Rezko Lesson
Please click here if you haven’t read my Disclaimer 2008 for this blog category yet.
Why is it that so many Republicans are quick to point out that Obama was once chummy with Tony Rezko and that they were involved in a real estate deal together? They get all high and mighty and wag fingers about the fact that Rezko is now a convicted felon. “Oooh… Obama hangs out with felons.”
Seriously? Do these people only read headlines and listen to sound bites? Do they even know the details? Can they remember anything from a year that doesn’t start with a Two?
But wait… I’m getting ahead of myself. For those not familiar with the Rezko controversy, here’s a quick recap:
Obama met Rezko, a low-income housing developer, in 1990. They were never in business together. The real estate deal Republicans point to was an arms length transaction for the purchase of Obama’s principal residence. Rezko was involved because his wife bought the adjacent lot, also in an arm’s length transaction. Obama later bought a portion of the Rezko lot from Rezko to expand his yard. Obama paid fair value. Obama later called the deal “boneheaded” because people might get the impression that Rezko had done him a favor.
Over the years Rezko made a few campaign contributions and helped raise money for Obama campaigns. Chumminess was a couple of lunches per year. Obama was never connected to the case against Rezko and, after Rezko’s conviction on measly 16 felony counts, Obama said “I’m saddened by (the) verdict” and “This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew…”
Obama was never implicated in any wrongdoing. Sure, he got a few campaign contributions out of the relationship, but it’s hard to throw a cat in a room full of politicians and not hit one who hadn’t received a contribution from a less-than-upstanding citizen. Besides, the contributions occurred before the conviction and Obama later gave some of that money to charity.
This is where I get the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” crap from certain right wingers. Perhaps.
Ever hear of a developer named Charles Keating?
Fascinating story. In addition to being a developer, Keating owned Lincoln Savings and Loan. In 1987 Keating enlisted the help of several Senators to stave off some regulators from the government who were on the path to shutting him down. Apparently he thought too much regulation was bad. Some of those Senators were also proponents of less regulation for financial institutions.
The government eventually succeeded in seizing Lincoln S&L, but Lincoln has the distinction of being the biggest failure of the S&L scandal during the late 1980’s. The Lincoln bailout cost taxpayers about $2.6 billion and investors lost an additional $190 million. Keating was eventually convicted of 73 felony counts and he served more than four years in prison. Some fancy lawyering got the conviction overturned, but he later pled guilty to a handful of charges in exchange for time served.
Guess who one of the Senators was.
During the 1980’s, Keating contributed to and raised money for some of McCain’s campaigns. Not a big deal – as noted above. Also, McCain’s wife was a business partner with Keating for a strip mall. I guess that’s no big deal either since Johnny M. probably didn’t know about it. Just like he didn’t know how many homes he and his wife own.
However, McCain and Keating were more than chummy. In addition to a few lunches, McCain accepted several trips at Keating’s expense. Including three to Keating’s Bahamas retreat.
See any smoke yet?
Back to the S&L scandal. McCain was one of the “Keating Five” – five Senators who were the subject of a probe by the Senate Ethics Committee into the failure of Lincoln. The committee later found that McCain was guilty of nothing more than “poor judgment.” McCain read that to be a “full exoneration.” Interesting.
So, on the left we have a Senator who had a friendship with a now-convicted felon that included some campaign money and a few lunches. There were no business deals. There was no involvement with anything related to the charges against his former friend. Bummer about that arms length transaction related to his principal residence that he now regrets.
On the right we have a Senator whose friendship with a felon included some campaign money and a relationship so strong that several vacations were included in the mix. Add the business deal with McCain’s wife. Oh, and that whole “Keating Five” thing that contributed to a $2.6 billion tab for taxpayers (1990 dollars).
Did anyone else notice that deregulation contributed to the collapse of the S&Ls in the late 1980’s? Maybe that’s the “poor judgment” the Senate Ethics Committee was referring to. Maybe McCain should have paid attention instead of fighting so hard for “exoneration.” Maybe then he would have learned the lesson that deregulation of financial institutions leads to bad things. You know, the lesson he finally seems to be learning now that our entire banking system is on the verge of collapsing.
Barack expanded his back yard to provide a better home for his family and learned to be more careful about who he does business with.
McCain watched from the front row while deregulation led to the collapse of several savings and loans costing taxpayers billions of dollars then continued to beat the deregulation drum. Even after he was found to have exercised “poor judgment” by a Senate Ethics Committee he appeared to learn nothing from the experience until about two weeks ago.
Where’s that fire?
11 Comments
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Yo’
I don’t need to bring up Tony R, Baracko has contributions accepted from Fanny May and Freddie Mac…he was actually the #3 biggest recipient in all of the legislative body to accept cash campaign contributions from the failed banks…that the gov’t now owns…that smells worse than Tonny R’s little bidness…
And I did know about Mrs. McCain’s dealings…but that’s no worse than Mrs. Obama claiming to be a woman of poor means while she was pulling down 250g’s from her part time hospital gig…
Like you said…everyones got skeletons…except Slick Willie who has no spine.
I fail to see the logic of Johnny M’s response. Tu quoque is not a defense. Not much of an offense either. It is useful at pointing out hypocrisy. I personally don’t question either man’s integrity. Many of us have had business dealings with people of a weaker character than we would like. It wouldn’t take much for an outside party to characterize casual business relationships as something more.
The question stands; is McCain’s insistence that deregulation is THE imperative hold up to the reality of the S&L and sub-prime fiasco? Even Smith, in WofN, recognized the need for an external moderating power on the excesses of capitalism. He assumed that that position would be filled by the Church of England. Times, they are a’changing. CofE doesn’t have the sway, just as the Empire has subsided. So, it would be logical to that government would fill that role. (I prefer this as my distrust of gov’t is eclipsed by my fear of theocracy.) We can hash out the appropriate level once we determine if gov’t has a responsibility to regulate the markets. My position is; YES it is an necessity. Laissez-faire capitalism is untenable, immoral, and as much an evil as communism. Let’s see if that gets comments.
