Obama and McCain Take Off the Gloves

By Pamela Mortimer

The competition between presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain has been ratcheted up a notch. Over the weekend, the two candidates pulled off the gloves and threw accusations straight at the other’s solar plexus. The mudslinging has dredged up all sorts of controversy, some from decades past.

Democratic Senator Barack Obama has been focusing on McCain’s membership in the Keating Five, a group of five U.S. Senators that made vain attempts to help financier Charles Keating during the S&L scandal of the late 1980s in which 21,000 investors, many of them elderly, lost nearly $300 million. McCain’s participation in the group caused him to be investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee.

The Obama camp has been circulating a web documentary regarding McCain’s involvement with Keating, saying that the relationship is "a window into McCain's economic past, present and future."

Obama’s attack was in response to mudslinging by McCain’s running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Palin made three unrelated appearances on Saturday during which she accused Obama of seeing the U.S. as so imperfect "that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

The claim refers to Obama’s unsubstantiated relationship with 1960s radical Bill Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground. Obama has denounced Ayers’ radical activities including several bombings and declares that there is no evidence that the men "pal around."

On Sunday, Palin defended her comments.

"The comments are about an association that has been known but hasn't been talked about," Palin said. "I think it's fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy's living room."

Palin had also made the claim that Obama's connection to Ayers "hasn't been talked about." This is not true - Obama was questioned about the association with Ayers earlier this year during a Democratic debate against former opponent Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In an interview with FOX News, Obama adviser Robb Gibbs said that Palin is "inflating" the allegations regarding Obama's connection to Ayers.

"Look do I think we were all surprised that Governor Palin reads The New York Times? I think the answer to that is actually yes, but if you actually read the article, which apparently she didn't do, it says that these two men weren't close," he said.

Obama is still defending his relationship to former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Although McCain had previously announced that the connection between the two men was now off limits, Palin addressed the topic in an interview with the New York Times.

Palin said, "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country."

The controversy will surely exist for some time to come. In regards to the two men’s connections with questionable associates, Obama’s camp may have had the last word. Obama was 8 years old when Ayers was at the height of the violent radical movement; McCain was 58 when he became a member of the Keating Five.