Sunday Discussion Group

April 30, 2006

The “culture of corruption” story has had a considerable impact over the last year and a half, but it seems to me, this raises the issue to a higher whole new level.

Federal authorities are investigating allegations that a California defense contractor arranged for a Washington area limousine company to provide prostitutes to convicted former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) and possibly other lawmakers, sources familiar with the probe said yesterday.

In recent weeks, investigators have focused on possible dealings between Christopher D. Baker, president of Shirlington Limousine and Transportation Inc., and Brent R. Wilkes, a San Diego businessman who is under investigation for bribing Cunningham in return for millions of dollars in federal contracts, said one source, who requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Baker has a criminal record and has experienced financial difficulties, public records show. Last fall, his company was awarded a $21 million contract with the Department of Homeland Security to provide transportation, including limo service for senior officials. Baker and his lawyer declined to comment yesterday.

The Cunningham investigation’s latest twist came after Mitchell J. Wade, a defense contractor who has admitted bribing the former congressman, told prosecutors that Wilkes had an arrangement with Shirlington Limousine, which in turn had an arrangement with at least one escort service, one source said. Wade said limos would pick up Cunningham and a prostitute and bring them to suites Wilkes maintained at the Watergate Hotel and the Westin Grand in Washington, the source said.

What’s more, Dean Calbreath of the San Diego Union Tribune said on MSBNC this week that “as many as a half a dozen” members of Congress could ultimately be implicated in the prostitution scandal.

A few questions to consider:

* Will the sex angle make the broader story about congressional corruption even more significant? Is this a stupid question?

* Just a guess, how many people will get caught up in this? Will CIA Director Porter Goss be one of them?

* What does this say about the party of “family values” in an election year?

* Who are the bigger prostitutes, the hookers or the lawmakers like Cunningham who were for sale?

Well, let me tackle these one at a time….

* Will the sex angle make the broader story about congressional corruption even more significant? Is this a stupid question?

No, CB, it’s not a stupid question. This is going to put the Religious Reich square in the crosshairs, forcing them to finally “walk the walk” as concerns their “party of values.” The RR has a clear choice now—either put up or shut up—and they’re going to have to do it in the glaring light of day this time. If they want to play the “but they’re only human, and prone to sin” gambit, then they’ll never be able to say otherwise about anyone else—ever again—and their legitimacy crumbles to dust a mere handful of months prior to the midterms (and only a couple of years before the next round of presidential soundbytes).

* Just a guess, how many people will get caught up in this? Will CIA Director Porter Goss be one of them?

I’d hazard a guess that this could go well beyond a mere “half dozen,” given the size of that “contract.” And, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if it snagged Goss—and a few more of the high-ranking administration elite.

* What does this say about the party of “family values” in an election year?

Something about spending too much time complaining about the speck in the ‘Left eye,” when there’s an entire lumber-yard in the “Right eye.”

* Who are the bigger prostitutes, the hookers or the lawmakers like Cunningham who were for sale?

Not to sound too mean…but who would want a hooker the size of Duke Cunningham? Any-hoo, it’s a pretty obvious answer, isn’t it? And it’s just another good reason for a little something called “term limits.” Further, it’s a good reason to drum these guys out—and, there should be compounded consequences for their actions. When a public official violates the public trust in such a manner, they should not just get jail time, but automatically forfeit all possibilities of future employment, their fringes, their pensions, and all assets acquired during their tenure. Put their ugly mugs on billboards, with the word “SHAME!” underneath. Not just public humiliation, but public banishment from society. Make it so infernally, prohibitively expensive that no one will do it—unless they’ve a taste for living the life of a hermit, under a fallen tree somewhere in the woods.

Righteous indignation should be calling for greaseballs the likes of Cunningham, DeLay, Rove, (gosh—the list could be quite long, couldn’t it?) to be given a singular option: a pistol with only one bullet in it—and then locked in a solitary-confinement room to contemplate the significance of that choice. It would save the taxpayers a great deal of money, and the names of these sleazy bums could then simply be stricken from the human record….

  • Yeah, it’s crazy how deceitful these Republicans are being, and how they’ve been pulling it off. My brother was watching this documentary about Enron the other night, and I wasn’t even watching it for the most part, but the parts he pointed out to me and the parts I did hear of it were very revealing. It makes one hope the jurors won’t get hoodwinked by their smoothness of the defendants or the defendants’ lawyers. At least things are coming to light, though, and some of the bad guys are getting nabbed. Keep your fingers crossed, everbody.