First – to clarify – I did not mean to imply that Republicans are the only ones to blame for the current problems with our financial system. There is plenty of blame to spread around. (Perhaps in a future blog post.)
Johnny got one part right – they all have skeletons – but I think he missed my two main points:
1) Don’t whine about an irrelevant skeleton when your own candidate has a bigger one in the same category.
2) With regard to these particular skeletons (Rezko/Keating), McCain did not LEARN from his mistakes and he continued on a path detrimental to taxpayers.
McCain may be a “maverick” in areas of little importance, but with regard to deregulation he towed the party line.
Matt makes excellent points worthy of a whole new post on regulation v. deregulation.
Lastly – regarding campaign cash and lobby money – I begrudge no politician for legally getting $ to advance his cause(es). Kudos to McCain for his efforts to reform some of these areas. Too bad he wasn’t more successful in getting real reform. Had there been REAL reform maybe Barack wouldn’t have had to ditch out on the public financing program for his campaign.
Maybe McCain and his team of “former” lobbyists can get back to that when he returns to the Senate next January.
“Laissez-faire capitalism is untenable, immoral, and as much an evil as communism”….Buzzz, oooh, nice try but assigning an individual’s mores and ethics is an individual judgement call, not a universally accepted truth or fact. So calling unfettered capitalism immoral and evil is your opinion…rather say it can and has lead to wretched excess, a tragic and unnecessary depletion of too many hard working folks retirements, loss of jobs etc…but to call it evil?
So…moderate away, by all means reign in the CEO buyout package at the expense of the employee or the investor…but don’t cap legitimate individual earnings…that acts as an unnecessary disincentive to achieve.
Same with big oil…yup, Exxon made an assload of cash last year…and what did that do? it made those folks who invested in them through the market, and the folks who work there, (and that is a lot of folks), very happy indeed. Did we pay at the pump…yup…is it still cheaper than gas in Europe, yup again…
So, while McCain did get a slap on the wrist 20 years ago, to call all deregulation drives as wrong is not quite kosher either…sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But I will almost always vote to keep the gub’mint out of my business dealings…You should check out Obama’s record w/Acorn suing Fannie May and Freddie Mac to get an idea of Obama’s actions…they are still more troublesome than McCains.
Peace out!
Blah, blah, blah…I’m thinking that McCain was not president the past 8 years and there was a majority democratic congress running the country which could be responsible for where we are today. And this spread the wealth thing….if I want to give my hard earned money away it should be my choice where to donate it too not the governments. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for creating jobs so all have opportunity to work and live the so-called American Dream.
There is more to it than money – Vote for McCain/Palin!
Please excuse my friend Ann Marie. She doesn’t remember that the first 6 years of the Bush presidency had a republican congress. And she hasn’t heard that Greenspan (a Reagan appointee) has found flaws in his own free-market policies. And she probably doesn’t understand why smart republicans like Colin Powell are jumping ship (because it’s sinking).
She’s got one thing right – it’ not just about the money. But a McCain/Palin is a vote for McPain.
Obama is not a cure. He is just the better choice given what we got.
Yeah and excuse my friend Christopher for not realizing “what we got” is “Bush”…where I would agree Obama may be a better choice than “what we got”.
However, Grandpa McCain has character and as for Sarah…you go girl…help us out with that Alaskan oil 🙂
P.S…aren’t you glad you told me to check out your web site 😉
I’m glad Ann Marie recognizes that Obama is better than “what we got” (Bush) because that is what we are going to get. So things must be looking up.
As for McCain – He does have character and I did like the old (less old) McCain. But lately he is placating far too much to the extreme republican base and he seems more and more feeble. A function of age? Maybe, maybe not. Some people run out of steam at 50 and others at 90. Powell is 72 and doesn’t seem at all feeble. Too bad he didn’t run.
Sarah is dangerously unprepared and scares the crap out of me. If she has any skills at all she should use then to clean up Alaska and get the oil. I do agree with domestic drilling, so yes… Sarah, get us the oil. Legally. Clean up that Alaskan corruption now that the longest serving Republican Senator has been convicted.
Let me clarify…”what we got now”. Bush did a fine job in protecting this country after 9/11. But let me tell you I am concerned that Obama is up to that kind of job. Those “pretty” speaches and skits will not do it.
Neither will Sarah’s new $150,000 wardrobe and some winking. We all know the vice president has been running the country.
Seriously – I think Obama/Biden will usher in a new era of global diplomacy and the approval rating of the USA around the world (which is at historic lows) will be back on the rise. More cooperation and friendship with other countries means more help to prevent terrorism and repair damage to the global economy.
Obama is thoughtful and is known to collect and weigh the views from both sides of a situation before making a decision. I am confident that he is acutely aware of the responsibility that comes with this job and I believe he is plenty capable of pulling the trigger in an emergency situation. It will be like Michael Douglas in The American President when they had to bomb the Libyans. Barak may even get laid once in a while, although Michelle isn’t quite as hot as Annette Bening.
RE: Sarah
“you go girl… help us out with that Alaskan oil” and while you’re at it kill some more wolves and help get rid of those pesky polar bears and set the feminist movement back a couple decades. Maybe you could even revoke our right to vote along with Roe vs. Wade and all those bikini shots of you in your 20’s will help you win by a landslide since us women will be in the kitchen bare foot and knocked up (even in cases of rape and insest and if our lives are in danger) with no right to vote.
At least she’s qualified for the job… what does a vice president do other than shoot people… I mean duck…