You’re John McCain, a fallen hero who wanted to
become president so desperately that you sold yourself to Charlie
Keating, the wealthy con man who bears such an incredible resemblance
to The Joker.

He poured $112,000 into your political campaigns. He became your
friend. He threw fund raisers in your honor. He even made a sweet
shopping-center investment deal for your wife, Cindy. Your
father-in-law, Jim Hensley, was cut in on the deal, too.

Nothing was too good for you. Why not? Keating saw you as a prime investment that would pay off in the future.

So he flew you and your family around the country in his private jets.
Time after time, he put you up for serene, private vacations at his
vast, palatial spa in the Bahamas. All of this was so grand. You were
protected from what Thomas Hardy refers to as “the madding crowd.” It
was almost as though you were already staying at a presidential retreat.

Like the old song, that now seems “Long ago and far away.”

Since Keating’s collapse, you find yourself doing obscene things to
save yourself from the Senate Ethics Committee’s investigation. As a
matter of course, you engage in backbiting behavior that will turn you
into an outcast in the Senate if you do survive.

They say that if you put five lobsters into a pot and give them a
chance to escape, none will be able to do so before you light the fire.
Each time a lobster tries to climb over the top, his fellow lobsters
will pull him back down. It is the way of lobsters and threatened
United States senators.

And, of course, that’s the way it is with the Keating Five. You are all
battling to save your own hides. So you, McCain, leak to reporters
about who did Keating’s bidding in pressuring federal regulators to
change the rules for Lincoln Savings and Loan.

When the reporters fail to print your tips quickly enough–as in the
case of your tip on Michigan Senator Donald Riegle–you call them back
and remind them how important it is to get that information in the
newspapers.

The story of “the Keating Five” has become a scandal rivaling Teapot
Dome and Watergate. The outcome will be decided, not in a courtroom,
but probably on national television.

Those who survive will be the sociopaths who can tell a lie with the
most sincere, straight face. You are especially adept at this.

Last Friday night, on The John McLaughlin Show,
which features well-known Washington journalists, the subject of the
Keating Five was discussed. Panelist Jack Germond suggested that three
of the Keating Five were probably already through in politics.

So you spend your days desperately trying to make sure you will be one
of the survivors. You keep volunteering to go on radio and television
stations to protest your innocence. Last week you made ABC’s Nightline.

Not long before that you somehow managed to get James Kilpatrick, the
national columnist, to write a favorable paragraph about you. Last
Sunday morning, you made it to national television again; this time on
ABC’s This Week With David Brinkley. You smiled at the panel with your
usual studied insouciance. Sitting next to you was Senator John Glenn
of Ohio.

Brinkley, Sam Donaldson, and George Will were the interrogators.
It was a sobering scene. There you sat with Glenn, both sweating before
the cameras, waiting to answer questions: two badly tarnished American
icons.

No one forgets that Glenn was the first American astronaut to orbit the
Earth. You won’t let anyone forget that you were a prisoner of war. But
you have played that tune too long. By now your constant reminders
about your war record make you seem like a modern version of Arthur
Miller’s tragic failure Willy Loman.

Clearly, both you and Glenn sold your fame for Charles Keating’s money.

It was a Faustian bargain. It was also a bad joke on the rest of us and
a disaster for many old people who lost their life’s savings to Keating.

The money was never really Keating’s to give. But he never would have
got his hands on it if you and the rest of the Keating Five didn’t halt
the government takeover for two long years while Keating’s people
continued their looting.

And now, the tab for the Savings and Loan heist must be paid from taxpayer pockets.

On Sunday, Senators Dennis DeConcini, Alan Cranston, and Riegle refused
offers to appear on the Brinkley show. What must we make of that?

You, the closest of them to Keating and the deepest in his debt, have
chosen the path of the hard sell. You may even make it out of the pot,
but to many, your protestations of innocence taste like gall.

You are determined to bluff your way. You will stick to your story that
you were acting to help a constituent and intended to do nothing
improper. The very fact you attended the meeting makes you guilty, just
as every man who entered the Brinks vault went to prison.

You insist that an accounting firm Keating hired told you Lincoln
was sound. Alan Greenspan, who Keating also hired, wrote a report
saying it was sound. Why shouldn’t you believe the people Keating
hired? You were, after all, fellow employees.

Perhaps you might silence your own conscience about all this someday.

Just keep telling everyone that it was your wife’s money invested in
that shopping center with Keating and that you knew nothing about it.

Keep saying that cynical newspaper people don’t understand that every
move you make has always been for the enrichment of Arizona . . . the
education of our Native Americans on the reservations . . . for the
love of the elderly in Sun City and Green Valley.

Keep telling them that it wasn’t that you were bought off but that
Charlie Keating got special help only because he was one of the biggest
employers in the state.

Just keep sitting there and staring into the camera and denying that
Keating bought you for money and jet plane trips and vacations.

So what if he gave you $112,000? Just keep smiling at the cameras and saying you did nothing wrong.

Maybe the voters will understand you took those tiring trips to
Charlie’s place in the Bahamas in their behalf. Certainly, they can
understand you wanted to take your family along. A senator deserves to
travel on private jets, removed from the awful crush of public
transportation.

You sought out a master criminal like Keating and became his friend.
Now you’ve discarded him. It shouldn’t be surprising that you are now
in the process of selling out your senatorial accomplices.

You’re John McCain, clearly the guiltiest, most culpable and
reprehensible of the Keating Five. But you know the power of television
and you realize this is the only way you can possibly save your
political career.