I don't think the Keating Five played a major role in the S&L crisis at all.

This is just politics as usual and not the crime of the century.

In no way did the Keating Five orchestrate, play key roles in, or reap any large share of the loot of this swindle.

In their minds, lobbying the regulators was just politics as usual for these guys. True, their questionable actions helped Keating delay examination of Lincoln's rigged books, but I would not describe their roles in this scandal as leading ones, and only Cranston's behavior was characterized as "reprehensible."

Not really the stuff of villainy in my book.

The Keating Five just had the misfortune of doing their sleazy political thing at the wrong time, unwitting dupes who got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, but who were small time players in this fiasco and got only a few crumbs by comparison.

In typical pattern, a ruckus is created when a few small fry like these are strung up, the big fish swim off, and an even better misdirection play is waiting in the wings.

And that's the point here. Bit players like Cranston get caught holding the bag, while nonstop false accusations against Bill Clinton are floated from within the RTC itself, giving license to an $40 million probe of every facet of Bill and Hillary Clinton's lives, which dredged up nothing save a sorry affair the President had with an intern.

Meanwhile, the money is gone and most of the real villains are never brought to justice.

Keating is in the slammer, I believe, for his role in the Lincoln collapse, but somehow others with political connections who were in this affair up their ears manage to avoid not only criminal investigation but even media interest.

Pretty amazing for a media which was so aggressive and vigilent in its search for the truth that it grilled Clinton's lawyers about the President's $66 auto deduction during the Whitewater part of the scam.

sp