They were quite dangerous, due to the strength of the North Vietnamese air defenses, which used Soviet-designed and supplied surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft artillery, and MiG jet interceptors.

*******

REAR ADMIRAL JERRY C. BREAST, USN (Ret): Speech Given at the USS FORRESTAL Association 2005 Reunion ......... In October 1967 we hit the Hanoi Thermal Power Plant. This is the flight when your shipmate, John McCain was shot down. The leader of that Alpha Strike was my skipper, the very same Bryant Compton who led the fire party to CVA-59. For planning and leading the strike, which put Hanoi in the literal dark for three months, Commander Compton won the Navy Cross.

*******

While you're at it, enlighten us on how "Not-lack-luster" your own combat record was.

If Alpha Strikes against heavily defended hard targets such as arms depots, factories, power plants and bridges qualify as ""absolutely lack-luster" in your book, you must have gone into combat with a wheelbarrow just so that you could carry your own gigantic testicles around the battlefield.

[RedEyeJack]

Please be specific as to what you mean by “lack-luster”. My recollection was that light attack guys in those days had to get close an personal to deliver their weapons... Any time they struck into NVA they faced an integrated air defense that was more than a match for A-4s. Unless you have factual data/info your comments are merit less and should be an embarrassment to you.

[Polybius]

What an incredulous display of Guilt and shame based rhetoric! Could we at least have some mustard with that Guilt sandwich?

What a perfect example of completely ignoring the issues presented and, instead, whining about how you feel about what I wrote.

I don't give a rat's ass how you feel about it.

Obama has promised to lose the war. THAT IS A FACT.

Losing the war will have the strategic consequences I outlined. If I am wrong about that point, prove it to me.

If you have a fact-based argument other that pathetically whining because your tender feelings were hurt, let's hear it.

I never mentioned "Guilt". I mentioned "Losing the war". I mentioned the strategic consequences of losing this particular war.

If the fact is that, deep down, you realize that working side by side with the likes of Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore and Barrack Obama to have America lose this particular war is something that you should be ashamed of, that is not my concern or my problem.

That is YOUR problem.

You do your best to protect your tender feelings.

I will do my best not to allow people like you to convince other American voters to lose this war at the ballot box next November.

[Polybius]

Please be specific as to what you mean by “lack-luster”. My recollection was that light attack guys in those days had to get close an personal to deliver their weapons... Any time they struck into NVA they faced an integrated air defense that was more than a match for A-4s. Unless you have factual data/info your comments are merit less and should be an embarrassment to you.

Be careful, RedEyeJack.

PSYCHO-FREEP is very sensitive about getting his tender feelings hurt. (See Post 36.)

In case he is too emotionally traumatized to respond right now, I will take the liberty of responding to your post for him:

"What an incredulous display of Guilt and shame based rhetoric! Could we at least have some mustard with that Guilt sandwich?"

Don't expect a fact-based response from him. He only whines about his feelings.

[dandiegirl]

It seems to me that the age issue should be off the table just like the race issue. Obama can’t help and had no control of the color of his skin and should be judged by his associations, actions, his wife etc. McCain cant’ help and has no control over his age therefore he should be judged in the same way as Obama. Age and race should not be issues.

[1035rep]

Robert Bennett, Chief Counsel to the Democrats during the investigation, said that McCain should not be included in the investigation and that their was no evidence of any wrongdoing by McCain.

[1035rep]

Obama’s is going to make inferences to McCain showing signs of senility.

LOL, Obama, who doesn't even know how many states we have. 

[1035rep]

Well done!

[Gator113]

“Age and race should not be issues.”

True, but they’re are going to be anyway.

Religion shouldn’t have been an issue, but it was/is.

It doesn’t matter anymore, everything is fair game.

Well, there are a few things we just don’t care about anymore.... such as integrity, honesty. character, patriotism, vision, our constitution, common sense and....the blood of our fathers.

[rdb3]

Obama was asked Saturday if the fall campaign might touch on the 1987 Keating Five scandal, in which the Senate Ethics Committee said McCain used "poor judgment" for allegedly pressing regulators to go easy on the owner of a failed Arizona savings and loan who was also a campaign contributor.

Obama said there is no doubt the Keating Five case is "germane to the presidency."

"I can't quarrel with the American people wanting to know more about that," he said.

Talk about a leading question!

[Mr Rogers]

McCain was NOT the only one supporting the surge - darn near every Republican in the Congress did, as well as GWB.

Meanwhile, McCain has been squishy on almost every other aspect of the GWOT, and the democrat - even Obama - will not want the war lost on his watch. He’ll stay in Iraq, rename and claim the strategy, and then claim the victory.

McCain has sold me out on just about every issue. I’m not going to go to bat for him on anything.

