[kabar]

McCain and Keating had become personal friends following their initial contacts in 1981, and McCain was the only one of the five senators with close social and personal ties to Keating. McCain considered Keating a constituent as he lived in Arizona. McCain, his family, and their baby-sitter made nine trips at Keating’s expense, sometimes aboard Keating’s jet. Three of the trips were made to Keating’s luxurious retreat in the Bahamas. McCain did not pay Keating—some $13,433—for some of these trips until years after the trips were taken, after he learned that Keating was under investigation. Between 1982 and 1987, McCain received $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates. In addition, McCain’s wife Cindy McCain and her father Jim Hensley, invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. In 1989, the Phoenix New Times writer Tom Fitzpatrick called McCain the “most reprehensible” of the five senators.

The Keating Five were investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee. The Committee’s work, however, was made difficult because at the time there was no specific rule governing the propriety of members intervening with federal regulators. During the investigation, McCain said, “I have done this kind of thing [intervene] many, many times,” and said the Lincoln case was like “helping the little lady who didn’t get her Social Security.” In 1991, after a lengthy investigation, the committee cleared McCain of impropriety but said he had exercised “poor judgment.” Some of the committee members were concerned that letting the senators off lightly would harm their own reputations. Nevertheless, the existing Senate rules did not specifically proscribe the actions taken by DeConcini, Riegle, Glenn, and McCain. After the finding, McCain admitted his poor judgment and would write in 2002 that attending the two April 1987 meetings with Keating was “the worst mistake of my life.”

[Mr. Silverback]

So what? People talk about the Keating Five like McCain was a scumbag backroom dealer, and it’s pretty much a nothingburger. Moreover, my point that it was a Dem-run railroading remains absolutely, positively ironclad. The fact that the guy shows some all-too-rare humility about it is a plus, not an indictment.

So, you can keep doing the work of the Dems, or you can focus on McCain’s real faults. And one wonders if you’ll be posting about Hayworth and Abramov in a few years as if it’s the worst thing a congresscritter ever did...