Stupid Politicians Club - New Member
©2009 by LeeZard
Shortly after last year's presidential election, LeeZard wrote the following piece. We should've known we'd be updating it soon. In fact, LeeZard is surprised it's taken this long! So, now, please read the updated edition of "The Stupid Politicians Club (SPC)."
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Our Motto
Move over Elliott Spitzer and Dubya, The Stupid Politicians Club has a new member. In fact, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich may have already earned his place in the Stupid Politicians Hall of I’ve Been Framed.” Sell Barack Obama’s senate seat? You’ve got to be kidding. We all know that this is the norm in Illinois politics and in other Third World countries but this goes beyond stupid.
Well, move over again you guys, your newest member was caught with his member in Argentina. Yes, we are talking about South Carolina's esteemed Republican Governor, Mark Sanford. You could almost mistake Sanford for a Democrat, not for his politics but for his particular SPC initiation rite; it involved a woman and not a young man - which is where most Republican's members end up.
But Sanford took his stupidity to new levels. Estranged from his wife because of an affair with an Argentinian cupcake identified as Maria Belen Chapur, a former TV producer, The Gov decided to "take some time." We all know the sad, sordid details; Marky told his wife Jenny (and his staff!) that he was going camping in the Appalachians to work things out in his head. Apparently he took a wrong turn at the airport and ended up - gasp - in Argentina. Bobaloooooey, you got some 'splainin' to do Marky!
All of this got LeeZard thinking and a question formed in the twisted synapses of his brain: What are the most common threads uniting our esteemed SP's? Well, duh, mostly it's SEX. Throw in some money and influence peddling and that pretty much covers it - almost. There is one thing that unites them all and that is their arrogance.
It seems they feel like we all do when we are very young, indestructible. The fact is, most of us outgrow that as maturity sharpens into reality. These folks, however, didn't get the memo. To quote the old saw, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Combine power, arrogance, sex and money and you have The Stupid Politicans Club.
In the meantime, let me jog your memory regarding some of the SPC's charter members. Oh dear, where to begin? I’ll start with the obvious and, in my mind, the all time champ but after that, in no particular order:
• Richard Nixon – Watergate
• Ted Kennedy – Bad driver, good swimmer. Cost a young woman her life.
• Bill Clinton – Gave cigars a bad name by using one as a faux vibrator.
• Hillary Clinton - While running for president falsely claimed she had to dodge rocket fire when visiting Bosnia.
• Dubya – Let us count the ways.
• John McCain – for choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate
• Sarah Palin – For accepting
• The Republican National Committee - $150,000 for the Palin makeover. Too bad it wasn’t for a do over.
• Elliott Spitzer – The penultimate Push-Me-Pull-You, the guy who crusaded against high-class hookers gets busted for using one. Not only that, the poor fool was paying thousands of dollars an hour to get laid.
• Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens – Convicted on seven counts of bribery and tax evasion (conviction later tossed out - hmmmm). Amazingly, he lost his bid for re-election. See, there are some smart voters in Alaska.
• The whole state of Louisiana where corruption grows like mold in the sweltering bayous.
• Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick - (D-MI) with Chief-of-Staff Christine Beatty, fired two police officers for investigating claims that Kilpatrick had used his security unit to cover up their extramarital affairs and lied about it. He also used city funds for travel and wild parties with his security team and strippers at his mansion. He was sentenced to 4 months in prison with 5 years probation.
Those are some of the most recent or prominent but I’ve found (in Wikipedia) a few others that are too good to not mention:
• Massachusetts State Senator Diane Wilkerson (D-MA) was video taped by the FBI stuffing bribe money into her bra. Also charged with tax evasion (1997), ethics violations (2001) and perjury (2005).
• Spokane Mayor Jim West - (R-WA) an opponent of gay rights, denied accusations of having molested two boys while he was a sheriff’s deputy and Boy Scout leader in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but came under investigation (2005) for offering municipal jobs to men he met in gay online chat rooms.
• New York State Court of Appeals Chief Justice Sol Wachtler - scandal involving obscene telephone calls and extortion (In NY, the Court of Appeals is the highest court).
Stupidity is nothing new to politicians:
• Teapot Dome Scandal – 1922 – Members of Warren G. Harding’s administration took bribes in exchange for oil leases.
• Harold Carswell - withdrew from nomination to the Supreme Court (1970) after publication of a 20 year old speech: "I yield to no man... in the firm, vigorous belief in the principles of white supremacy." Arrested in (1976) for homosexual advances in a men's room
• Kentucky State Treasurer James “Honest Dick” Tate – In 1888 ran off with the entire state treasury and was impeached.
And, of course, SEX sells:
• Bill Clinton – Can you spell White House Intern?
• Senator John Edwards - (D-NC) Former 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate - admitted to an extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter while his wife was battling cancer, but denies that he fathered Hunter's child.
• Gary Hart – Democratic senator from Colorado and a presidential candidate photographed on a boat with Donna Rice (not his wife). The boat remained afloat but not Hart’s political career.
• Neil Goldschmidt - (D-OR) former Oregon governor - affair with underage female
And that’s only in the good ol’ USA.
By the way, use the Amazon.com link on this page to check out a related book: “Unusually Stupid Politicians: Washington’s Weak in Review,” by Katherine and Ross Petras.
