Send to Voters: The LIES about Obama/Ayers vs. The FACTS of McCain/Keating

[PresidentObama]

The two campaigns have respectively made charges against one another involving possible scandals.

McCain sent his other wise useless VP pick to do his dirty work and attack Obama on his past "involvement" with former domestic terrorist William Ayers, an 60's radical. Palin made the claim that Obama was quote "palling around" with Ayers, and made the charge that somehow Obama was friends with a terrorist. Quite the charge from a campaign.

Obama decided to fight fire with fire, and released a mini-documentary on John McCain's involvement in the Keating Five scandal and the charges that "McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry — actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers."

So I'm calling on all posters to present the facts to undecided voters and independents.

Copy and paste this and e-mail it to your friends, call and tell your neighbors the links, and post it out and take it to work to show to your co-workers.

Here are the facts of the two charges, and/or the lack there of.

First McCain/Palin's charge about Obama's supposed "palling around" with terrorists:

The Statement: Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin said Saturday, October 4, that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is "someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

The Facts: In making the charge at a fund-raising event in Englewood, Colorado, and a rally in Carson, California, Palin was referring at least in part to William Ayers, a 1960s radical. In both appearances, Palin cited a front-page article in Saturday's New York Times detailing the working relationship between Obama and Ayers.

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Obama's Chicago home is in the same neighborhood where Ayers and Dohrn live. Beginning in 1995, Ayers and Obama worked with the non-profit Chicago Annenberg Challenge on a huge school improvement project. The Annenberg Challenge was for cities to compete for $50 million grants to improve public education. Ayers fought to bring the grant to Chicago, and Obama was recruited onto the board. Also from 1999 through 2001 both were board members on the Woods Fund, a charitable foundation that gave money to various causes, including the Trinity United Church that Obama attended and Northwestern University Law Schools' Children and Family Justice Center, where Dohrn worked.

CNN's review of project records found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the volunteer projects in which the two men were involved.

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The extent of Obama's relationship with Ayers came up during the Democratic presidential primaries earlier this year, and Obama explained it by saying, "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood … the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago — when I was 8 years old — somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense."

The McCain campaign did not respond Saturday to a request for elaboration on Palin's use of the plural "terrorists."

Verdict: False. There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now "palling around," or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are.

So to point out what CNN said again, the charges that the McCain-Palin are making, and specifically Mrs. Palin herself is making, are completely false. They're purposely distorting the truth to try and pretend that some how Barack Obama was "palling around" with domestic terrorists, and trying to make up some good relationship between the two men that doesn't exist and isn't there.

Could it be while the poll numbers continue to climb for Obama, and fall for McCain, that McCain-Palin want to as there campaign put it "turn the page" on the economy and instead focus on petty and personal attacks on Obama? After all it was McCain's own advisor who told the New York Daily News that they were going to lose if the focus was the economy, so they'll insist focus on an all out assault of Senator Obama.

So now onto the counter punch that Obama delivered in response to the Ayers distortion.

Is what Obama charged true?

Obama's campaign, in a new mini-documentary, charges that: "McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry — actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers"

So here is the fact check done by CNN on Obama's charges:

The Statement: The campaign for Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama on Monday, Oct. 6, unveiled a Web site noting that Republican opponent Sen. John McCain played a key role in the Senate's "Keating Five" scandal of the 1980s. "McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry — actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers," the site says.

The Facts: Keating was sentenced to prison and required to pay more than $1 billion in civil penalties after being convicted on fraud, racketeering and conspiracy charges centered around his running of Lincoln Savings and Loan, which he bought in 1984. On April 14, 1989, Lincoln was seized by the government at an eventual taxpayer cost of $3.4 billion, then the most expensive thrift bailout in history. Lincoln and Keating became national symbols of the savings-and-loans collapse of the '80s — much as lending firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have symbolized the current financial meltdown.

McCain had been friends with Keating since the early '80s — their families vacationed together several times, according to previous CNN reporting. Keating was an early financial supporter of McCain's political career and donated to his campaigns repeatedly over the years. Keating's first company, American Continental, was headquartered in Arizona, the state McCain represents. McCain became one of the so-called "Keating Five" — five U.S. senators investigated over accusations they tried to interfere in a federal investigation of Keating's role in the savings-and-loan's collapse.

In January 1985, while in the U.S. House, McCain co-sponsored a resolution that would have delayed the effective date of proposed government limits "on direct investment in real estate, service corporations, and equity securities by federally insured savings and loan associations." He was one of the early sponsors, although a majority of Congress eventually signed on to sponsor it. The legislation would have impacted Keating's business, but would have regulated the entire industry, not specifically Lincoln Savings and Loan.

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On April 9, 1987, McCain and the other senators attended a meeting with federal regulators investigating Keating. McCain has since said he regrets doing so. "He asked me to help him," he said during an October 2002 interview with Chicago's WGN-AM radio station.

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McCain testified that he never asked for anything inappropriate during the meeting, and the Senate ethics committee found that, after regulators said the firm was being investigated not just for insolvency, but on criminal grounds, McCain took no further action on Keating's behalf. In the end, the committee recommended McCain and Sen. John Glenn be dropped from the probe — although McCain was rebuked by the Senate for using "poor judgment" in his relationship with the millionaire banker.

The Verdict: True. McCain did push to delay regulations that would have cracked down on savings-and-loans practices and intervened on Keating's behalf, although he was cleared of wrongdoing in the "Keating Five" case.

McCain's charges? False.

Obama's charges? True.

In fact, Obama's charges against McCain and his involvement in the Keating Five scandal are relative to todays situation with deregulation and the economic crisis we face.

McCain may want to "turn the page" on the economic crisis with untrue attacks.

But the facts show McCain's long and scandalous history with deregulation and the economic crisis.

Credit to the CNN fact checks goes to cnn.com/ticker!

Now copy and paste this all independents and undecided voters. And spread this to all friends, family members, co-workers, e-mail mailing lists, discussion boards. Post it on MySpace, Facebook, message boards, etc. Get the word out that McCain is lying and wants to change the subject, and Obama is telling the truth and you simply can't turn the page on the economic crisis--and we need a President who will clean up Washington and put it back to work for Main Street and not just Wall Street.