The presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Monday found itself playing defense, just two days after launching an attack on Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) over Obama’s ties to former Weather Underground member William Ayers.

Faced with a barrage of response attacks by the Obama campaign over McCain’s involvement in the “Keating Five” scandal, the McCain campaign on Monday trotted out John Dowd, who represented the Senator during the scandal. Dowd noted that McCain was not found to have broken any laws or violated any Senate rules, though he was criticized by the Senate Ethics Committee for having exercised “poor judgment.”

Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska on Saturday questioned Obama’s association with Ayers — a founder of the radical group Weather Underground that plotted bombings of the Pentagon and Capitol. Palin charged Obama was “not a man who sees America as you and I do … as the greatest force for good in the world.”

The Obama camp has responded with a Web site, Keatingeconomics.com, that seeks to link McCain’s involvement in the Keating scandal to the current economic crisis by presenting him as a foe of regulators. During the Keating scandal, McCain questioned a regulator on behalf of Charles Keating, a constituent whose savings and loan collapsed and who had contributed to the five Senators involved in the Keating crisis.