The Latest Inductees Into The Political Class Hall Of Shame - A Congressman, A Senator, A General

As we get towards the end of the year I thought it the right time, especially given the latest flurry of political people acting badly, to run our first annual induction ceremony of new folks into the “Political Class Hall of Shame.” This Hall Of Shame is already chock full of politicians and other “public servants” acting badly, shamefully, and in many cases, criminally. These so-called “leaders” of our nation certainly do know how to shame themselves, their families, and their constituents.

Now, I am not one to pass moral judgment on many of these people. Not my right, not my responsibility. However, many of them acted in such a way that it resulted in wasted taxpayer wealth, endangered the lives of American citizens, called into question the integrity of our national institutions such as Congress, and in many cases, had the potential to endanger our national security by opening themselves up to potential blackmail efforts. In these cases of waste and endangerment, it is my right and the right of every American to call them out.

Before we get to this year’s new inductees, let’s take a trip down memory lane and review who is already in the Hall and what their accomplishments were that got them inducted:

• President Bill Clinton - serial adulterer and liar with a special citation for having adulteress sex right in the Oval Office.
• Senator John Edwards - serial liar and adulterer and liar with a special citation for committing adultery while his wife was fighting a fruitless battle for her life against cancer.
• New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey - adulterer and liar, with a special citation for putting his non-American citizen lover in charge of New Jersey’ homeland security government organization. This situation denied his lover and his organization access to sensitive Federal homeland security intelligence data since he was a non-citizen. This obviously put New Jersey residents more in harm’s way than other states’ citizens.
• New York Governor Eliot Spitzer - adulterer and liar, with a special citation for criminally violating the Mann Act which makes the interstate soliciting and transporting of prostitutes illegal.
• New York Congressman Anthony Weiner - adulterer and liar, with a special citation for using the latest technology (Twitter) to display body parts as part of his adultery activities.
• Nevada John Ensign - adulterer and liar with a special citation of chutzpah, actually committing adultery with his good friend’s wife who was also one of his staff’s chief advisers.
• South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford - adulterer and liar, with a special citation for originality, claiming he was out camping alone somewhere in the woods in the U.S. while he was actually down in South America with his lover.
• New York Congressman Charles Rangel whose many ethics and alleged criminal acts are too long to list here.
• Just about any former Illinois governor, many of which have spent time in prison illegal activities of on sort or another.
• In 1994, Illinois Congressman Mel Reynolds supposedly engaged in a sexual relationship with a 16 year-old. He claimed that charges were racially motivated and won the seat in re-election. The following year Reynolds resigned after being convicted of criminal sexual abuse, child pornography, and other charges.
• Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Vallaraigosa was widely seen as a “family man” until he separated from his wife due to an affair with Telemundo anchor Mirthala Salinas. The tryst terminated both careers, and their romance didn’t even last.
• At the start of his second presidential campaign, former U.S. Senator Gary Hart was rumored to be out womanizing and engaging in extramarital affairs. Hart dared the press to prove the rumors: “Follow me around. I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’ll be very bored.” A few weeks later, the Miami Herald caught a young woman leaving Hart’s apartment. Hart still pleaded innocent until a photo surfaced – one in which a 29 year-old model sat on Hart’s lap aboard a yacht adequately named “Monkey Business.” Two reasons for this Senator to get into the stupidity wing of the Hall: daring the press to follow him and thinking he actually could avoid them finding out about his adultery and getting caught on a boat called “monkey Business.”
• Nevada governor Jim Gibbons filed for divorce from his wife during his first term in office. She alleged in the divorce proceedings that he was infatuated with one Reno woman and also had an affair with Playboy model Leslie Durant, who he was seen with at the Reno Rodeo. Gibbons later deposed that he hadn’t had sex in 15 years, let alone with a playmate, although he was caught sending over 800 text messages in just one month to the other Reno woman, all on a state-issued phone, getting him into the stupid wing.
• Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson - was sentenced to thirteen years in jail for accepting bribes, the longest term ever imposed on a Congressman on bribery and racketeering charges, with a special citation for hiding his bribery rewards in his freezer, lending credibility to the old saying, "cold cash." The FBI found the frozen money when they raided his home after a businesswoman felt she had been cheated by Jefferson in a business deal and turned to the FBI.
• Congressman Randy Cunningham of California received a sentence of eight years for taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors.
• Ohio Congressman Bob Ney received two and a half years in jail for taking bribes from a lobbyist.
• Congressman James Traficant of Ohio received a seven year sentence for bribery and racketeering. Mr. Traficant gets a special citation for humor. When he reputedly likened to Washinngton politicians to prostitutes, the same politicians were outraged and demanded an apology. He did apology...to all prostitutes for the comparison.
• Back in 2008, many of President Obama's nominees for high level government positions were found to have not paid their fair share of taxes including Tom Daschle, ex-long time Senator, and Tim Geithner, currently the Secretary of the Treasury. For most Americans, this type of tax evasion is at least a misdemeanor. For the political class, it sometimes feels like it is a way of life that has merited them a small place in the Hall of Shame.
• Kennedy family - definitely not enough time to explore this major wing of the Hall.

