After meriting a couple of momentary mentions during the primary season, the “Keating Five” scandal — the 1980s savings-and-loan debacle that Sen. John McCain once called the biggest mistake of his career — now has surfaced again in all its ugly glory. As global financial stability today teeters on the edge of collapse, those looking for reasons leading to the present meltdown should take a close look at the Republican presidential candidate’s regulatory philosophy over his quarter-century in Congress and his role in the infamous S&L scandal.

As the American economy sinks ever-deeper into the budget hole dug by the reckless pursuits of the Bush administration — caused in no small part by so-called “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” this week’s news that Iraq is now poised to be sitting on a $79 billion budget surplus by year’s end is understandably raising many eyebrows. Many Americans must be hoping for an Operation American Freedom to free our own nation from the burdensome chains of this war that seems to have no end.