Well, OK, maybe the crisis on Wall Street is real and not just another diversion, ginned up like a blue dress, to distract the nation from what's really important--the most significant regime changing election in a quarter century.

That said, I think I'll let other people deal with the current scam and tease out all the connections to McCain and his friends, starting with those closest to him: Rick Davis, Nancy Pfotenhauer and, of course, Phil Gramm. Because, just in case someone comes up with "startling surprise" as a spin, I think it might be useful to note that we've seen it all before without, perhaps, recognizing it for what it was.

In a previous diary I asked whether John McCain was/is a liar and a cheat. That's no longer a question. So, what I want to look at now is the role of McCain as instigator-in-chief and snitch--turning on those he suckers into his schemes when they start to go wrong. Because that's what clearly seems to have happened to the four Democratic Senators he rooked, in the spirit of bi-partisanship, into what came to be known as the Keating 5, an effort to undermine regulatory intervention in the Savings and Loan debacle, orchestrated by John's good family friend, Charles Keating with a possible assist from Carl H. Linder, Jr. from Ohio.

If a contemporaneous account is to be believed,

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.

McCain sold out his colleagues and the limited hangout worked so he got off with just a reprimand for poor judgment. Then he jumped on the campaign finance reform bandwagon that never went anywhere in the sense that the corruption only got worse.

Charles Keating went to jail briefly, but seems not to hold a grudge, perhaps because the connection with Carl H. Lindner is still worthwhile.

What's particularly timely about this story is that just about the time the Lindner guilty plea surfaced, during the Fourth of July weekend, Lindner hosted a big fundraiser for John McCain and Cindy McCain was doing double duty on a humanitarian mission to Vietnam and London, apparently at the campaign's expense.

Air Flights

Expenses dispersed July 1, 2008:

Thai Airways International: $741.80

British Airways: $1,549.15

Expenses dispersed July 2, 2008

Air Singapore: $7,335.42

British Airways: $2,690.56

Hotel Stays

Expenses dispersed July 2, 2008

Vinpers Resort Spa, Khanh Hoa Vietnam: $498.75

Note: Khanh Hoa is a province of Vietnam; its capital is Nha Trang.

Caravelle Hotel, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: $539.87

Raffles Hotel, Singapore: $1,418.91

Also of note is a $160 expense dispersed on July 2, 2008, to the Department of State marked as a "travel" expense.

McCain himself was winging his way to Colombia just in time to greet the release of hostages by the FARC, whom his friend Lindner had earlier been funding.

Boost for McCain as US Hostages Head Home in Time for July 4

Thursday, July 03, 2008

By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor

(CNSNews.com) - In a development highlighted by the McCain campaign, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was briefed by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe before Wednesday's rescue of 15 hostages held by terrorists, including three Americans.

The rescue took place while Sen. John McCain was on a three-day visit to Latin America, although the Arizona senator told reporters that with the lengthy planning and coordination required, "there's no way possible that it could have had anything to do with our visit, that I could imagine."

Makes sense, in addition to not knowing anything about the economy, this former Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, has no imagination and, doubtless, no idea what his wife was up to during her simultaneous trip abroad. Certainly not that her eleemosynary mission morphed into

Prior to flying back to the United States, Cindy McCain and her daughter made a stopover in London, where Cindy co-hosted with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger a fundraiser for the McCain Campaign on June 26 - an event expected to raise some $500,000 for her husband's campaign, according to an MSNBC report. No hotel expenses show up on the McCain campaign's FEC report for that London visit. However, two expenses that do appear to be related are a $14,662 payment on June 16 to London-based Frances Prenn, a fundraising specialist; and a $5,379 payment on June 2 to London-based The Wren Press Ltd., which prints party invitations.

So, it might be fair to conclude that

both the media and the public were sold a bill of goods when Cindy McCain tried to pass off her trip to Southeast Asia as a mission of the heart to help bring attention to the plight of poor children. Rather, it would seem, in such a case, that those children were used as little more than props to advance the McCain campaign's agenda - one in which Cindy McCain slummed it by day for the bright lights of the TV cameras to bolster her husband's campaign and by night basked in the luxury of upscale hotels.

But surely John McCain was as unaware of what Cindy was up to as he must be of the fact that Gannon International, whose founder, William E. Franke, managed McCain's buddies', "Bud" Day and Orson Swindle, participation in the Swiftboat Vet and POWs' action against John Kerry, gained entry to the Vietnamese market via Operation Smile so his enterprises could ply Vietnamese women with cosmetics and lipstick.

It should be noted that back in 2004, John McCain denounced the attacks on John Kerry without, however, revealing that the outfit was headed up by his buddies and received major funding from his old friend Carl H. Lindner. Neat trick that--condemning something you actually support. Sort of like the campaign finance agenda in reverse.

Does that mean that, in addition to liar and cheat and instigator and snitch we have to add subversive?