The Truth, before its Smeared

It has been revealed that the Obama campaign is going to hit John McCain back with their own attack ads about the Maverick’s past.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Monday is launching a multimedia campaign to draw attention to the involvement of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the “Keating Five” savings-and-loan scandal of 1989-91, which blemished McCain’s public image and set him on his course as a self-styled reformer.

In case the Obama campaign forgot, McCain was cleared of all charges in the Keating Five Scandal by the Senate Ethics committee. They found his participation to be minimal and concluded that he broke no laws and simply exercised bad judgment, the same allegation that the McCain campaign pins to Obama for having associations like Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko, Father Phleger, Jim Johnson, and Franklin Raines. Obama might be able to play the Keating Five Scandal off as, “look at McCain’s bad judgment,” but he shouldn’t play that game considering he’s got at least six associations that show his massive lack of judgment.

However, the next part is the real killer.

The Obama campaign, including its surrogates appearing on radio and television, will argue that the deregulatory fervor that caused massive, cascading savings-and-loan collapses in the late ‘80s was pursued by McCain throughout his career, and helped cause the current credit crisis.

Okay, put aside the fact that McCain was cleared of all charges in this scandal, does anyone really believe it was the savings-and-loan collapse of the 80’s that sparked the credit crisis today? Or even the deregulation during that time period? I’ve heard no one point to that as the reason.

On the flip side, I have heard several economists point to the Community Reinvestment Act as a reason so many subprime mortgages were handed out. Here’s a little refresher for those who don’t know what I’m talking about. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was an act signed in 1977 that was meant to stop “redlining” by banks. “Redlining” is the notion that banks discriminate based on race or ethnicity when handing out loans. Banks claimed that they weren’t discriminating but rather giving loans to borrowers who could actually afford them. The CRA was expanded in 1995 by Clinton and it forced banks to hand out subprime mortgages or else face fines.

Now the Obama connection.

There’s a little group you might have heard of called ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now). ACORN, besides partaking in massive voter fraud throughout the entire country, uses intimidation tactics to force banks into lending subprime mortgages to minorities. They believe banks partake in “redlining” and they do things like bank sit ins and storming bank offices, to force them into lending loans to people that would otherwise be denied.

Obama has an extensive history with ACORN. As a matter of fact he’s trained ACORN workers for voter registration and even bank intimidation. Even worse, Obama was a lawyer on a civil suit against Citigroup alleging that, you guessed it, they discriminated against minorities and participated in “redlining.”

So if we had to choose, who’s more responsible for the current crisis. John McCain, who was cleared of any wrong doing in a scandal that had ties to a savings-and-loans crisis in the 80’s that no one is claiming caused our current problems? Or Barack Obama, who trained workers to intimidate banks into lending subprime mortgages and who sued a bank for “redlining,” a bogus claim of bank discrimination?

I think the answer’s pretty clear.

UPDATE: And before I forget, breaking news today that Barack Obama shared a stage with William Ayers, and worked with him on other projects outside of the Woods Fund and the CAC.

UPDATE: I’m going to say it, Obama seems to be the most clueless man on earth. First it was Jermiah Wright, then Tony Rezko, and now William Ayers.

“In 1995, William Ayers held kind of a get-to-know you event at his place where he was introducing Barack Obama to the political culture there in Chicago when he was running for the State Senate for the first time. David Axelrod said that at that meeting Senator Obama was not aware of Ayers’ radical background.

It’s not as if Ayers was quite about his past, he was very vocal in fact. Obama would have to be either deaf or dumb to not have known he blew up buildings back in the day.

However, Axelrod never said Obama didn’t know about the attacks when he was working with him on the board of two different funds. That fact is still pretty damning to Obama’s judgment.

You all must watch this video. I don’t think people know how screwed up and disturbing the weather underground was.

I’m sorry but no one in their right mind would ever associate themselves or even talk to someone who is that unrepentant about bombings buildings. There’s no amount of sunshine and lollipops the liberals can pour on this to make it seem right.

UPDATE: I want to respond to a comment on this post because I think it’s important to make this point about William Ayers.

We don’t call it sunshine and lollipops.

We call it hope that people can improve and a willingness to forgive past actions, NO MATTER HOW HORRIBLE.

The poster’s point is that Obama’s association with Ayers doesn’t show a lack of judgment because we should forgive Ayers. He also mentions how Jesus forgives people, blah, blah.

Here’s the problem I have with that notion. I’m all for forgiving people, I’m all for giving people second chances. But, the first step in forgiveness is for the person to admit they did wrong. William Ayers and his wife have said on multiple occasions that if they could, they’d do it all over again. They’ve said they wish they’d done more, they’ve said they don’t regret their actions. For me, or anyone else for that matter, to forgive them of their past actions, they must first seek that forgiveness and admit they did wrong.

It’s like when you were a child, your mother or father would never forgive you of your wrong-doing until you said what you did, why it was wrong, and prove you understood that it was wrong. The same goes for Ayers.

–jb

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