Shortly after last year's presidential election, LeeZard wrote the following piece. We should've known we'd be updating it soon. In fact, LeeZard is surprised it's taken this long! So, now, please read the updated edition of "The Stupid Politicians Club (SPC)."
-----------
Our MottoWell, move over again you guys, your newest member was caught with his member in Argentina. Yes, we are talking about South Carolina's esteemed Republican Governor, Mark Sanford. You could almost mistake Sanford for a Democrat, not for his politics but for his particular SPC initiation rite; it involved a woman and not a young man - which is where most Republican's members end up.
But Sanford took his stupidity to new levels. Estranged from his wife because of an affair with an Argentinian cupcake identified as Maria Belen Chapur, a former TV producer, The Gov decided to "take some time." We all know the sad, sordid details; Marky told his wife Jenny (and his staff!) that he was going camping in the Appalachians to work things out in his head. Apparently he took a wrong turn at the airport and ended up - gasp - in Argentina. Bobaloooooey, you got some 'splainin' to do Marky!
All of this got LeeZard thinking and a question formed in the twisted synapses of his brain: What are the most common threads uniting our esteemed SP's? Well, duh, mostly it's SEX. Throw in some money and influence peddling and that pretty much covers it - almost. There is one thing that unites them all and that is their arrogance.
It seems they feel like we all do when we are very young, indestructible. The fact is, most of us outgrow that as maturity sharpens into reality. These folks, however, didn't get the memo. To quote the old saw, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Combine power, arrogance, sex and money and you have The Stupid Politicans Club.
(NOTE: By the way, the actual quote is ""Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
It is attributed to John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902). The historian and moralist, who was otherwise known simply as Lord Acton, expressed this opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887)
In the meantime, let me jog your memory regarding some of the SPC's charter members. Oh dear, where to begin? I’ll start with the obvious and, in my mind, the all time champ but after that, in no particular order:
• Richard Nixon – Watergate
• Ted Kennedy – Bad driver, good swimmer. Cost a young woman her life.
• Bill Clinton – Gave cigars a bad name by using one as a faux vibrator.
• Hillary Clinton - While running for president falsely claimed she had to dodge rocket fire when visiting Bosnia.
• Dubya – Let us count the ways.
• John McCain – for choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate
• Sarah Palin – For accepting
• The Republican National Committee - $150,000 for the Palin makeover. Too bad it wasn’t for a do over.
• Elliott Spitzer – The penultimate Push-Me-Pull-You, the guy who crusaded against high-class hookers gets busted for using one. Not only that, the poor fool was paying thousands of dollars an hour to get laid.
• Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens – Convicted on seven counts of bribery and tax evasion (conviction later tossed out - hmmmm). Amazingly, he lost his bid for re-election. See, there are some smart voters in Alaska.
• The whole state of Louisiana where corruption grows like mold in the sweltering bayous.
• Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick - (D-MI) with Chief-of-Staff Christine Beatty, fired two police officers for investigating claims that Kilpatrick had used his security unit to cover up their extramarital affairs and lied about it. He also used city funds for travel and wild parties with his security team and strippers at his mansion. He was sentenced to 4 months in prison with 5 years probation.
Those are some of the most recent or prominent but I’ve found (in Wikipedia) a few others that are too good to not mention:
• Massachusetts State Senator Diane Wilkerson (D-MA) was video taped by the FBI stuffing bribe money into her bra. Also charged with tax evasion (1997), ethics violations (2001) and perjury (2005).
• Spokane Mayor Jim West - (R-WA) an opponent of gay rights, denied accusations of having molested two boys while he was a sheriff’s deputy and Boy Scout leader in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but came under investigation (2005) for offering municipal jobs to men he met in gay online chat rooms.
• New York State Court of Appeals Chief Justice Sol Wachtler - scandal involving obscene telephone calls and extortion (In NY, the Court of Appeals is the highest court).
Stupidity is nothing new to politicians:
• Teapot Dome Scandal – 1922 – Members of Warren G. Harding’s administration took bribes in exchange for oil leases.
• Harold Carswell - withdrew from nomination to the Supreme Court (1970) after publication of a 20 year old speech: "I yield to no man... in the firm, vigorous belief in the principles of white supremacy." Arrested in (1976) for homosexual advances in a men's room
• Kentucky State Treasurer James “Honest Dick” Tate – In 1888 ran off with the entire state treasury and was impeached.
And, of course, SEX sells:
• Bill Clinton – Can you spell White House Intern?
• Senator John Edwards - (D-NC) Former 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate - admitted to an extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter while his wife was battling cancer, but denies that he fathered Hunter's child.
• Gary Hart – Democratic senator from Colorado and a presidential candidate photographed on a boat with Donna Rice (not his wife). The boat remained afloat but not Hart’s political career.
• Neil Goldschmidt - (D-OR) former Oregon governor - affair with underage female
And that’s only in the good ol’ USA.
By the way, use the Amazon.com link on this page to check out a related book: “Unusually Stupid Politicians: Washington’s Weak in Review,” by Katherine and Ross Petras.
Comments
(You bet I do, Susan! But, Sarah Pot Pie gets her own post - soon.)