Financier Charles H. Keating Jr. may be in trouble with federal regulatory officials, but the boss of the bankrupt American Continental Corp. and the failed Lincoln Savings & Loan knows it`s good business to hire clever lawyers. In an administrative-law hearing in Los Angeles last week, as the prosecution tried to show that American Continental has obstructed a regulatory examination, Keating`s lawyers objected and objected and objected. Judge Paul Clerman overruled each one, the Orange County Register reported, but the witness, Office of Thrift Supervision examiner David Twitchell, faltered during key testimony. Twitchell asked prosecutor Bruce Rinaldi to repeat his questions. Then he asked him again. And when Keating`s lawyers objected again, this time to the phrasing of the interrogation, Judge Clerman lost his train of thought. Clerman asked prosecutor Rinaldi to try again.
”I forgot the question,” said an exasperated Rinaldi.
”I need an asprin,” Twitchell groaned.
WELL, THEY HAVE THE A`S Up the Pacific Coast a bit, rapmaster M.C. Hammer has been honored as Oakland`s Booster of the Year. And the former Oakland A`s batboy thinks his native city is getting a bum rap. After all, Gertrude Stein said of the city, ”There is no there there,” and the football-less Oakland Coliseum is known as the ”Ark of the Lost Raiders.” But the rap musician sees possibilities. ”Opportunity is here in Oakland,” Hammer said this week.
”Don`t give up on Oakland. Everything I learned, good and bad, I learned here. I survived the streets of Oakland. I can survive anywhere.”
GOOD WORDS FOR JOISEY Oakland may have taken some knocks as a city, but what about an entire state. New Jersey seldom ranks high on lists of favorite places, so Olsson`s book and record store in Washington, D.C., has declared a ”Be Nice to New Jersey Week” through Saturday. The window display on Wisconsin Avenue is featuring Jersey`s writers and musicians, its boardwalks, beaches and casinos. Even the official Garden State insect, the bee, is getting some publicity.
”New Jersey is the brunt of a lot of abuse,” says Dianne Conley, the store`s assistant book manager. ”Nationwide it has a reputation for being filled with chemical waste and kind of cheesy stuff.” Surrounding a state road map in Olsson`s window are recordings and CDs by Bruce Springsteen, Frank Sinatra and Bon Jovi, travel guides to the Jersey shore, novels by Philip Roth, Stephen Crane and F. Scott Fitzgerald, plus biographies of native sons Jack Nicholson and Paul Robeson. But reality does have its place. Tucked into the arrangement are such volumes as ”Global Dumping Ground” and ”Greasy Lake and Other Short Stories.”
PAPAL REST Even popes take vacations, and Pope John Paul II began his summer retreat Wednesday in northern Italy with a vow to learn Hungarian and complete an encyclical on morals. John Paul is scheduled to visit Hungary in August and told reporters in the Val d`Aosta region he had brought along his Magyar primer. ”It`s a language I don`t know and which I must practice,” said the multilingual pontiff.
SUNUNU NEWS White House Chief of Staff John Sununu is on a short leash these days, but the tart-tongued former New Hampshire governor still can grind on people. During an appearance in Washington before the Association of Former Senate Aides, Sununu called upon Harry Rosenfeld, a 79-year-old liberal lawyer. As the attorney rose to speak he tumbled backward over his chair. The unruffled Rosenfeld proceeded to bombard Sununu with questions about his travel woes and about Vice President Dan Quayle`s qualifications. ”Well,” grumbled Sununu,
”if Quayle ever does make it to the presidency, you can be sure he won`t fall out of his chair.” An eruption of boos and hisses from the 400 members of the audience let Sununu know that his comments didn`t have a leg to stand on.