As a Navy pilot, John “Crash” McCain lost five planes (the last one in a combat zone over North Vietnam). Rather than take the millions and millions of dollars worth of damage out of his paycheck, the Navy let him keep flying. Some think that because his father was an admiral, “Crash” got some special treatment.
“Crash” McCain was a central figure in the Savings and Loan crisis in the eighties. McCain was rebuked by the Senate ethics committee for his poor judgment in the Keating Five scandal. George Bush’s brother Neil was also involved. The young princes of GOP politics helped cost the American taxpayers over $124 billion by the time it was all added up.
Lincoln Savings and Loan
The Lincoln Savings led to the Keating Five political scandal, in which five U.S. senators were implicated in an influence-peddling scheme. It was named for Charles Keating, who headed Lincoln Savings and made $300,000 as political contributions to them in the 1980s. Three of those senators – Alan Cranston(D-CA), Don Riegle(D-MI), and Dennis DeConcini(D-AZ) – found their political careers cut short as a result. Two others – John Glenn(D-OH) and John McCain(R-AZ) – were rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising “poor judgment” for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Keating.
Silverado Savings and Loan
Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed in 1988, costing taxpayers $1.6 billion. Neil Bush, son of then Vice President of the United States George H. W. Bush, was Director of Silverado at the time. Neil Bush was accused of giving himself a loan from Silverado, but he denied all wrongdoing.
The US Office of Thrift Supervision investigated Silverado’s failure and determined that Neil Bush had engaged in numerous “breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest.” Although Bush was not indicted on criminal charges, a civil action was brought against him and the other Silverado directors by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; it was eventually settled out of court, with Bush paying $50,000 as part of the settlement, as reported in the Washington Post [11].
As a director of a failing thrift, Bush voted to approve $100 million in what were ultimately bad loans to two of his business partners. And in voting for the loans, he failed to inform fellow board members at Silverado Savings & Loan that the loan applicants were his business partners.[citation needed]
Silverado’s collapse cost taxpayers $1.3 billion.
Neil Bush paid a $50,000 fine and was banned from banking activities for his role in taking down Silverado, which cost taxpayers $1.3 billion. A Resolution Trust Corporation Suit against Bush and other officers of Silverado was settled in 1991 for $26.5 million.
Why are these facts insufficient to run “Crash” McCain out of public life? Is it a mob thing? Imagine if similar facts could be used to Barack Obama’s detriment. How much would the Republican attack machine pay to get the story told?
And what about that lobbyist, Vicki Iseman? Politics do make strange bedfellows. (She could do a lot better than “Crash” McCain, I think).
[tags]Crash McCain, Taxpayers pay for lapses in judgment, war hero or lamer, you decide[/tags]
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