A chip off the old block

Remember when John McCain was one of the "Keating Five" -- Senators essentially paid to look the other way while regulators were investigating the failure of Lincoln Savings and Loan?

It seems that John McCain's son Andrew may have learned a few tricks at Charlie Keating's knee in his youth, because now he has a little bank failure of his own:

Nevada regulators closed Silver State and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of the bank, based in Henderson, Nevada. It had $2 billion in assets and $1.7 billion in deposits as of June 30.

Andrew K. McCain, a son of Republican presidential nominee John McCain, sat on the boards of Silver State Bank and of its parent, Silver State Bancorp, starting in February but resigned in July citing "personal reasons," corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show. Andrew McCain also was a member of the bank's audit committee, responsible for oversight of the company's accounting.

The younger McCain, who is the chief financial officer of Hensley & Co., the beer distributorship of which Cindy McCain is chairwoman, is the Arizona senator's adopted son from his first marriage.

Andrew McCain's position on the Silver State board and departure were first reported Friday by The Wall Street Journal online.

Silver State Bank ran into difficulty because of a substantial amount of "poor-quality loans primarily related to real estate development" in southern Nevada and other distressed markets, FDIC spokesman David Barr said Friday.

I guess Andrew McCain is one of those people John McCain feels sorry for -- one of those "people who lost their investments in the real estate market" to whom he referred in his convention speech.

Again I ask: What would Republicans say if it were Chelsea Clinton on the board of directors of a failed bank?