At least for the time being...
I'm writing this primarily to address a string of comments on the last post between Tim Hayes and myself. I think the anti-McCain rhetoric is foolish and bad for the country and I plan to attempt to make a case for why I see things this way.
First off I need to address the "Keating Five". I have to be honest that this is something that I had not heard a lot about. I'm guessing I don't remember the Keating Five because I was "11" when the news about this scandal broke. I'm kind of surprised that Tim alludes to remembering it, because at that age I was busy playing in the sandbox still, or playing tag with the neighborhood kids. Perhaps your memory has been jogged recently by certain radio personalities.
Anyway I needed to read up and I came upon many links, most of which were amateur pages set up by far right bloggers and commentators. One of the most informative and detailed links was a series written about the rise of McCain by the "Arizona Republic". I'm providing a link to the chapter devoted to this fiasco: The Keating Five
After reading about the situation through this and several other sources important points are revealed:
- A fraudulent developer named Charles H Keating Jr had a long standing relationship with John McCain's in-laws.
- Keating had provided fundraising for McCain's campaign prior to a scandal involving government seizure of "Lincoln Savings and Loan", a freewheeling subsidiary of Keating's American Continental Corp.
- Immediately prior and during a federal audit Keating attempted to pressure McCain and 4 other senators into influencing regulators to back off.
- McCain was a freshman senator at the time, was reluctant to be involved but appeared to want to listen to his constituent's concerns. McCain supposedly did not make demands of regulators due to unease with the situation. Others within the group were documented as being more manipulative.
- It appears to be a case of "guilt by association". Keating definitely appears to have made a bid to buy the influence of McCain. While the freshman senator apparently listened to Keating's requests he appears to have balked when it came to following through, aside from his presence at two meetings.
- The most damning move by McCain was an attempt to angrily brush the scandal aside rather than be up front about it. Despite this display of his famous temper McCain eventually performed an about face cooperating with the questions of the media & even befriending them to demonstrate he had nothing to hide.
- From Wikipedia involving the Keating Five: After months of testimony revealed that all five senators acted improperly to differing degrees, the senators continually said they were following the status quo of campaign funding practices. In August 1991, the committee concluded that Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle's conduct constituted substantial interference with the FHLBB's (Federal Home Loan Bank Board ) enforcement efforts and that they had done so at the behest of Charles Keating. The committee recommended censure for Cranston and criticized the other four for "questionable conduct." McCain survived the scandal with a blemish on his record which he has acknowledged as a poor call in judgment.
- On his Keating Five experience, McCain said: "The appearance of it was wrong. It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do."
- Perhaps fueled by his experience with the issue, McCain co-sponsored campaign finance reform the McCain–Feingold Act which has been championed as a bipartisan piece of legislation. Many hard-line GOP loyalists initially disapproved of the measure because it did not include trade Unions which tend to support Democrats. With revisions to correct this Bush signed the act. The McCain-Feingold Act has fallen under more scrutiny because of a loop hole allowing for 527 organizations to collect from soft money sources. For more info click the link above.
- This is an excellent example of the McCain "straight talk". Bush, and Clinton (both of them), as well as many other politicians have the luxury of having strategists and minions who allow them to avoid addressing, or just out right lie about involvement with various scandals. The involvement of John McCain with the Keating Five is a weak detriment when compared to the Enron debacle and the Whitewater and Chinagate fiascos.
OTHER ISSUES:
I recognize the dissent with his Immigration reform, however there was not many viable alternatives proposed by people in the legislative branch. In the early stages of this series of legislation the Republicans still controlled both congressional branches yet aside from the Comprehensive Immigration Reform proposed with the involvement of McCain there were no serious alternatives brought to vote. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 panned as amnesty by critics was shot down despite having the endorsement of the president. Mitt Romney, as we know has proposed deporting all illegal immigrants (apparently he'll have to find new maintenance workers for his home). This is a completely absurd proposition which would be next to impossible. We already have a law enforcement deficit in this country. To expect police forces to readjust to round up people who have lived here for as long as twenty years is unrealistic. We have no prison space, they are already overpopulated, and the monetary value attached to putting such a ridiculous plan into play would probably dwarf anything we'd spend on another foolish proposition called National Healthcare (which Romney also wants). Finally, we haven't been enforcing the laws for years, where do we get off as a Nation punishing the people who we have essentially welcomed (perhaps due to negligence and greed) for the past several decades? Now I do believe we should and need to start enforcing the laws and make people immigrate through the proper channels. I even believe there are ways to encourage recent immigrants to return home (such as forcing employers to get documentation). Lastly the border needs to employ top of the line technology to guard it, and where appropriate walls should probably be built. These alternatives to rounding everyone up.... are included in McCain's current revised immigration reform ideas. He has recognized that the country does not support his former plan as written and is willing to work towards a compromise.
