by Steve Young
Details are now coming out revealing a close relationship between Senator John McCain and four performing Jackson brothers who together with McCain, were known as the Jackson Five in the early 70’s.
The bombshell news offers a rare glimpse of a younger, hipper McCain, much different than the cantankerous, 72-year-old whose favorite song is “Dancing Queen.”
McCain spokesman, Tucker Bounds, denies any real relationship between McCain and the Jacksons.
“John McCain was only 38-years-old when the Jacksons were really hot,” said Bounds, “While they did sing in the same musical circles and wore similar hair styles that were hip at the time, voters have to remember that John McCain voted against creating a holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. If I’m not mistaken, both King and the Jackson’s were black.”
Despite Bounds denials, the record offers a different perspective of McCain’s earlier life.
After returning from his prisoner of war imprisonment in Hanoi, Johnnie looked outside his home and wife for personal gratification.
Known to enjoy singing high-pitched Abba tunes to annoy his Viet Cong captors, Johnnie, looked to exploit his musical talent. After trying to make it with such groups as the Four Aces, Four Preps and the Four Freshman, he attempted to kick off his singing career by visiting the home of Joe Jackson, a former Jehovah Witness whose children wore the same Afro-hairdo that Black Panthers and other 60’s radicals like Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver, and Clarence Williams III favored.
The elder Jackson was looking to replace his son Jackie, who had tired of his father’s demand that the boys wear the “fro.”
Johnnie found an undeniable attraction to Joe’s four other troubadour sons, Marlon, Tito, Michael and Jermaine. They quickly bonded and began performing under the moniker of The Jackson 5.
At the time, McCain said, “The other groups I tried to make it with had 20% less members than what I needed to be comfortable.
“If I had to wear the fro to sing in a quintet, I had no problem with it. We were young. When you’re young, you do things that today you might not be that proud of. Am I sorry? I’m just sorry that I wasn’t able to pick my do higher than I did.”
The group’s smash success together with Johnnie’s quick wit, charm and anger, made the Jackson 5 groupies’ number one Motown target. Drinking like a drunken aviator sailor and spending his cash on fast cars and faster women, Johnnie was soon deep in debt.
While partying one night with the Supremes, Marvelettes and a couple of Pips, Johnnie found his savings account at Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, overdrawn. He covertly transferred the savings of Marlon, Tito, Michael and Jermaine into his own account to cover the tab. By the end of the night, he had spent far more that he had.
To save them from bankruptcy Johnnie talked the other Jacksons into intervening on behalf of Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of a regulatory investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB). The FHLBB subsequently backed off taking action against Lincoln.
Lincoln Savings and Loan collapsed at a cost of $2 billion to the federal government. Some 23,000 Lincoln bondholders were defrauded and many elderly investors lost their life savings.
The substantial contributions that Keating had made to each of the Jacksons, totaling $1.3 million, attracted considerable public and media attention.
After a lengthy investigation, the Motown Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Marlon, Tito, Michael and Jermaine had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB in its investigation of Lincoln Savings, with Tito receiving a formal reprimand. Johnnie and Jermaine were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised “poor judgment.”
Royally pissed with Johnnie, the Jacksons disbanded, all going on to solo careers and child sexual abuse legal entanglements.
Johnnie would change his name back to John and go on to become the Republican nominee for president in 2008.
The Obama campaign said the Jackson relationship happened a long time ago, and really doesn’t pertain to this year’s election.
“But if John wants to bring up the Ayers thing,” said Obama spokesman, David Wade, “We’re ready."
Award-winning TV writer, Steve Young, is author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (www.greatfailure.com) and blogs at the appropriately named steveyoungonpolitics.com
Showing posts with label John McCain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John McCain. Show all posts
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
DREDLOCKED!
The Biden Combover Bounce Knots Race
While some youngsters who have yet to see their curl-less destiny think of the effort as a covering the obvious with the more obvious, in reality, it is seen by the majority of men sharing the problem and the baby-boomer women who have learned to accept it, as a sign of maturity. And maturity that includes knowing how to please the electorate, though perhaps not for as long as they used to.
Clearly, Obama’s full head of hair, though closely cropped, sends off crippling messages of inexperience.
With the addition of Joe Biden’s foreign policy experience, comes a combover that screams years of hair-pulling experience and wisdom. And with Mitt Romney’s overgrown mop of pretentiousness ready to enter the fray, at this point you can pretty much call the race dredlocked.
That his is less a combover than a comb-back, Biden still brings the Obama ticket tressless credibility in a the battle of who is less Bush. And you have to give it to both McCain and Biden for not going in to the what-were-you-thinking rear-hair pullforward.
Still, Obama has history on his side as there hasn’t been a president as hair-challenged at McCain since Eisenhower, and Ike never felt it necessary to camouflage the barren palette with an embroidery harvested from some remote perimeter.
Either way, it could have been worse. He could have picked The Donald.