BTW - I’ve done a tour in Afghanistan, and my two adult kids have served in Iraq. Don’t waste your breath claiming, as others have, that I don’t support the troops because I don’t support McCain.

[inkling]

Oh how little you actually know about your hero Juan.

My hero? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA... Oh, sorry. That was rude of me.

Sorry dude, you don't know me. Did you notice that I'm from Arizona? Did you know that I collected sigs for his recall?

Think. Then type.

[Red Steel]

There is no Keating Five scandal for McCain. The Senate Judiciary Chief Counsel said McCain was innocent of all allegations, and should never have been charged, and is now supporting McCain.

A riposte that McCain should repeatedly pound back at Obama if he plays the Keating card.

[devolve]

[potlatch]

Beautiful graphic devolve, great job!!

[Polybius]

McCain was NOT the only one supporting the surge - darn near every Republican in the Congress did, as well as GWB.

WRONG!!!!!

Show me a link dating back to November 2006 that documents that ANYBODY in Congress or the White House was pushing for the Surge except for John McCain, Cheney and a few low level staffers .

Here is how things REALLY were back at the end of 2006:

The president was in a weak and lonely position. After Republicans lost the Senate and House in the midterm election on November 7, nearly 200 members of Congress had met with him at the White House, mostly to grouse about Iraq. ...... Inside his own administration, Bush had few allies on a surge in Iraq aside from the vice president and a coterie of National Security Council (NSC) staffers. The Joint Chiefs were disinclined to send more troops to Iraq or adopt a new strategy. So were General George Casey, the American commander in Iraq, and Centcom commander John Abizaid. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice favored a troop pullback. A week earlier, the Iraq Study Group, better known as the Baker-Hamilton Commission, had recommended a graceful exit from Iraq. ............ In September, Rumsfeld had rejected the idea of a surge when retired general Jack Keane, a former vice chief of staff of the Army and a member of the advisory Defense Policy Review Board, met with him and Pace. Keane insisted the "train and leave" strategy, as Bush referred to it, was failing. He proposed a counterinsurgency strategy, the addition of five to eight Army brigades, and a primary focus on taking back Baghdad. Rumsfeld was unconvinced.

Back in November of 2006, when John McCain was pushing for the Surge and when his position had the support of only 18% in public opinion polls, the Republican Congress was screaming like a stuck pig looking for political cover, Rumsfeld was rejecting the Surge and Bush was backing up Rumsfeld.

In fact, Rumsfeld had previously fired commanders such as General Shinseki for disagreeing with Rumsfeld's notion that the war could be won on the cheap because Rumsfeld said so.

In a public rebuke to Shinseki, Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, called Shinseki's estimate "far off the mark"[15] and "wildly off the mark". Wolfowitz said it would be "hard to believe" more troops would be required for post-war Iraq than to remove Saddam Hussein from power.[1] Specifically, Wolfowitz said to the House Budget Committee on February 27, 2003: .............. DEP. SEC. WOLFOWITZ: There has been a good deal of comment - some of it quite outlandish - about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army - hard to imagine. ..... On November 15, 2006, Gen. John P. Abizaid, chief of the U.S. Central Command, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committtee, acknowledged that in his view, and with hindsight, Shinseki had been correct in his view that a larger post-war force was needed.

As they say, "Victory has a thousand fathers" so, now that the Surge the McCain was pushing for back in November 2006 is producing victory, "darn near every Republican in the Congress, as well as GWB" and as well as their pet dogs named Toto all now claim to have been for the Surge all along.

Back in November of 2006 and before that, however, McCain's Surge idea was as toxic as the Black Plague to military and political careers. Just ask General Shinseki.

BTW - I’ve done a tour in Afghanistan, and my two adult kids have served in Iraq. Don’t waste your breath claiming, as others have, that I don’t support the troops because I don’t support McCain.

Thanks for your service and your family's service.

In regards to "supporting the troops", I never use that expression because everybody claims to "support the troops".

"Veterans Against Iraq War is a coalition of American veterans who support our troops but oppose war with Iraq"

Veterans Against Iraq War, Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan and Barack Obama all claim to "support the troops" by wanting them back in CONUS as soon as humanly possible whether America loses the war or not.

I stressed WINNING THE WAR.

Whether or not you served in Afghanistan and your sons served in Iraq, that does not change the fact that Obama has flat out PROMISED to bug out ASAP and lose the war and McCain has flat out said that, in the war, there is no substitute for victory.

You can truly care about the troops and "support the troops" by whatever meaning you give to those words.

However, you cannot change the fact that if you work to enable Barrack Obama to become Commander-in-Chief and Obama does indeed become Commander-in-Chief, you will have succeeded in accomplish what Saddam's Iraqi Army, al Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgents and the Shiite Mahdi Army were never able to accomplish on the battlefield ..........

......... have America lose the war.

[devolve]

.

Thanks potlatch -

It’s amazing how insane the left is!