Claude Allen’s series of unfortunate events

March 18, 2006

Guest Post by Morbo

Former Bush domestic advisor Claude Allen claims his arrest on charges of retail theft is all a misunderstanding. I don’t buy it. Allen doesn’t seem to have a plausible defense. Unlike an ordinary shoplifter, he can’t claim he simply forgot to pay for a certain item, since his scam was somewhat more sophisticated than a simple case of sticky fingers.

I don’t know what was going through Allen’s head. I don’t know what personal demons drove him to do it. All I can say is that to me the most shocking thing about the entire affair is the incredibly lame scope of the crime. It exposes Allen not as just a petty thief, but an incredibly lazy and unimaginative one at that.

Consider this: Allen has worked for the Republican Party since 1984 — and this is the best thing he could come up with? This is a stunt worthy of a two-bit grifter in a David Mamet film. It’s one step above being caught at the grocery store with a box of Triscuits stuffed in your pants. Clearly, Allen has not been paying attention.

Remember, Allen started his government service during the Reagan presidency. Reagan was the ultimate confidence man. He was the king of the long con, a scam he stretched out over eight horrible years, smiling his village idiot’s grin while his buddies systematically plundered the country, redistributed the wealth upward and bankrupted the economy. Reagan stuck it to us for two terms. It was a rare opportunity to learn three-card monte at the feet of the master, and Allen was there. Did he pick up nothing?

Dick Cheney became chairman and CEO of an entire company, Halliburton, that every year swindles the American taxpayer out of billions. Report after report comes out, accusing Halliburton of cutting corners and providing substandard service. Yet taxpayer money continues to rain down on the firm. Was Allen not taking notes?

As a conservative Christian, Allen must have encountered Ralph Reed during his travels in the GOP Twilight Zone. Reed has graft down to an art form. This is a guy, after all, who pretended to be against legalized gambling while fleecing Native American tribes by claiming he would help them expand their gambling operations. You simply weren’t paying attention, were you Claude?

Surely Allen knows Tom DeLay, right? DeLay shook down his lobbyist pals and got free golfing trips to Scotland and other cool booty. Allen was left with to loiter in anonymous suburbs, casing Targets in crowded strip malls. Pathetic.

Claude Allen was never fit to serve in any Republican administration. It’s not because he’s a nutcase with far-right, extreme views. It’s because as a con man and a crook, he’s simply an embarrassment.

Look, Claude, if you’re going to run with the big boys, you need to learn to rip off the country off with style. What you did was shoplifting. It was old school. It was nickels and dimes.

Amateur.

If Abramoff was a “pioneer” for contributing more than 100,000 to the Whitehouse, then Allen’s 5,000 scam puts him in the “cub scout ” bracket. Allen is clearly out of his league. The big time admswindlers are finally feeling embarrassment, but only because they are being associated with a penny-ante amature.

  • Excellent post, Morbo! Claude Allen coming out of the Republican Big-Time Crime Machine as a petty thief is as outlandish and hard-to-imagine as … well … George Weakness Bush coming out of Andover, Yale and Harvard.

  • The real issue here isn’t so much that yet another person in the administration turns out to be debased AND incompetent – that’s par for the course lately. What matters is twofold – 1) the person was under investigation, with what looks to be quite strong evidence, and yet was coddled and allowed to be sitting front row and center at the SOTU address, and 2) despite probably being forced out since he was about to be arrested, the PR spin went about knowingly falsifying the reasons it spun out to the public as to why he was resigning. Every administration, Democratic or Republic will manage to get its share of bad eggs onto the team; and while you cant prevent any screwups from finally exposing themselves in the future, you can do something about it that doesnt reek of a cover up. But these people are so afraid of the truth, and so dedicated to their own loyalty program that they put their own interests at risk by having what is likely going to be a convicted thief working next to the President.

  • I was sad to see him drop the evil twin defense so quickly. That was as lame as his crime. What this really shows about the Bush regime is that no crime is too small. If there’s a law, they’ll break it.

  • “But these people are so afraid of the truth, and so dedicated to their own loyalty program that they put their own interests at risk by having what is likely going to be a convicted thief working next to the President.”

    You’re ignoring the compelling evil identical twin defense. Claude will be vindicated and his brother, Floyd, will get his comeuppance.

  • There’s an old-fashioned term for the slave who wanted to personally lick the mud off Ol’ Massa’s boots, to the detriment of the rest of “the household.” And when that one finally screwed up and Ol’ Massa sold him “down the river,” no one in the household was upset.

    Clod Allen (with his name spelled correctly) is just another penny-ante moron who confused the mud on Ol’ Massa’s boots with the finer things of life. All he ever was was the empty suit with a black face with a desk in the front office, always over in the corner of the BushCo annual report photo that demonstrated “diversity.”

  • So the running joke among thieves should go something like this; Claude Allen isn’t man enough to carry Abramoff”s loot bag.”

  • Claude Allen has been a brilliant mind behind much of what has gone right in U.S. health policy. So, where were all the reporters when he rose from poverty to the second highest health position in the free world, or when he (a Black man) went on to advise the president?

    Those who roast him now–before a trial or even any tangible evidence has been presented–are likely the same ones who went into panic mode when he was nominated to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

    Then, as now, this mean-spirited liberal banter is part of the same old worn rewind/replay reaction; ignore the achievements (especially of Black conservatives) and wait for a chance to feed on wounded prey.

  • Dianna, as I said in my post, he isnt yet guilty, but the evidence is pretty strong that he will be found so. My gripe is the way the issue was handled. Furthermore, I said nothing about his prior accomplishments, which were actually substantial, compared to what some of the other hacks in various jobs can put on their resumes.

  • More information please, Dianna. Please enumerate all that has “gone right with U.S. health policy” that we may credit to – among other things – Claude Allen’s “brilliant mind”?

  • Dianna,
    Claude’s big mistake was hanging out with the wrong crowd. There will be a long list of destroyed careers under the influence of our immoral president, who freely abuses the power of his office and who requires all around him to live in his fantasy world where there is no cause and effect, only the magic of make believe.

  • Can’t believe I’ve read this far and not seen this- Allen was discriminated against because he is black. All around him the grand scams went down, and he could never join in.

    Guess what, there were a lot of parties and dinners he was never invited to either. A lot of hot investment tips he never got. Asian cuties did not knock on his hotel room door and ask if they could have sex with him.

    No wonder the guy went nuts. How would you feel, in his place?

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