The photo is a beautiful tract of land near Prescott, AZ, that you and I owned (as taxpayers), but which a John McCain's donor/crony got. But wasn't it lovely to have owned that for a while? This is right out of the Bush-massive-giveaway-to-donors playbook. But here's the thing. The playbook is actually John McCain's. That's because the swap pre-dated the George W. Bush administration.
Read on below the flip...
On the campaign trail, among other myths, John McCain falsely credits himself with being an environmental protector. Aside: You know, the same guy who brushes off any concern about nuclear safety and nuclear waste. ;-)) He's always talking out of both sides of his mouth, this pretend "reformer."
We all know that's bunk, but much of the so-called mainstream media usually keep on playing it for all its worth. But every once in a while there's a light shining through, as in last May and today.
First, the earlier story: The Washington Post (WAPO)reported here a few months ago that McCain
"championed legislation that will let Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top campaign fundraisers. Initially reluctant to support the swap, the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through Congress after the rancher and his partners hired lobbyists that included McCain's 1992 Senate campaign manager, two of his former Senate staff members (one of whom has returned as his chief of staff), and an Arizona insider who was a major McCain donor and is now bundling campaign checks."
Notice the revolving door here that McCain feigns criticism of? But in a variation on the land swap theme, it turns out that another land swap benefited one of John McCain's Keating scandal associates. This was AFTER he supposedly had learned his lesson and changed his stripes.
Second, as the Raleigh News and Observer said today here:
WASHINGTON - Years after he resurrected his political fortunes from the Keating Five savings and loan investigation, John McCain promoted an Arizona land swap that would have benefited a former mentor and partner of the scandal's central figure.The owners of the Spur Cross Ranch, a dramatic 2,154-acre tract of Sonoran desert just north of Phoenix, in the late 1990s sought to sell it to a developer who planned to build a premier golf course surrounded by 390 luxury homes.
In other words, he apparently never did learn the lessons of the Keating scandal. McCain has some explaining to do. Meanwhile, John McCain is not only more of same, he is what needs changing in Washington.
(And a hat tip to Greg Gordon of McClatchy Newspapers and the N and O as well as Matthew Most and WAPO for their investigations.)