Читать книгу Livin' la Vida Barroca. American Culture in an Age of Imperial Orthodoxies онлайн

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First of all, activists are not always able to choose the people with whom they serve on local boards. Moreover, if this associate, Bill Ayers, had done anything wrong, he had long since paid for it by the time Obama, then a Chicago community organizer, came along to share the occasional monthly meeting with him.

In contrast, McCain’s participation in the Charles Keating affair was completely volitional. As a senator from Arizona, McCain was very happy to help deregulate the banking industry in ways that were destructive to the financial wellbeing of the public, provided that he received financial help for his senatorial campaign in return.

It was only after McCain’s perfidy was discovered that he “renounced” his participation in the scheme. And he did so only when censure by his colleagues (or worse) was looming in his future. When we talk about the Keating Five, we are talking about one of the most brazen examples of corruption in one of the biggest financial scandals (the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s) that this country has ever known.