Friday, April 28, 2006

The Party of Family Values

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI is “investigating whether two contractors implicated in the bribery of former Rep. Randall ‘Duke’ Cunningham supplied him with prostitutes and free use of a limousine and hotel suites.” The Journal also said the investigators are exploring “whether any other members of Congress” are involved.
-Think Progress

The ring went on for perhaps 15 years:

CALBREATH: We and a number of other papers have been on this for about six months or so. We have all been looking for the break in this and the Wall Street Journal found it, which is the confirmation that the feds were actually looking at this. For the past six months there we have been hearing a lot of rumors that not only the Congressman Cunningham but as many as a half dozen other Congressmen may have been involved in this. And we’ve also been hearing about the limousine service that Brent Wilkes used to bring prostitutes to the Watergate hotel and the Grand Westin in Washington.

-Scarborough Country, MCNBC

WSJ: Federal prosecutors are investigating whether two contractors implicated in the bribery of former Rep. Randall "Duke" Cunningham supplied him with prostitutes and free use of a limousine and hotel suites, pursuing evidence that could broaden their long-running inquiry.

Good roundup at Harpers As to the festivities themselves, I hear that party nights began early with poker games and degenerated into what the source described as a "frat party" scene—real bacchanals. Apparently photographs were taken, and investigators are anxiously procuring copies. My heart beats faster in fevered anticipation.

And good snark from The Whiskey Bar: You have to love it: Whores buying whores for whores. Even Jeff Gannon and his White House "sources" couldn't top that.

On the other hand, the Journal doesn't mention Goss, only convicted bribetaker and all-around dirtbag Duke Cunningham. Nor does Harper's mention the CIA director by name -- identifying him only as "one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post." Justin Rood at TPM is the one who connects the dots and decides they spell G-O-S-S.

It's only an educated guess -- but also a reasonable one, given that Brent Wilkes and Mitchell Wade, the two contractors involved, were manuevering to stick their dicks in the intelligence community's contracting honeypot as well as the Pentagon's. Goss's previous jobs as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and vice chairman of the low-key but powerful House Rules Committee (which controls the flow of legislation to the floor) obviously would have made him an extremely attractive piece of bowel material to a couple of intestinal parasites like Wilkes and Wade.


And if that's not enough, let's remember that "Family Values" Duke Cunningham swings both ways:

What you won’t read about in these mainstream press accounts is the other double life led by the closet case, Duke, the anti-gay conservative.

Cunningham, who is married with grown children, has admitted to romantic, loving relationships with men, both during his Vietnam military service and as a civilian. That was the remarkable story that this publication reported two years ago, when Elizabeth Birch, the former Human Rights Campaign leader, inadvertently outed Cunningham at a gay rights forum.

Birch never mentioned Cunningham’s name, but she talked about a rabidly anti-gay congressman who asked to meet privately with her in the midst of a controversy over his use in a speech on the floor of the House the term "homos" to describe gays who have served in the military.

Alone with Birch and an HRC staffer, the unnamed congressman shared that he had loved men during his life. In telling the story, Birch offered up a few too many details about the closeted congressman.

A few Google searches later, the Blade reported that it had to be Cunningham, whose career was pockmarked with bizarre gay pronouncements, including a reference to the rectal treatment he received for prostate cancer, something he told an audience "was just not natural, unless maybe you're Barney Frank."


The Party of Family Values, protecting marriage, etc. etc. etc.
I think I'm going to go with the Democrats' chosen slogan: Culture of Corruption.
This isn't, by the way, the first time the GOP has found themselves up to their eyeballs in prostitutes (this time involving the Bush Senior Administration) and illicit sex with Congressional pages(and minors, no less).

If I was a Christian conservative, I would be deeply embarrassed right now. I would be feeling duped. I would probably stay home on Election Day, or perhaps write-in Jesus Christ as my preference for Congressional representative.

Instead the reaction will be hysterical shrieks of "Mary Jo Kopechne! Mary Jo Kopechne!"

[UPDATE: Apparently, those limos were transporting the prostitutes against state lines, which I believe is a felony federal crime.]

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