That’s just a highlight of what is in the Hall Of Shame. It does not include many other smaller acts of shame, how Congressional members use their insider information to trade stocks to their own personal financial advantage, how Congressional members postpone or terminate legislation that would be detrimental to companies’ IPOs, including Nancy Pelosi who has participated in ten or so IPOs in the past few years, reaping much financial reward in the process, how Congressional members use taxpayer money, via earmarks, to fortify their reelection campaign funds, etc.

But let’s talk about the latest entrants to the Political Class Hall Of Shame:

1) According to a recent CBS Chicago report, Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who is currently being treated for bipolar and other health issues, is working on a criminal plea deal on charges he misused campaign funds. Such a plea deal for misuse of campaign funds would include resigning his seat in Congress, pleading guilty to the misuse of campaign funds, repaying the money that he allegedly used for personal items, and spending time in jail. Based on similar cases in the past, he likely will serve some jail time, according to the CBS report.

While I feel sorry for the Congressman’s physical and health issues, they are not excuses for breaking the law. But given his Illinois background, really no surprise here. I will likely go into the Hall wing that already houses the criminal escapades of former Congressional members Ney, Cunningham, Traficant and Jefferson.

2) Two women from the Dominican Republic have publicly accused New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez of having paid them for sex earlier this year. Two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000-acre resort in the Dominican Republic. They claimed Menendez agreed to pay them $500 for sex acts, but in the end they each received only $100.

It appears, based on numerous news reports, that Menendez has been to the Dominican Republic a number of times over the years, often using the home and plane of campaign donor Salomon Melgen. Melgen is an ophthalmologist and owner of an eye clinic in Florida who has donated $14,700 to Menendez’s campaigns since 1993, with the bulk of it coming since he became a U.S. Senator, according to Federal Election Commission.

Three problems here, two of which include the integrity and potential risk of blackmail. Who is to say these prostitutes could have been working with non-friendly parties who could have used the trysts as blackmail material against the Senator. Who is to say that Melgen could not have used the prostitute instances of leverage for his own personal gain or the gain of people he was in partnership with? Blackmail is not a pretty affair and this U.S. Senator left him and the country open to the financial, integrity, and security components of potential blackmail.

The third problem gets the Senator into the stupid wing of the Hall Of Shame. If he had just paid the prostitutes the fees that he had agreed to, this story is likely to have not come to the forefront. Unfortunately, this wing is very crowded with past acts of stupidity of many, many other politicians.

3) The final entrant into the Hall Of Shame this year is a whopper. The Director of the CIA, the head of our nation’s largest spy organizations, David Patreaus, was forced to resign this week after a months long investigation by the FBI proved that he had been having a long term adulterous love affair with a woman who helped write his autobiography.

Two problems here, one very obvious. As Director of The CIA, Patreaus probably had access and in-depth knowledge of most, if not all, major CIA activities around the world. The potential for national security blackmail is off the charts. The Director has been married for 38 years, he had a long distinguished military career, and had a most critical job, who knows what he would have divulged under a blackmail situation. He had a lot to lose but still allowed the affair to go on for a long time, making him very susceptible to pressures and blackmail opportunities to protect all he stood for.

The second problem is that as the top spy in the country, leaving an electronic paper trail of provocative emails that detailed out the entire adultery escapade. How stupid, I would hope that we would have placed a smarter person as head of our top spy agency.

This is not the end of our discussion about the Director’s love affair. Congressional hearings about the affair and the Benghazi terrorist incident, of which the Director must have had an inmate awareness of the details, will be held this week. The potential for scandal, deceit, and cover ups is high. But today, we will settle for inducting the Director into the Hall Of Shame and putting him next to Menendez in the stupid wing for his use of emails to chat with his adultery partner.

Pretty disgraceful place this Hall Of Shame, for both the latest inductees and the current members. We will discuss the need to clean up our political processes in the next week or so in an effort to ensure the Hall Of Shame never gets any larger.

Our taxpayer wealth, Congressional integrity, and national security depend on us eventually shutting down this Hall so that adulterers, prostitutes, and Congressional criminals become a relic of our past, replaced with new politicians that actually care about America more than their financial and bodily needs.