  • It’s pretty clear that the prostitutes were just doing their job. Now as to the members of congress, it’s equally clear that they we selling the rest of us out for sex and money. Cunningham was the most obvious and the most blatantly greedy. Most of these corrupt politicians are in it for the power, Duke was in it for the money.

    I don’t think term limits are the answer. I think government transparency and an independent media are a better remedy than the political musical chairs that term limits creates. With most congressional districts gerrymandered in favor of incumbency, term limits mean nothing if the result is just a slicker, smarter version of Cunningham getting elected.

  • Oooh. Nothing like a tawdry sex scandal to expose the Republican “familly values” bastards for what they are…fakers, posers and hypocrites.

  • * Who are the bigger prostitutes, the hookers or the lawmakers like Cunningham who were for sale?

    C), the pundits on TV and in the newspapers who promote these Republican jerks. They deceive the average voter. They have no personal stake in it, but they couldn’t care less what they’re repeating- they’ll follow orders and not investigate anything just so they can get a little better pay check. They’d still be able to have a nice car and to get out to the club if they had an honest job.

  • I would like to think that this would be a huge scandal that makes people stand up and take notice. Past experience tells me that this may not be the case.

    I am amazed at some of the right wing figures that have gone through scandals and emerge almost unscathed in the court of public opinion. Consider Rush Limbaugh’s drug problem, and the Bill O’Reilly / Andrea Mackris story. The public are well aware of these stories, as they are salacious enough to grab the attention of the masses. Additionally, the hypocrisy involved should make for a great news story – Limbaugh’s tirades about locking up drug addicts and throwing away the key, while trying to gin up sympathy his own “illness”, is laughable.

  • On CB’s last question, the only thing I think I can add is a reminder of a great line from a great, short-lived TV show, “Action”. Jay Mohr starred as an unscrupulous movie producer, and his love-interest/prostitute was played by the excellent Illeana Douglas.

    Turning up at some awards night ceremony with Douglas on his arm, Mohr has this exchange with an annoying, sychophantic lackey:

    Lackey, referring to Douglas: “Who is she?”

    Mohr: “She’s my prostitute.”

    Lackey: “She’s your whore?”

    Mohr: “No, *you’re* my whore. *She’s* my prostitute.”

    I guess for me, the botton line is that there’s a lot more degrading things to sell than sex.

  • Okay, this might be an old suggestion, but when we have a Republican president who breaks the law openly and flagrantly, Republican lawmakers who are almost as bad (they actually deny what they do is breaking the law) why don’t the Democrats start billing themselves as the party of law and order?

    The sex angle could be useful in one of two ways. Either the media falls in love with the story because of it, or it demonstrates even more strongly how “left-wing” (which is to say, right-wing) it really is by refusing to cover a sex scandal involving Republican lawmakers when it covered religiously a sex scandal involving Clinton, a Democrat, ten years ago.

    Of course the former would be more useful by far, but I’m not holding out much hope.

  • Let’s see,

    A bunch of Republicanite congressmen (and staff?) get together for a poker game (probably illegal in and of itself) in a hotel suite decorated with some call girls. So what do you do when you lose big and have to leave the table? Go home to your wife (husband?) ?

    I doubt it!

    Nope, you partake.

    If this has been going on for years, I imagine the numbers are pretty high.

  • 1. This is America, and scandal involving sex always receives more attention. If it turns out several congressman were sleeping with prostitutes then of course it will get more attention. Perhaps it will become the America equivalent of the Christine Keeler scandal in England.

    2. How many people get caught up in this, I would say it ends a few careers, but I doubt it goes all the way to Gross. Figures the suites were maintained at the Watergate.

    3. The party of family values has been living under that fake cloak for a long time now. A sex scandal would just be the latest example of how the GOP is not concerned with values. Don’t forget how they lied to send people to war, cut education funding, increased the deficit, and disregard privacy, all of which I consider to be anti-family values.

    4. Ok, we define hookers as people who take money in exchange for sex. Well, the GOP has taken a ton of money from big business and special interest and screwed over America in the progress, so the GOP gets my vote as the bigger hooker.

