- Keating Economics
"Keating Economics: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis" is a documentary that describes the role of U.S. Senator and Republican nominee for President
John McCain in theKeating Five scandal of the early 1990's and compares the historical episode to thesubprime mortgage crisis of 2008. [cite web |url=http://www.keatingeconomics.com/ |title=Keating Economics |format= |work= |accessdate=2008-10-06]The thirteen-minute documentary was produced by the campaign of
Barack Obama and promoted to supporters by e-mail. [cite web |url=http://politicalwire.com/ |title=Taegan Goddard's Political Wire |format= |work= |accessdate=2008-10-06]The documentary shows images from 1991 of Senator McCain testifying before the
Senate Ethics Committee investigation of corruption allegations regarding theKeating Five interspersed with images of the 2008 financial crisis. In the video, William Black, former deputy director of theFSLIC states that Senator McCain "has not learned the lessons from theKeating Five scandal and has continued to follow policies that are going to produce a disaster." [ [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K_qFyEcIcw John McCain Keating Five Scandal] YouTube. 10/6/2008.]Even prior to the release of the full documentary, it became the subject of intense interest by the press with over 3,700 news articles on the internet specifically referencing the video by name in the morning prior to the release of the full video. [ [http://news.google.com/news?as_q=&svnum=10&as_scoring=r&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a&tab=wn&ned=us&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=keating+economics&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=&as_mind=6&as_minm=9&as_maxd=6&as_maxm=10&as_nsrc=&as_nloc=&geo=&as_occt=any&aq=f Google News search results "Keating Economics"] Google. 10/6/2008.] [ [http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/obama-camps-kea.html Obama Camp's 'Keating Five' Slam Against McCain Gaining Traction Online] by Sarah Lai Stirland, Wired, October 06, 2008.] During the day of its release, the phrase "Keating Economics" was reported to at one point be the #2 most popular search term on Google. [ [http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aY.Vd2e8Yyjg&refer=home Obama Hits Back] Bloomberg.com 10/7/2008] Approximately 24 hours after its release on YouTube, the video had been viewed on that site more than 750,000 times. [ [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDofbll86dY John McCain Keating Five Scandal] ]
Several media sources suggested that the
Obama campaign timed the release of the video as acounterattack against theMcCain campaign, which in the days prior had reasserted the association of Barack Obama withWilliam Ayers . [ [http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/06/dems_forget_ayers_remember_kea.html Washington Post "Dems: Forget Ayers, Remember Keating"] , Washington Post, 10/6/2008.] [ [http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Keating_on_their_minds.html Keating on Their Minds] ]In response to the documentary, the McCain campaign held a conference call for reporters with McCain's lawyer,
John Dowd , who also appears in the film. In that conference call, Dowd took the position that McCain had done nothing wrong, and that McCain's involvement with the Keating Five ethics investigation was only the result of "a political smear job" by Democrats. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-McCain-Keating.html?scp=13&sq=%2b%22Barack+Obama%22&st=nyt McCain Revisiting Keating 5 Banking Scandal Again ] , Associated Press, October 7, 2008.] [ [http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/mccains-lawyer-keating-investigation-had-no-merit-2008-10-06.html McCain's lawyer: Keating investigation had ‘no merit’ ] by Sean Youngman, The Hill, 10/6/08.] However, this assertion appeared to run contrary to McCain's own previously stated opinion of the episode, having called his involvement "the worst mistake of my life." When this was pointed out, Dowd replied "I'm his lawyer and I have a different view of it." [ [http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/campaign-2008/story/715914.html McCain's Contrition Ends Over Keating] , Miami Herald, 10/7/2008.]The video was the subject of a "Truth Squad" segment broadcast by
CNN which concluded that the documentary was accurate. [ [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hZLFTESeG4&NR=1 CNN Truth Squad, McCain and the Keating Five 5] , YouTube. Retrieved October 7, 2008] [ [http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/06/fact-check-did-mccain-intervene-on-behalf-of-charles-keating/ Fact Check: Did McCain intervene on behalf of Charles Keating?] , CNN. Retrieved October 6, 2008.]See also
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Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008 References
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