If a Romney style plan is adopted it will result in ethnic and racial profiling. It will incite (and is already beginning to) anti-Hispanic sentiments which will hurt even the people who are legally here. This is a complex, multi-layered problem that is not as simple as going through every city with a squadron and putting people on trucks to the border. That would be a disaster, and that is NOT a country that I would enjoy being a part of. If that happens, regardless of the circumstances that led to it, how far is it from the actions took place in WWII? How far will it be from Andrew Jackson's rounding up of Native Americans? It would be an abomination, and for anyone to even suggest it, in my opinion they are ethically and morally depraved. To use hatred spawned by praying on the psyche of bitter blue collar Americans who's jobs have been shipped over seas (by business men like Romney ironically enough) to achieve power, is to take a page from certain history books that I don't find any pleasure in reading.
We should not punish people who were just trying to get a piece of the American dream when we were too preoccupied or selfish to conduct border patrol according to proper etiquette. Secure the border and cut off new illegal immigration like we should have been doing all along. Punish the people hiring illegal immigrants and the people who can't get jobs will go home.
Tim wrote: Why do people say things like "you're getting brainwashed by talk radio"-(moi) ... geez.
Well Tim, when you make a statement saying that Hillary Clinton and John McCain are like the same person, it is worthy of such a retort. Really if you believe that, I'm not certain I can convince you otherwise.
I have to admit, I don't think the country needs any tax cuts right now, not until some control can be brought to the ever expanding deficits. The stimulus package, if it ever passes, in my opinion in itself is over the top. The fact that people see it as necessary (even Democrats) really just goes to show what bad shape our country is in. Something has got to give... The country needs to both cut spending and get more revenue and it can't be done with the plans of any of the democrats, or Romney and Huckabee who generally talk govt. expansion almost as much as the democrats, (and in the same sentence claim they'll cut spending... fuzzy math?)
Difficult cuts need to be made and I think McCain just might be the only one out of the lot (with the exception of the extinct Thompson and the loon Paul) who will even attempt to do this.
Ironically, one of the organizations that have been hard on McCain gives him an 82.3% conservative voting record, which for some reason isn't conservative enough.
The problem for McCain is largely that the GOP base has become just as emotionally irrational as their enemies the democrats. Common sense is the enemy, instead taxes MUST be cut. All illegal immigrants must leave RIGHT NOW, (because apparently we need the lawn money) RELIGION MUST BE INCORPORATED INTO LAW...that one came out of nowhere.... I guess I'm going to have to blame society, I'm sure they are to blame.
This same party holds Reagan up as though he were an anti-liberal GOD but.......
Setting the Reagan presidential record straight
"They have forgotten that Reagan - facing spiraling deficits, sinking poll ratings and a hostile Congress - reluctantly signed legislation raising payroll, income and gasoline taxes, some of them among the largest in our history."
"Two of his Supreme Court appointments, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, were far more liberal than George W. Bush's selections, the diehard constructionists, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. "
"Reagan's 1986 comprehensive immigration bill turned out to be the most liberal amnesty for illegal aliens in our nation's history, and set the stage for the present problem of 12 million aliens here unlawfully."
"In other words, a great president like Ronald Reagan made mistakes. He sometimes reversed positions, played politics and baffled his conservative base - some of the very charges now leveled against Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson. When a candidate today says, "Reagan would have done this or that," he apparently has a poor memory of what Reagan - the often lonely, flesh-and-blood conservative in the 1980s - was forced to do to get elected, govern and be re-elected. While in office, he proved more often the pragmatic leader than the purist knight slaying ideological dragons on the campaign trail."
For more read the article with the link provided above.
Will McCain put in constructionist judges? Well I don't believe for a heartbeat that he'll try and nominate a crony like Harriet Miers.
The problem in the "constructionist judge" dilemma is that neither side believes that the other side’s appointees are constructionist. The hard right also believes that constructionist judges support their ideals on issues such as abortion, prayer in school, and flag burning, when if anything these issues would need serious Constitutional amendments or major social reform to become laws to be enforced. I think even John Roberts gets that, I can't speak for Alito.
On constructionist Judge Roberts:
"In his Senate testimony, Roberts acknowledged that, while sitting on the Appellate Court, he would have an obligation to respect precedents established by the Supreme Court, including the controversial decision invalidating many restrictions on the right to an abortion. He stated: "Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land.... There is nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent, as well as Casey." "
At the end of the day Tim, if you write in Barney Rubble, you will have helped elect Hillary Clinton (It appears she'll probably end up winning the nod). (AND THAT GOES FOR THE REST OF YOU TOO!!!!)
If Republicans are discouraged to show up... which it sounds like talk radio is doing, it will give further control to a group of power hungry Democrats with a Marxist intentions. Now I admit that some of these Democrats have very noble, good intentions, but in the end, it will ruin us.
