Skeletons in the Closet

Conservative pundits nationwide have been busy loading up their guns (no pun intended) for Sen. Barack Obama and his former relationships with William Ayers and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Now regardless of how close Obama's connections are with these two individuals, I certainly don't condone Ayers's radical history as a domestic terrorist or Wright's controversial comments. With that being said, the right wing media seems to be conveniently turning away from the individuals in Sen. John McCain's life with sordid pasts. The following individuals don't appear to be beyond reproach:

1. The Annenberg Foundation: In the mid-1990s, The Annenberg Foundation provided a $49.2 million grant to the winner of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge; the grant matched local private funds in order to improve public schools. One of the co-authors of the victorious proposal was William Ayers (yes, that William Ayers). On Wednesday, the McCain campaign announced that Leonore Annenberg, currently the President and Chairman of The Annenberg Foundation and widow of former U.S. Ambassador William Annenberg, had endorsed McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The Annenbergs also contributed substantially to the 1980 presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan, and upon Reagan's election in 1981, Leonore Annenberg was named Chief of Protocol of the United States.

2. John Hagee: McCain actually sought and received the endorsement from Hagee, the founder and senior pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, TX. Here are some of Hagee's previous statements and actions:

• "Your daughter can get an abortion in public school without telling you but she can't get an aspirin without your approval."
• "America has become a pagan society and we are in a moral, emotional, spiritual free fall. When a school teacher cannot refer to the Ten Commandments on the wall but can command your child to read Harry Potter, which is nothing but a precursor of witchcraft, we're going in the wrong direction here. This is not intelligence. We are embracing the era of darkness. When the Boy Scouts of America are censored and penalized for refusing to accept homosexual scout leaders, we are a pagan nation where we're rebirthing Sodom and Gomorrah."
• Commenting on Hurricane Katrina, Hagee stated that "All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that."
• "I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know that there are [homosexuals] who demur from that but I believe that the Bible teaches that, when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgement."
• "God says in Jeremiah 16: 'Behold I will bring them the Jewish people again unto their land that I gave unto their fathers' -- that would be Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 'Behold I will send for many fishers and after will I send for many hunters. And they the hunters shall hunt them' -- that will be the Jews -- 'from every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks'. If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust, you can't see that...A fisher is someone who entices you with a bait...A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter."
• "The feminist movement today is throwing off authority in rebellion against God's pattern for the family."
• In March 1996, Hagee announced a "slave sale" to raise funds for high school seniors in the church bulletin. The event was introduced with the phrase "Slavery in America is returning to Cornerstone" and ended with "Make plans to come and go home with a slave".

3. The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989 for improperly intervening on behalf of Charles Keating, the chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. At the time, Lincoln Savings and Loan was the target of a regulatory investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Apparently Keating contributed $1.3 million to the five Senators and, in turn, asked for those individuals to assist him in resisting government regulators. The Keating Five were comprised on Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John Glenn (D-OH), Donald Riegle (D-MI) and...wait for it...John McCain (R-AZ).