  • If you doubt this has been going on with Republicans for-bloody-ever, go read Mark Twain’s “The Gilded Age.” Then read Sinclair Lewis’s “Babbitt” and then Upton Sinclair’s “It Can’t Happen Here.” Also go see “Elmer Gantry.”

    I think there’s a quote from ol’ JC himself about people who say “do as I say, not as I do,” and about those who preach morality and go around the corner to practice the opposite.

    All the Cunningham scandal proves is that “Republican” is a synonym for “hypocrite.”

    As to whether the press and public will pay more attention, my bet is that somehow the story line the press will push will not be “that’s an incredible tale of deceiving the public” – as the Lewinsky scandal was for Clinton – and back to “everybody does it,” with allusions to all the old (30 years and more) Democratic sex scandals. When Dems do it, it’s “terrible,” when Repubs do it, it’s “a pox on all of you.”

    Having watched these morons – of both parties – do this crap in Sacramento 30 years ago, and watching “the sex game” in Hollywood where people really do think like the Jay Mohr character in “Action,” it’s a big yawn to me that scum are scum – this is news??? – but since Democrats are never self-righteous about their committment to “morality” the way Republicans always are, I really would like to see these mouthbreathing pissants get hoist on their own petard.

    And to answer the last question – the prostitutes were just doing their job, the “political leaders” were doing the opposite of their job.

  • It’s become fashionable to talk about family values. In today’s culture war, the posturing by various groups to become the definitive voice on the subject is rampant. All too often the debate centers on issues outside of the family in what appears to be an attempt to vilify segments of the population that don’t meet with the approval of any given group. Most recently, homosexuals, through their efforts to legalize gay marriage, have become the focal point of many of these family values proponents.

    From my perspective, children learn their values at home and the values they adopt are primarily discerned in proportion to the degree of sincerity and integrity they believe exists in their parents. In this construct, the degradation of family values originates within individual families as a result of a child’s perception that their parents are inauthentic and hypocritical. It’s also important to keep in mind that nearly every homosexual is the product of a heterosexual relationship and a heterosexual family. Consequently, the fact that the vast majority of children are raised in traditional heterosexual families makes the premise that homosexuals endanger the family not only flawed, but blatantly absurd.

    In trying to then determine what is wrong with families, the indicators seem abundantly evident. Firstly, a family cannot succeed if the parents aren’t committed to personal responsibility, a trait that frankly cuts a swath across all of society in its impact on the overall health of civilization. When personal responsibility is abandoned, so are the family and ultimately the society.

    The family fails when parents demonstrate their own intolerance and disdain for others. It’s not uncommon for a parent to have issues with their own parents and when they live out these failed relationships, their own children are taught that it’s acceptable to choose conflict and estrangement rather than compromise and conciliation. This can take the form of a dispute with a sibling over money or the holding of a grudge against a former employer or coworker. Sometimes it’s an instantaneous conflict with the soccer coach or the store clerk. Nonetheless, all of these actions have impact.

    Ultimately, the family succeeds one child at a time and that must start at home. The relationship of the Mexican couple down the street or the gay couple in the grocery store can only threaten one family…their own. Time spent obsessing about the actions of other families simply detracts from the precious time each family needs to succeed. The sooner families begin to act accordingly, the sooner the value of all families can be maximized. If and when this happens, the individual will flourish and society will endure.

    read more observations here:

    http://www.thoughttheater.com

  • Democrats are only distanced from the Dukester to the degree that they were denied temptation by being out of power and not subject the level of seduction available when the party in power controls the purse strings.

    I am enjoying watching the antics of bloated congressmen when they are exposed, as they scurry from truth likem termites from an exterminator.

    But I have no illusions that a Democratic sweep in 06 would drive the infestion of special interest pests from the Congressional woodwork.
    The whole system is corrupt and for sale. Even Tom DeLay knows that you can’t just paint over a house riddled with termites.

  • As with Jeff Gannon and Schwarzennegger, the sex angle will kill this story. This stems from the fact that the only people who care about sex scandals are Republicans, and they only care if it’s Democrats who have been caught.

    Democrats, especially after impeachment, think the media has no role looking into private lives. So the best way for the media to placate partisans on both sides is to kill the story – no ruffling through underwear drawers, no accusations of liberal bias. The difficulty will be in demonstrating that this is a story about corruption worthy of reporting IN SPITE OF the sex angle.

