http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20081012/COL05/810120347/1004/col

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Congress got drunk on lobbyist moonshine, ran the economy into a tree, and taxpayers got stuck with the bills. The skid marks point directly to a presidential candidate.

Was it John McCain or Barack Obama?

Both. McCain and Obama were involved in separate crashes 20 years apart, with the same result - we sweep up the broken glass.

In 1987, McCain and four other senators in the Keating Five were asked by Charlie Keating, a well-known son of Cincinnati, to intervene with bank regulators who were going after his Lincoln Savings & Loan.

Keating was convicted of 73 counts of fraud and served nearly five years in prison before all but two counts were overturned. He became the face of the S&L mess of the late 1980s. And his close friend was McCain. The McCains visited Keating's vacation home in the Bahamas, and Cindy McCain invested in a shopping center with Keating.

"The Keating scandal is eerily similar to today's credit crisis," with "cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress," says a new 13-minute video from Obama, "Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Scandal."

Yes, eerily similar. But this time the tracks lead to Obama's cozy relationships. Let's compare:

The Keating Five senators took big donations from Keating, then intervened to block regulations on his bank. They were Democrats Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, John Glenn of Ohio, Donald Riegle of Michigan, Alan Cranston of California; and Republican McCain.

In the 2008 crisis, senators took big donations from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, then blocked reforms that could have prevented trillions in bad debt at the government-backed mortgage buyers.

My nominations for the Fannie Mae Five: Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, No. 1 for taking donations from Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, and who also got special low-interest loans from Fannie Mae's biggest customer; Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who served on the House Banking Committee overseeing Fannie Mae while his partner was a Fannie Mae executive creating high-risk loans that caused the crash; Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae CEO who made $90 million in five years before he was caught cooking the books; Jim Johnson, Fannie Mae CEO, paid $20 million in one year; and Obama, second in Fannie/Freddie cash after only four years in the Senate.

Raines and Johnson are VIP Democrats and supporters of Obama. Raines said he advised Obama on housing, then denied it. Johnson was so close to Obama, he was chosen to pick a vice president, then dumped because of his scandals.

The S&L crash was caused when lobbyists persuaded Congress to make it easier for S&Ls to take on risky loans.

The latest crash was caused when Congress forced banks to make bad loans to boost homeownership for the poor. When Republicans tried to head off the crisis, Raines insisted that Fannie Mae's shady loans were "riskless." Frank denied there was a problem. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus attacked the regulators for "lynching" Raines.

In 1991, McCain was exonerated by the Senate Ethics Committee, but rebuked for bad judgment. Special prosecutor Bob Bennett said, "I investigated John McCain for a year and a half ... and if there is one thing I am absolutely confident of, it is John McCain is an honest man."

I followed the Keating Five in Arizona and met four of them. Two years ago I interviewed Keating, and asked him about McCain.

"This is a guy I was as close to as anyone," he said, still angry at McCain. When McCain refused to tell the regulators to back off, "I called him a wimp in his office - that was true," Keating said. It killed their friendship and ended McCain's involvement.

Obama says McCain played a "central role" in the Keating Five. And Obama may have a central role in the latest crash. But the press is not asking about his links to Raines, Johnson and the Fannie Mae mess, or his work as a community organizer for ACORN, the radical left-wing group that pressured banks to make bad loans. Obama is still close to ACORN and gave them $800,000 from campaign funds. ACORN is accused of voter fraud in a dozen states, including Ohio.

"ACORN is at the base of the whole mess," wrote National Review's Stanley Kurtz, who has been digging into the story. "And Barack Obama cut his teeth as an organizer and politician backing up ACORN's economic madness every step of the way."

Call it guilt by association or corruption. There's not evidence that McCain or Obama intervened directly. But their cozy relationships are eerily similar.

It's the same story: Congress got drunk and wrecked the economy - and the skid marks point to a presidential candidate.

But there's a difference: The media cops who did thousands of stories about McCain and the Keating Five are taking a detour to avoid Obama.