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I personally hope the SOB does accept.

Gazing into the crystal ball, Johnny See your future.
It is the same as your past.

http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special39/articles/1003mccainbook5.html

...The meeting went on. McCain was quiet, while DeConcini carried the ball. The regulators told the senators that Lincoln was in trouble. The thrift, Cirona said, was a ''ticking time bomb.''

Then Patriarca made a stunning comment, according to transcripts released later.

''We're sending a criminal referral to the Department of Justice,'' he said. ''Not maybe, we're sending one. This is an extraordinarily serious matter. It involves a whole range of imprudent actions. I can't tell you strongly enough how serious this is. This is not a profitable institution.''

The statement made DeConcini back off a little.

''The criminality surprises me,'' he said. ''We're not interested in discussing those issues. Our premise was that we had a viable institution concerned that it was being overregulated.''

''What can we say to Lincoln?'' Glenn asked.

''Nothing,'' Black responded, ''with regard to the criminal referral. They haven't, and won't be told by us that we're making one.''

''You haven't told them?'' Glenn asked.

''No,'' said Black. ''Justice would skin us alive if we did. Those referrals are very confidential. We can't prosecute anyone ourselves. All we can do is refer it to Justice.''

After the meeting, McCain was done with Keating.

''Again, I was troubled by the appearance of the meeting,'' McCain said later. ''I stated I didn't want any special favors from them. I only wanted them (Lincoln Savings) to be fairly treated.''

Black doesn't completely buy that argument. If McCain was concerned about Keating asking him to do things that were improper, why go to either meeting at all?

Black said McCain probably went because Keating was close to being the political godfather of Arizona and McCain still had plenty of ambition.

''Keating was incredibly powerful,'' Black said. ''And incredibly useful.''

McCain's reservations aside, Keating accomplished his goal. He had bought some time, though the price was very high.
SHORT-LIVED REPRIEVE
A month later, the San Francisco regulators finished a yearlong audit and recommended that Lincoln be seized. But the report was virtually ignored because of politics on the bank board.

Gray was being replaced as chairman by Danny Wall, who was more sympathetic to Keating.

The audit, which described Lincoln as a thrift reeling out of control, sat on a shelf.

In September 1987, the investigation was taken away from the San Francisco office, away from Black and Patriarca. In May 1988, it was transferred to Washington, where Lincoln would get a new audit.

It was a win for Keating. A battle, not the war.

In Phoenix, the move sparked a triumphant party at the posh headquarters of American Continental.

Someone hurled a computer from the second floor, shattering a window. Keating, all 6-feet-5 of him, struck a Superman pose and ripped open his shirt to display a hand-drawn skull and crossbones over the letters FHLBB - the Federal Home Loan Bank Board.

A secretary climbed onto a desk to take photos, and American Continental executive Robert Kielty joined her. Keating grabbed a roll of tape and lashed their legs together.

Potted plants were knocked over. Beer and champagne were spilled on the carved wood desks. Kielty took a bottle of champagne and poured it down another secretary's blouse.

''Get this champagne colder,'' Keating yelled.

Back in San Francisco, Black was fuming.

''Clearly, we were shot in the back,'' he would say later.

Despite the reprieve, Keating's businesses continued to spiral downward, taking the five senators with him. News of the meeting leaked out, and now all five men were answering some very embarrassing questions.

''Did you lean on regulators for Charlie Keating?''

''Did you get campaign contributions in exchange for your cooperation?''

''Why did you protect Keating?''

Together, the five senators had accepted more than $300,000 in contributions from Keating, and their critics added a new term to the American lexicon:

Keating Five.

As the S&L failure deepened, the sheer magnitude of the losses hit the press. Billions of dollars had been squandered. The Keating Five became shorthand for the kind of political influence that money can buy. The five senators were linked as the gang who went to bat for an S&L bandit.

S&L ''trading cards'' came out. The Keating Five card showed Charles Keating holding up his hand, with a senator's head adorning each finger. McCain was on Keating's pinkie.

As the Keating investigation dragged through 1988, McCain dodged the body blows. Most landed on DeConcini, who had arranged the meetings and had other close ties to Keating, including $50 million in loans from Keating to DeConcini's aides.

But McCain made a critical error.

In spinning his side of the Keating story, McCain adopted the blanket defense that Keating was a constituent and that he had every right to ask his senators for help. In attending the meetings, McCain said, he simply wanted to make sure that Keating was treated like any other constituent.

Keating was far more than a constituent to McCain, however.

On Oct. 8, 1989, The Republic revealed that McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators.

The paper also reported that the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby-sitter, had made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. Three of trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay.

McCain also did not pay Keating for the trips until years after they were taken, when he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. Total cost: $13,433.

When the story broke, McCain did nothing to help himself. When reporters first called him, he was furious. Caught out in the open, the former fighter pilot let go with a barrage of cover fire. Sen. Hothead came out in all his glory.

''You're a liar,''' McCain snapped Sept. 29 when a Republic reporter asked him about business ties between his wife and Keating.

''That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot,'' McCain said later in the same conversation. ''You do understand English, don't you?''

He also belittled the reporters when they asked about his wife's ties to Keating.

''It's up to you to find that out, kids.''

And then he played the POW card.

''Even the Vietnamese didn't question my ethics,'' McCain said.

The paper ran the story a few days later. At a news conference, McCain was a changed man. He stood calmly for 90 minutes and answered every question.

On the shopping center, his defense was simple. The deal did not involve him. The shares in the shopping center had been purchased by a partnership set up between McCain's wife and her father.

But McCain also had to explain his trips with Keating and why he didn't pay Keating back right away.

On that score, McCain admitted he had fouled up. He said he should have reimbursed Keating immediately, not waited several years. His staff said it was an oversight, but it looked bad, McCain jetting around with Keating, then going to bat for him with the federal regulators...