Political Paranoia 101

April 10, 2007

Sometimes, politicians accused of corruption do hysterical things. Take Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons (R), for example.

Gibbons, who was a Republican House member up until last year, is facing a federal criminal investigation for alleged bribes. By any reasonable measure, what we know of the controversy looks pretty bad for the new Nevada governor. Here’s the story in a nutshell: Gibbons, a former member of the House Intelligence Committee, appears to have received improper gifts from Warren Trepp, an intelligence contractor, in exchange for directing lucrative (and secret) government contracts to Trepp’s company, eTreppid.

In one particularly controversial email, just days before Trepp and his wife embarked on the Caribbean cruise with the congressman and his family, the contractor’s wife sent a reminder to her husband. “Please don’t forget to bring the money you promised Jim and Dawn,” referring to Gibbons and his wife. Minutes later, Trepp responds, “Don’t you ever send this kind of message to me! Erase this message from your computer right now!” The Wall Street Journal uncovered all of this in February.

Yesterday, Gibbons came up with a novel explanation: there’s an elaborate conspiracy working against him. (via Paul Kiel)

Gov. Jim Gibbons said Monday he’s heard a rumor that Democrats paid the Wall Street Journal to publish stories about his relations with a defense contractor and that the coverage is designed to help Democrats in the 2008 election.

Asked about rumors of a conspiracy among Democrats against him, Gibbons said he heard the same thing but did not name a source.

“I have heard that the Democrats have paid to have these Wall Street Journal articles written,” Gibbons said. The Journal has reported that Gibbons is under investigation by the FBI for allegedly accepting unreported gifts or payments from a Reno company that was awarded secret military contracts when Gibbons was in the U.S. House.

Gibbons said he first met the Journal reporter who broke the stories, John R. Wilke, when Wilke was in Elko the night of the debate between Gibbons and Democratic rival Dina Titus of Las Vegas. Gibbons said Wilke was brought to Elko by the Titus campaign.

Let’s unpack this a bit, shall we?

As far as Gov. Gibbons is concerned, this conspiracy against him includes:

* The Wall Street Journal, hardly a liberal newspaper;

* Bush’s Justice Department;

* the FBI;

* the Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney office in Nevada;

* and an unsuccessful Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

Indeed, these various players have not only been orchestrating events in secret to ruin Gibbons, Dems have actually been paying the Wall Street Journal to publicize the results of their conspiracy.

(Kiel adds that since the WSJ’s most recent story revealed that Gibbons’ wife had a consulting contract with a defense contractor for which Gibbons had earmarked millions in federal dollars, it suggests “Gibbons’ wife is on it too.”)

Since Gibbons first became the subject of a federal criminal investigation, he’s said there’s an explanation for all of the alleged wrongdoing. It turns out, a vast conspiracy is the best he can come up with.

The culture of corruption lives on.

What a maroon. I guess he’s already forgotten the “important lesson” he learned late last year, when he admittedly tried to help a drunk woman find her truck so she could drive home (and by her account assaulted her).

Lesson learned… “I learned an important lesson: Never to offer a helping hand to anybody ever again.”

Oops. Thanks for giving us a helping hand with your removal, dipshit.

And if this was a real conspiracy, wouldn’t these revelations come out shortly before the 2008 elections?

  • The fact that all of this gibberish comes from a man named Gibbons has done some damage to my monitor.

    I’m just surprised he didn’t throw in the Secret Jewish Overlord HiveMind. I won’t be surprised if he has a “break down” and claims he is unfit to stand trial.

  • How ironic that a Rethuglican officeholder is a victim of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

  • Amazing. Doesn’t Gibbons know that all you have to do is create your own charitable organization, put your wife on the board and THEN have your co-conspirators write huge checks? Join the twenty-first century, for Pete’s sake!

  • To be fair, I was part of a conspiracy to remove Gibbons’ brain and replace it with rat turds and old yogurt, but it turned out that somebody already beat us to it. The results are obvious.

  • It seems to take so long to bring these crooks to justice meanwhile they continue to do damage in ‘public’ office. I think they hope we will forget and turn out the light illuminating their corruption. A greedy couple to be sure. Both should do time.

  • Just another idiot who doesn’t really get personal responsibility.

    There are times when people are out to get you. In this case, not so much. It seems that all of his current problems are self inflicted and he refuses to acknowledge that.

  • Extra! This email correspondence between Howard Dean and his wife, Judith, was just uncovered.
     
    Judith: Please don’t forget to bring the money you promised the Wall Street Journal

    Howard: Don’t you ever send this kind of message to me! Erase this message from your computer right now!

  • Your party of responsibility at work, people.

    After DeLay’s bizarre rantings, and now this, I’m wondering just how far the right wing meltdown is going to go. With more and more investigations, with the Justice department and GSA findings, I’m awaiting the complete mental collapse of the current Repulbican party – straight into conspiratorial ranting.

  • Gibbons are social animals. Strongly territorial, gibbons defend their boundaries with vigorous visual and vocal displays. The vocal element, which can often be heard for distances of up to 1 km, consists of a duet between a mated pair, their young sometimes joining in.
    Clearly these innocent characteristics have been maliciously exploited for political purposes. One should not be surprised, however, to observe these masters of agility resorting to their primary mode of locomotion, brachiation, swinging from branch to branch distances of up to 15 m (50 ft), at speeds as much as 56 km/h (35 mph), in an attempt to dodge willful persecution. They can also make leaps of up to 8 m (27 ft), and walk bipedally with their arms raised for balance (not dissimilar to the submission behavior displayed by their humanoid counterparts when surrendering to arrest at gunpoint).

  • First it was the Chimp-in Chief. Then Macacas. Now it’s Gibbons. When will we be done with this Monkey court? Or have we truly landed on the Planet of the Apes?

    • Comments are closed.