Obama: McCain's role in Keating Five is fair game
Los Angeles Times
BEND, Ore. -- As he closes in on the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama signaled Saturday that he has no objection to reminding voters that the presumptive Republican nominee has admitted to a serious ethical breach.
At the end of a two-day trip through Oregon, Obama was asked whether it was fair for one of his supporters, Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, to have invoked John McCain's role in a nearly 20-year-old scandal when he introduced Obama at a rally Friday night.
McCain was one of the Keating Five, a group of senators disciplined for improperly trying to influence federal regulators in the savings and loan scandal of the late 1980s. It was, McCain has said, "the worst mistake of my life."
While slightly distancing himself from DeFazio, Obama made it clear that McCain's record was fair game.
"John McCain's public record about issues that he's apologized for and written about" said Obama, "is germane to the presidency. "
Tucker Bounds, a McCain campaign spokesman, criticized the resurrection of the Keating case as politics as usual. "If Barack Obama doesn't have the strength to stand up to his own standards, how is he going to stand up for hardworking Americans who need a strengthened economy?"