    We will see a similar dynamic occur if Democrats regain power. Because Republicans think the media is biased and liberals see the media as placating power, the media will then be able to appease both sides by demonstrating that they can, indeed, speak truth to power without being liberal by obliterating Dems. It’s also the reason why the press gave Bush a pass in 2000: to demonstrate that they weren’t scandal mongers as liberals portrayed them, while pleasing the conservative class.

    What this means in practice is that in all cases, the press can appear most objective by being the most biased toward conservatives.

  • The biggest scandal here is that $25m in HSA contracts were given to a contractor with a 62 page rap sheet. HSA has said they don’t do background checks on contractors, just their employees. (Doesn’t that just fill you with a warm and cozy feeling of security?)
    As for the prostitutes, I don’t really care, aside from the fun in ridiculing the repub’s hypocrisy, But there may be a more serious issue with these hookers.

    According to the reports, Shirlington arranged and delivered the prostitutes to the party suites. Remember that DC is a very small place, geographically. The chances are better than even that the prostitutes were delivered across a state line, making it sex trafficking and a felony. While I agree with the comments upthread that wingnuts only get outraged when sex involves a Democrat, I don’t think they’ll be able to ignore a sex trafficking ring.

  • Shall henceforth be known as THE Randy “Duke” Cunningham.
    Sorry, it is too easy to be rude, but I’m making a big bowl of popcorn.

  • * Will the sex angle make the broader story about congressional corruption even more significant? Is this a stupid question?

    No, it is not a stupid question. No one likes a hypocrite, unless you’re a bootlicking moron with all the morality and brains of a termite. This just pours gasoline on a smouldering fire. Unless they all shut up and do the same thing that Hollywood did during the Heidi Fleiss scandal where the powerful just clammed up when the LAPD came a knocking.

    * Just a guess, how many people will get caught up in this? Will CIA Director Porter Goss be one of them?

    Here’s hoping that the most politicized director in the CIA’s history gets caught up in this. Honeypot operations was in the standard op proceedure for ensaring various folks to cooperate with the likes of the KGB, Mossad and the Vietnamese. Sex and National Security have a tendency to go together like fire and gas.

    * What does this say about the party of “family values” in an election year?

    It basically does a Cleveland Steamer on that little idea that the Repulicans are for the family values. One thing should be noted. What if the escorts were both men and women? From many of the posts, it sounds like that eveyrone is assuming the escorts are women. Afterall, Jeff Gannon made a living as a male escort (wordsmith doesn’t pay well.) Makes the Fred Phelps crowd raving anti-homo crowd look rather (more) foolish. And it basically ruins any chance of that “Pro” family amendment going thru. I’ve always suspect that many of the Repubs leading profamily types anger towards Clinton was because they were jealous of him and his roguish charm with the ladies.

    * Who are the bigger prostitutes, the hookers or the lawmakers like Cunningham who were for sale?

    Are you kidding? I have a higher respect for escorts than I do these guys. They’re honest about what they do.

  • Excellent point! I’ve wondered for years why Repug sex scandals don’t get the media whipped up into a frenzied froth, and your analysis is right on the money: they’re box-office death, nobody will buy papers or tune in to follow the story. Repugs want to avert their eyes when it’s their fellows literally caught with their pants down. And Democrats yawn; we don’t *care* about sex scandals. We’re tolerant. Whomever chooses to have sex with whom is none of our concern.

    However, this stuff *does* cause internal rifts within the Repug party, which help us immensely, and which we can leverage and exploit, but which aren’t seen in public. The media isn’t going to tell this story; we have to do it ourselves.

    Finally, the outrage for us is the corporate whoring, not the sex. And this is Repug Culture of Corruption at perhaps its most graphically visible extreme. All of this helps our cause…. we need to keep working for victory in November.

  • I’ve now seen Stephen Colbert’s “roasting” (too kind a word–the reality would be “savaging”) of President Bush at a dinner–with the President practically right next to him!–my mouth is still hanging open. The Prez and his old bat (er, Laura Bush) were not amused. Colbert’s reporting would have been hysterical to us, but they so totally mocked the President and the press-lackey audience that their reaction was stunned silence.

    This is one of those stories that the media needed to report. How Bush reacted when someone dared speak truth to him and relentlessly mock his lies.

    But there is nothing in the news about it. All of the media sources, except C-SPAN, censored it. As if it never happened.

