The Book of Bastards

by Brian Thornton

  North is also alleged to have been involved in drug trafficking to fund the Contras; he strongly denies these charges. And although a mountain of evidence supports that claim, North has never been charged, and never stood trial for it.

  “I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have gotten the hostages released. I thank God they were satisfied with the missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme.”

  — Oliver North

  78

  JIM WRIGHT

  Selling Books Will Lose You Your Congressional Seat (1922– )

  “Dealmakers [like Jim Wright] are willing to take risks, willing to be tough. They're not coming to Congress anymore.”

  — Tony Coelho, former House Democratic Whip

  James Claude Wright, Jr. is a World War II veteran, a career politician, and a former Democratic U.S. Congressman from Texas from 1955 to 1989. He served as House majority leader from 1977 to 1987 and as the fifty-sixth Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. He resigned on June 6, 1989.

  He was also one of Congress's last dealmakers. In the current age of hyper-partisanship, where no Republican can be brought to cross party lines on a health care reform bill, the days of the dealmakers seem a distant memory. But in the early 1990s, if someone like Wright wanted to get something done, it got done; parties were not as important as the deals that could be made. The loss of such an effective political leader would be a major blow to any ruling political party. The Democrats' loss would be particularly painful.

  Wright was forced out of office thanks to what seemed like a very small crime. He avoided paying income tax on the proceeds from handselling his books at speaking engagements. Now picture if you will, just how insignificant those proceeds likely were. “Hand sales” are those made directly from an author to a reader; they make up a fraction of total sales numbers for just about any author. Yet Wright was U.S. House Speaker, the third-most powerful person in the country, when he lost his position for precisely that reason. Politicians, lawyers, and popes are adroit at avoiding the costs of their actions, but Wright proved that when important people get nailed for something, it can still be a small-time and well-documented something.

  Future Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich alleged that Wright hand-sold his autobiography, Reflections of a Public Man, at his speaking engagements in order to evade Congressional ethics limits on speaking fees. A Congressional committee looked into the claims. There was a substantial paper trail, but no charges were filed, likely because Wright cut a deal.

  But Wright wasn't forced to resign because of anything he did. It was because of what he didn't do. While Wright had been a pretty effective majority leader for the better part of a decade, as Speaker he never succeeded in solidifying his position. The wily Gingrich, a bastard of epic proportions in his own right (see his chapter), capitalized upon Wright's weaknesses. It was just part of Gingrich's long-term strategy to break the Democratic hold on the House, which he accomplished at considerable cost to his soul in the Republican Revolution of 1994.

  Wright responded to Gingrich's withering criticisms with nothing more than silence, lost credibility with his party members, and became ineffective as Speaker. And just like that, he was gone.

  Wright now teaches at a college in his native Texas, and has written several books, for which he apparently reports any and all payments, from hand sales or otherwise.

  79

  DAN ROSTENKOWSKI

  Postage Stamps for Cash as the Tip of the Graftberg (1928– )

  “I am here in prison for what I admitted to doing tongue-in-cheek.”

  — Dan Rostenkowski

  Daniel “Rosty” Rostenkowski served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1959 to 1995. He is the son of a Chicago alderman, Joe “Big Joe Rusty” Rostenkowski, and was a product of the infamous Cook County political machine.

  A careerist when it came to politics, Rosty's rise began in 1952. At the tender age of twenty-four he won a seat in the Illinois House of Representatives, becoming its youngest member. He was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1954 and to the U.S. Congress in 1959.

  Rostenkowski was a grafter by the time he took his seat in the House. In Chicago politics, no one got ahead without indulging in at least some form of corruption. Rostenkowski's chosen vice was his work as an influence peddler. Beginning in the 1960s, he worked closely with legendary Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley. Rostenkowki ensured that plenty of federally funded pork projects flowed Chicago's way; Daley in turn used this federal patronage to ensure that his political machine remained in power. It was a most profitable relationship for both men.

  Rostenkowski's Congressional career spanned nearly four decades. In that time, he became a master at converting his political positions into both monetary and political capital. In the end, he always made sure that his fingerprints were nowhere to be found on the graft that furthered his career. When they finally nailed Rostenkowski, it would be for nickel-and-dime stuff.

  In 1981 he became chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Here, he had a hand in shaping much of President Ronald Reagan's key legislation, including the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 and the Tax Reform and Superfund Acts of 1986.

  Rostenkowski's political career came to an end in 1994. After a two-year investigation by future U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Rostenkowski pleaded guilty to federal mail fraud charges. Holder alleged that Rostenkowski traded postage stamps for cash at the House Post Office. He was also accused of using government money to purchase furniture and ashtrays for friends, and of keeping nonexistent employees on his payroll. Holder's report outlined how Rostenkowski had used these and various other schemes to steal more than $600,000 from the government over a twenty-year period.

  Rostenkowski was finished. The scandal forced him to resign his leadership positions; he lost his seat in the 1994 election. He served nearly a year-and-a-half in federal prison before being pardoned by Bill Clinton at the end of his term in 2000.

  In their national 1994 campaign, the Republicans led by Newt Gingrich pointed to Rostenkowski as an example of the pervasive corruption they claimed ruled the House under the Democrats. The mid-term elections resulted in a political landslide. The Republican Party assumed control of the House for the first time in decades. In his own way, Rostenkowski added to this.

  Rostenkowski's use of graft and patronage to reward and punish made him a creature of another age; he was a vestige of the old-style, wheel-and-deal, big-city machine politics. This older cohort was, as is so often the case in life, unable to adapt to the looming new reality of the more conservative 1990s. Rosty allowed his obsolete methods and mindset to bring down the very party that Roosevelt and Johnson built.

  But hey, at least this bastard actually did some jail time.

