Since the topic of the Keating 5 is no longer off-limits in the TM, and the Obama campaign has launched a counter-attack to deal with the absurd Ayers smears launched by the McCain campaign, perhaps it is time to revisit not just John McCain's culpability and lack of judgment back in the time of Keating, but also the intimate involvement of his wife.

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Jesus Christ... This is just brilliant. They aren't even reacting, they've been planning this. The site says that there will be a full documentary at noon tomorrow. They even registered the domain name back on September 25th. McCain's people can't compete with this. Not only that, but the angle they are taking makes the incident relevant by tying it directly to the most current, most politically volatile situation, so they've instantly made this more damaging and more relatable than McCain's unfocused accusations of knowing bad people. AND that strategy gives them an argument against John McCain's primary defense, that he learned his lesson. Because now McCain has been running with the same crowd. He hasn't cleaned up his act, he just found out how to hide it.

They've essentially pulled a Bugs Bunny cannon trick. John McCain's people yell to ready the cannons, and then immediately Obama's ship opens up and reveals cannons about twice the size. Whatever misgivings I once had about this campaign have long been alleviated.

The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s.

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The Keating scandal is eerily similar to today's credit crisis, where a lack of regulation and cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress has allowed banks to make risky loans and profit by bending the rules. And in both cases, John McCain's judgment and values have placed him on the wrong side of history.

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