    So, going back on track, the sex angle to the corruption charges won’t cause a ripple in the media. Anymore than Colbert’s fearless performance in front of an audience wondering how on earth he got in there. They are honest media, when they get bought they stay bought.

  • I found a site that uses a larger display area than C & L and the site seems to have a faster download time also.

    Part One
    Part Two

    I think Bush looked markedly displeased about the time that Colbert started hammering him on his low poll numbers and I noticed at the end that his jaw was clenched pretty tight. Although I’m glad to see the Regal Moron – to use Ed’s favorite expression – get hammered in person, I really hope that the media people who were there left with more than a small amount of guilt.

  • Well, this is off topic, but since it’s been raised, I think some of the left blogosphere is mischaracterizing the Bush’s reaction to Colbert. I’ve read at a couple of places (don’t remember where) that, when he was done, the Bush’s nodded in his general direction, unsmiling, and then left immediately. I don’t know about when they left but the video shows that Bush stood up and shook Colbert’s hand and Lady Bush smiled when Colbert paid his repects on his way out. I’m sure they didn’t like it, however.

  • P.S. I also thought there was more laughter than the popular characterization of the event.

  • All the corporate whoring in the Cunningham scandal proves that “Republican” is a synonym for “hypocrite.” If this was the failures of some African-American it would be all over Faux news, ie Michael Jackson. Since this is Rethuglician scandal you won’t see anything on faux news about it, just like you don’t see or hear anything about the kid that savaged by those young thugs in texas last week. There is a triple standard in this country.

  • After looking at the video of Colbert – go read this.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060430/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_correspondents

    “the official story” – which bears no resemblance to reality. Do swallow all liquids before reading. And when you look at what the awards were for, Colbert’s comment about the press is even more relevant:

    “But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know – fiction.”

    Given what the awards that were given out were given out for, that is an absolute statement of fact.

    I loved Colbert’s line about “they’re rearranging deck chairs on the Hindenburg.” I think that’s going to enter the language.

    “Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the white house has personnel changes. Then you write they’re just rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This ships not sinking.

    This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on The Hindenburg…”

    The 101st Keyboard Kommandos – of course – are foaming at the mouth over Colbert’s failure to “demonstrate patriotism to the President.”

    Yeah, “non-patriotic” like this:

    “I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he has stood on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.”

    “The greatest thing about this man is he’s steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change, this man’s beliefs never will.”

  • Doesnt anyone think that the 21 million dollar contract sounds way too high?

    How many “Senior Officials” are there ?

    Wouldn’t it be chreaper to buy a car and hire a driver?

    No wonder homeland security is so messed up with the perks Chertoff allows them to have…where is the sacrifice???

  • I think that Colbert’s idictment of the press dovetails in really well with today’s discussion topic. If the press had been doing it’s job all along I don’t doubt that all of the current scandals would have had a very short life-span. The problem is not just catching the public’s attention, if the press won’t make the effort to inform the public how will they ever know.

  • I just finally watched the video clip of Colbert – what a scream! – and no wonder there was no laughter or applause (or hardly any) – talk about going into the lion’s den and pulling their tails!

    No wonder they were all pissed off. Their self-important little Droolers & Chowderheads Society just got called out for what it is. That was even better than what Jon Stewart did on Slanthead’s show.

    Further proof if proof was necessary that Helen Thomas is a national treasure.

  • I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s just sex …

    … with hookers …

    … provided by a corrupt lobbyist …

    … who subsequenty won favors from those lawmakers.

    I mean, really, what’s the big deal about that? Why must we invade these poor Congressmen’s private lives?

    [/sarcasm]

  • The question is, how is the media going to try to paint this one as a “bipartisan” scandal?

  • WOW! I just watched the Colbert speech excerpts on Crooks and Liars. This guy is so courageous. I never thought I’d see anyone stand up and kick these guys squarely in the balls. And while they’re all dressed up so nice too! CB–you have to post on this tomorrow when Colbert may or may not still have a job.

  • Colbert, you magnificent bastard!
    Posing as faux news reporter toadying in mock deference before the President on live televsion in front of the assembled news reporter toadies was a stroke of genius.

    No wonder there was no laughter in the room when the incestuous relationship of the press with the president was the recurring punch line.
    Bush must have a list by now of all those in attendance who laughed at the wrong time.

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