Award-winning TV writer, author, hair-arranged Steve Young blogs at theappropriately named http://www.steveyoungonpolitics.com/
by Steve Young
There’s been little question that John McCain has been winning the diminishing mane coverup contest with Barack Obama. McCain’s attempts to arrange purposely overgrown strands from distant segments of the scalp over the badly balding crown may seem a sign of a lack of self-esteem.While some youngsters who have yet to see their curl-less destiny think of the effort as a covering the obvious with the more obvious, in reality, it is seen by the majority of men sharing the problem and the baby-boomer women who have learned to accept it, as a sign of maturity. And maturity that includes knowing how to please the electorate, though perhaps not for as long as they used to.
Clearly, Obama’s full head of hair, though closely cropped, sends off crippling messages of inexperience.
With the addition of Joe Biden’s foreign policy experience, comes a combover that screams years of hair-pulling experience and wisdom. And with Mitt Romney’s overgrown mop of pretentiousness ready to enter the fray, at this point you can pretty much call the race dredlocked.
That his is less a combover than a comb-back, Biden still brings the Obama ticket tressless credibility in a the battle of who is less Bush. And you have to give it to both McCain and Biden for not going in to the what-were-you-thinking rear-hair pullforward.
Still, Obama has history on his side as there hasn’t been a president as hair-challenged at McCain since Eisenhower, and Ike never felt it necessary to camouflage the barren palette with an embroidery harvested from some remote perimeter.
Either way, it could have been worse. He could have picked The Donald.
Award-winning TV writer, author, hair-arranged Steve Young blogs at theappropriately named http://www.steveyoungonpolitics.com/
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Joe Biden's Personal Tragedy Isn't Used as a Reason to Vote for Him as McCain Does
by Sandy Sand
Joe Biden knows to keep his personal tragedies out of politics.
Joe Biden lost his first wife and daughter in an auto accident, and his two sons were critically injured. But unless asked, Biden doesn’t talk about it, nor does he use it as a giant crutch, sympathy getter or reason to be elected to office.
I can’t say the same thing about John “I Was a Prisoner of War, You Know” McCain.
McCain resorts to answering questions on everything, about which he seems to not know anything, with … you know, I was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five-and-a-half years.
I was one of the first to say, publicly and without fear of condemnation, that being a prisoner of war does not qualifications to be president make.
Traumatic as it was, it only qualifies McCain to be a prison camp warden, or -- something he has never really done -- speak out for veterans.
Oh, he says he has, but he hasn’t.
If he had, the V.A.’s veterans’ services wouldn’t be in the crap-ass shape they are in today.
If he were an outspoken advocate for vets and had authored voluminous pieces of V.A. legislation supporting vets, V.A. hospitals and out-patient quarters would not be rat-/mold-infested hell holes.
Vets would have the same or better health care than what McCain, and all congressmen have. Vets wouldn’t have to wait months for care or jump through hoops to receive that care, which they then are made to pay for in part or wholly.
A vet who received a signing bonus, and who has been injured so severely while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan that he can no longer serve, would not be asked to return a prorated portion of his signing bonus.
But, most of all, McCain would have been the loudest voice demanding mental health services for returning vets.
Of course, it’s pretty damn hard to do that when you still won’t admit that you are suffering from post traumatic distress syndrome.
Electing McCain will not only be four more years of the same disastrous Bush policies, but it will also be four more years of having the equivalent of another dry-drunk in the White House.
For those who don’t know, a dry-drunk is an alcoholic who quit drinking without the benefit of counseling to see why they became a lush in the first place. It would appear that both McCain and Bush, without the benefit of counsel, turned their unresolved problems into “make war on everything and anything.”
Joe Biden knows to keep his personal tragedies out of politics.
Joe Biden lost his first wife and daughter in an auto accident, and his two sons were critically injured. But unless asked, Biden doesn’t talk about it, nor does he use it as a giant crutch, sympathy getter or reason to be elected to office.
I can’t say the same thing about John “I Was a Prisoner of War, You Know” McCain.
McCain resorts to answering questions on everything, about which he seems to not know anything, with … you know, I was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five-and-a-half years.
I was one of the first to say, publicly and without fear of condemnation, that being a prisoner of war does not qualifications to be president make.
Traumatic as it was, it only qualifies McCain to be a prison camp warden, or -- something he has never really done -- speak out for veterans.
Oh, he says he has, but he hasn’t.
If he had, the V.A.’s veterans’ services wouldn’t be in the crap-ass shape they are in today.
If he were an outspoken advocate for vets and had authored voluminous pieces of V.A. legislation supporting vets, V.A. hospitals and out-patient quarters would not be rat-/mold-infested hell holes.
Vets would have the same or better health care than what McCain, and all congressmen have. Vets wouldn’t have to wait months for care or jump through hoops to receive that care, which they then are made to pay for in part or wholly.
A vet who received a signing bonus, and who has been injured so severely while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan that he can no longer serve, would not be asked to return a prorated portion of his signing bonus.
But, most of all, McCain would have been the loudest voice demanding mental health services for returning vets.
Of course, it’s pretty damn hard to do that when you still won’t admit that you are suffering from post traumatic distress syndrome.
Electing McCain will not only be four more years of the same disastrous Bush policies, but it will also be four more years of having the equivalent of another dry-drunk in the White House.
For those who don’t know, a dry-drunk is an alcoholic who quit drinking without the benefit of counseling to see why they became a lush in the first place. It would appear that both McCain and Bush, without the benefit of counsel, turned their unresolved problems into “make war on everything and anything.”
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