Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign has released a 13-minute video highlighting Sen. John McCain’s involvement in the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The video’s narrator, former federal bank regulator William Black, retells the story of how Lincoln chairman Charles Keating made precarious investments with the money of depositers.

Keating made heavy contributions to the senate campaigns of five running senators, including over $100,000 to a younger John McCain.‚  McCain was allegedly the closest to Keating and relied on him for much policy advice.

In exchange for his contributions, Keating relied on the five senators to help stop government inquiry into his questionable and criminal actions at Lincoln.‚  McCain was one of the senators to defend Keating and as a result, the Bank Board halted all investigatory actions and Keating was allowed to remain at the helm of Lincoln for an additional two years.

In 1991, the Senate Ethics Commission found McCain guilty of having “poor judgement for intervening with regulators.”

The collapse ended up costing taxpayers near $2.6 billion; still a small fraction of the recent $700 billion bailout, but by no means a small number.

About 20,000 Americans lost their savings.

We’ll see how much of a positive effect this video has on Obama’s poll numbers.‚  There is already widespread agreement that McCain has little economic knowledge, I mean he’s admitted to that himself.

The video also higlights McCain’s possible inability to keep good company just days after Gov. Sarah Palin accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists.”

McCain and Keating were pretty good buddies, they even vacationed together multiple times.

As Biden would say, “maverick he is not.”

About The Author

Sachin Seth is the Blast Magazine world news reporter. He writes the Terra blog. You can visit his website at http://sachinseth.com or follow him on twitter @sachinseth

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