Crooks and Nannies

Senator Larry Craig was caught a few months ago, attempting to solicit sex in a men's restroom in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.  He now denies the events, but he was caught in the act by the undercover police officer who he solicited, and after weeks of time for calm reflection, the Senator pled guilty to lewd conduct, etc.  Senator Craig has been denying charges he's gay since 1982.  Such denials now ring a trifle hollow.  Now, I have no problem with homosexuality.  I don’t even have a problem with random sex with complete strangers, although that strikes me as more than a little bizarre.  But people who find a urine-soaked public restroom, complete with the music of people flushing toilets and urinals nearby, an aphrodisiac, a turn-on:  Really, such people are sick. 

As far as the Presidential campaign goes, until the news came out, Senator Craig was Mitt Romney’s top supporter in the US Senate.  Really, it makes me wonder:  Who’s the bottom?

Claims of innocence ring a little hollow after the FBI raid your home.  Granted, mistakes are made, but not often, and it’s probably fair to say that the FBI bend over backwards to avoid raiding the homes of members of the United States House or Senate.  Senator Ted Stevens joined the august fraternity of national office-holders subject to a federal raid, already the third Republican to face such a raid this year.

I’m not saying that a corruption case against Senator Stevens is a slam-dunk, but Stevens has steered millions upon millions in federal contracts to Veco, an Alaskan oil services firm whose former President has already been convicted of bribing other Alaskan office-holders.  And the bills for remodeling Senator Stevens home originally were sent directly to Veco for payment, before all concerned realized that was unbelievably indiscreet.

Senator Stevens has long been one of the worst Senators, up there with Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia in steering graft to his home state, most often in the form of unnecessary construction contracts where the jobs dried up the day after the thing is built.  But the notion that Senator Stevens is not just unbelievably bad for America , but also almost certainly a criminal, is a fairly new development.

The House Judiciary Committee has voted to cite Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten for contempt of Congress.  If passed by the whole House, they will face prosecution for their refusal to testify before Congress.  If they contest the charges, the only grounds they have is that they were shielded by executive privilege.  There is no other possible defense; to do otherwise would require that they admit guilt and go to jail as soon as they can be sentenced.

This means the likely complete destruction of 218 years of Presidents asserting something that has come to be called executive privilege took a step forward today.  The reason it is likely to be destroyed is there is absolutely no reference to it in the Constitution...indeed, there is nothing in the Constitution from which a lawyer hopelessly lost in opium dreams could fantasize such a privilege.  The concept of executive privilege has survived all this time precisely because it has never been tested.  Whenever a court battle has neared in the past, the White House has blinked, and found a compromise the Congress could live with. 

But this administration has claimed that executive privilege applies to maintaining the confidences of not just employees of the President, but ex-employees.  This is silly by any standard; the White House has not even bothered to come up with a legal justification for it, because, well, they can’t think of one.  It isn't quite too late; there is still time for the President to not be responsible for the greatest blow to Presidential power in two centuries.

But if not...well, what’s going on isn’t a showdown between Congress and the President.  It’s between the President and the Constitution, and it’s one he’s bound to lose.

Jack Abramoff is the gift that keeps on giving for federal prosecutors:  One of his lobbying pals pled guilty last month, and another pled guilty this month.  Each plea agreement seems to lead to more convictions of criminal lobbyists...but I repeat myself.

The theory behind executive privilege is the President exerts it or an employee cites it so the President can receive untrammeled advice—so that people can give their opinions while serving the President unconcerned with sharing that opinion with anyone else.

The key phrase there is while serving the President.  No one has ever suggested that it protects former employees of the White House from testifying, and, indeed, this White House has yet to explain how ex-employees refusing to testify can possibly apply to the most expansive view of executive privilege.  But beyond this, Harriet Miers said she didn’t appear before Congress because the President ordered her not to.  First, she doesn’t work for the President.  He simply can’t give her an order.  It’s like saying she blew off Congress because George Steinbrenner ordered her, and while being the owner of the Yankees is important, it gives you no more right to give orders to random citizens than being the President does.  Second, to assert executive privilege, she would have had to show up to the hearing.  She didn’t.  Otherwise—that is, now—she is guilty of contempt of Congress.

So why isn’t Harriet Miers in jail?  And awaiting trial for contempt of Congress, for which they have an open-and-shut case?  She ought to be studying up for her role in a future Girls Behind Bars film.

It happens with disturbing frequency these days that we learn that a champion of social conservatives leads a life straight out of a Snoop Dogg video.

It is now reported that before Senator David Vitter went to Washington, he frequented a brothel closer to home, in New Orleans .  The madam of that brothel referred to him as one of her “nicest and most honorable” johns.  No word yet on whether the Senator’s wife shares that opinion.  The Senator’s career has been built primarily on his image as a family values social conservative, who has spent his entire career campaigning for office claiming he led a squeaky-clean personal life, and regularly attacking the moral lapses of his political opponents.

The Senator said that he had used the Washington madam’s call-girl service before he ran for the Senate.  Since evidence is mounting that Senator Vitter goes from one prostitution ring to another, that begs the question:  What madam has he been using lately? 

And, to paraphrase Presidential spokesman Tony Snow, "I don't know the Louisianaian for chutzpah, but David Vitter had a giant case of it."