That is exactly what I am saying.
Here's a FreeRepublic thread where one of the principals discusses it...
MEDIA ADVISORY, October 6 /Standard Newswire/ -- The following is democratic counsel Robert Bennett on John McCain and Keating Five: 'Pure Politics':
In The Ring: The Trials Of A Washington Lawyer,
By Robert S. Bennett
Random House, 2008
Pgs. 133 134
"At the completion of my investigation, I filed my report with the committee. I recommended that no further action be taken against Senators McCain and Glenn principally because once they learned that there was a criminal referral, they stopped aggressively doing Keating's bidding with the regulators."
Apparently in Washington, influence peddling is o.k. as long as the peddler doesn't know he's dealing with folks involved are under investigation.
Sorry, my morality differes from that somewhat.
Blind partisanship is not a virtue.
First, who was Keating? He was was an Arizona developer with an impeccable reputation for honesty. He was a big Reagan supporter. Deeply religious, he was somewhat of a prude. He cut his political teeth fighting Larry Flynt. His brother was a congressman from Ohio.
What did McCain do? He went to two meetings. At both he made it very clear that he was not trying to influence regulatory process but was there to see if Keating was getting a fair deal. He refused to attend the second meeting when asked by Keating but changed his mind when DeConcini personally asked him to go. That was all he did. Keating asked for more but McCain told him to f himself.
I've fought with McCain for twenty-five years. I don't like the SOB. We looked at the Keating deal and we would have beat McCain over the head with it but there is no there there. As bitter as our disagreements have been, I have never, ever, seen McCain do anything that was dishonorable.