Mccain

WASHINGTON -- Six members of one of the world's greatest deliberative bodies considered yesterday the question of which U.S. senator had been called a "wimp."At Senate ethics hearings on the so-called "Keating Five," two staffers for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., recounted that in March 1987, savings and loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. angrily called their boss "a wimp" for refusing to pressure S&L regulators on Mr. Keating's behalf.Mr. Keating's "wimp" remark made Mr. McCain furious and ended their friendship.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John McCain, nearing the end of his ordeal as a member of the so-called "Keating Five," told the Senate ethics committee yesterday that he'd learned an important lesson from the experience. "You not only have to be careful about how and what you do," the Arizona Republican said, "but you have to be careful about what you appear to do."Because of that, Mr. McCain said, he and four other senators accused of improper conduct in the case may have committed an error of appearance.

WASHINGTON -- John McCain is trying to campaign for book sales and the Republican presidential nomination simultaneously. He keeps turning up on television signing copies of his new memoir, "Faith of My Fathers."The book probably won't help as much as the Arizona GOP senator might hope. Even a best seller doesn't reach many of those who will cast ballots in the New Hampshire primary in February.Books aboundMr. McCain is not the only competitor for the Republican nomination with a new book out. Pat Buchanan, Dan Quayle and Steve Forbes also have books in circulation and others may be on the way. But these largely explore policy proposals of the candidates (maybe with a little biography thrown in)

WASHINGTON -- Some Republicans -- call them single-criterion Republicans -- favor John McCain's presidential candidacy because he seems to satisfy their sole standard: Which candidate is least like President Clinton?Surely, they think, the un-Clinton is Mr. McCain, whose character has been tempered in the furnace of a POW camp; whose ability to pander has supposedly so atrophied through disuse that he would see the heavens fall rather than court Iowa by supporting ethanol subsidies; who, ever an oak, never a willow, insouciantly goes his own way.Trouble is, his own way is frequently the way favored by the major media.

WASHINGTON -- The special counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics has recommended that the panel clear two of five senators under investigation for their links to the savings and loan debacle, congressional officials said yesterday.In a confidential report submitted to the committee on Sept. 10, the special counsel, Robert S. Bennett, concluded there was not adequate evidence to merit a full-scale investigation of Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., several officials said.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Sen. John McCain said yesterday that he expects to be the nominee of his party as a cascade of Republican endorsements added to the sense that he is on the verge of knocking out former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on Super Tuesday. McCain assumed a nominee's mantle as he crossed the South yesterday, touting his high-profile endorsements and talking about how he will unify the Republican Party after Tuesday's de facto national primary day. "I believe that the majority of the Republican Party conservatives are convinced that I'm best equipped to lead this country, unify our party and take on the challenge of radical Islamic extremism," he told reporters in Nashville.

WASHINGTON - Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together and give it up for our next guest, that new stand-up comic, Denny "Hoot-and-a-Half" Hastert, speaker of the House! Denny debuted as a straight-faced comic the other day on CBS News' "Face the Nation," arguing that one of his fellow Republicans, Sen. John McCain, "shouldn't bully members of the House of Representatives" to get them to back the House version of his campaign finance reform bill. Quoth Denny: "I don't care what party they're in. They ought to be able to make up their mind on what piece of legislation they're going to pass, based on the merits."

Senate President Mike Miller is staying neutral in the Democratic presidential primary, but not for lack of arm-twisting by the Clinton and Obama camps. "The Obama people just called me about an hour ago," Miller said one afternoon this week. "`We'll have the senator call you.' "I said, `That's all right. She already called me.' They said, `No, we mean Senator Obama.'" Miller calls himself a "close personal friend" of Hillary and Bill Clinton. He's also "amazed and thrilled by how [Barack Obama]

Thank heaven for military veterans such as Lindsey Graham and John McCain. The two Republican senators insist that the United States is a nation dedicated to the rule of law and civilized standards of behavior, even in a war against ruthless terrorists who butcher, burn and behead. They don't believe we should stoop to torture in the name of security or inhumanity in the name of spreading democracy. They don't think we should become that which we are fighting against. The time has come for them to defend American ideals once again.

WASHINGTON -- With John McCain's harsh attack on the religious right still fresh in their minds, Virginia Republicans awarded George W. Bush a lopsided victory yesterday over his chief rival and put Bush's presidential campaign back on the winning track. The Texas governor's success in Virginia handed him a bounty of 56 delegates to the Republican nominating convention and restored some luster to his White House bid as the candidates head into the all-important "Super Tuesday" next week.