  80

  CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN

  First Black Female U.S. Senator, Welfare Cheat (1947– )

  “People just want to hear some common sense … and I bring to bear the experience in local government and state government and national government — I was the first woman in history on the Senate Finance Committee — not to mention the diplomatic international experience.”

  — Carol Moseley Braun

  The word “bastard” in its insulting, rather than its more literal sense, is usually reserved for men. After all, there are plenty of other critical, gender-specific terms reserved just for women. Politicians and their particular peccadilloes tend to inspire a unique disgust in the public. The routine, almost casual manner in which they abuse power taints them as “bastards,” regardless of their gender. This is especially true of those who steal from a modern-day widows-and-orphans fund like Medicare.

  In 1992, the “Year of the Woman,” Chicagoan Carol Moseley Braun became the first (and thus far only) African-American woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate. She was born in 1947; her father was a Chicago police officer, and her mother was a medical technician. Moseley Braun attended Chicago pub
lic schools, graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1972, and became an assistant U.S. attorney. She was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1978, and eventually became assistant majority leader. In 1987, she left the Illinois House to become Cook County Recorder of Deeds.

  United States Senator Alan Dixon's decision to vote to confirm Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court Justice motivated Moseley Braun to challenge Dixon for his seat in 1992. In a major upset, she defeated him in the Democratic primary. Her victory in the 1992 general election was even more surprising in light of longstanding Medicare fraud claims against her.

  When their mother passed away in 1989, Moseley Braun and her sister kept an inheritance of nearly $30,000; they should have reimbursed the government for their mother's Medicare-financed nursing home care. This violated federal law, but it was particularly odious in Moseley Braun's case. At the time of her mother's death, she was a well-paid public servant and an experienced attorney capable of earning a good living. She had no reason to cheat the government.

  In the end her fraud crippled Moseley Braun's career; she only served one term in the Senate. In 1998, a year when Democrats actually picked up seats in Congress, Moseley Braun was defeated by conservative Republican Peter Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald also served just a single term; in 2004 he lost handily to state Senator and future President Barack Hussein Obama.

  BASTARDS ABROAD

  In 1996 Moseley Braun went to Nigeria with her fiancé, a Department of Justice-registered agent of that war-torn country. At the time Nigeria was ruled by a brutal strongman named Sani Abacha. He had recently ordered the deaths of dozens of rebels, but Moseley Braun praised this butcher for his “promotion of family values.” The unsanctioned trip outraged her chief of staff; he resigned in protest.

  After leaving the Senate, Moseley Braun served as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and ran for president in 2004. She has since founded an organic food company, Good Food Organics. As of this writing she still has not made restitution on the money that her mother's estate owes Medicare.

  “All I really want to be is boring. When people talk about me, I'd like them to say, Carol's basically a short Bill Bradley. Or, Carol's kind of like Al Gore in a skirt.”

  — Carol Moseley Braun

  81

  BILL CLINTON

  The Poobah of Bubbah Politics (1946– )

  “That depends on what the definition of the word ‘is’ is.”

  — Bill Clinton

  His is the ultimate “rags-to-riches” story. But former Arkansas Governor and U.S. President Bill Clinton's life is also a tale of how a brilliant man's political successes can be nullified by his personal flaws. And like many able politicians, Bill Clinton might be a loveable bastard, but he's a bastard, nonetheless.

  WHAT'S IN A NAME?

  Born “William Jefferson Blythe III,” our forty-second president never actually knew his biological father. William Jefferson Blythe, Jr. was killed in a car accident three months before his son was born. Billy Blythe was formally adopted by his stepfather Roger Clinton at age fourteen.

  While still in high school, Clinton traveled from his home in Arkansas to Washington, D.C., to meet President John F. Kennedy. The experience affected Clinton ever afterward. He emulated Kennedy, entering politics and openly aspiring to the presidency.

  Clinton did not limit Kennedy's influence to his personal life. Where JFK had “Fiddle and Faddle,” Clinton had what longtime aide Betsey Wright termed “Bimbo Eruptions.” Wright served as Clinton's gubernatorial chief of staff for seven years and was his deputy campaign chair in 1992. She coined the phrase “Bimbo Eruptions” to describe the many allegations of the extramarital affairs that surfaced during Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign.

  The most publicized of these allegations came from former TV reporter Gennifer Flowers in early 1992. In a tabloid interview Flowers claimed she began a twelve-year-long sexual relationship with then-governor Clinton shortly after first meeting him in 1977. Previously, Flowers had vigorously denied any involvement with Clinton; she'd even threatened a libel suit in 1990 against a radio station that aired similar charges.

  Flowers's allegations threatened to derail Clinton's presidential aspirations. When they surfaced, he was polling far behind Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas in the race for the New Hampshire primary. To refute them, Clinton and his wife Hillary appeared on a special edition of CBS-TV's 60 Minutes on January 26, 1992, right after the Super Bowl.

  Clinton denied Flowers's allegations but acknowledged his own “wrongdoing” and that his actions were “causing pain in [his] marriage.” The interview gave Clinton's campaign a much-needed shot in the arm. He finished a strong second in the New Hampshire primary. He went on to clinch the nomination and the presidency.

  Even so, claims of affairs and sexual misconduct continued to dog Clinton all through his presidency. On May 6, 1994, an employee of the Arkansas International Development Commission named Paula Corbin Jones sued Clinton for sexual harassment in federal court. Jones alleged that Clinton pulled her toward him, kissed her neck, and began sliding his hand up the hem of her culottes in his hotel room. She then said Clinton lowered his pants, exposed his penis to her, and said, “Kiss it.” Jones said that she feared for her job because she rebuffed Clinton's advances.

  During the discovery phase of that case, another set of charges surfaced. This time, Clinton was said to have also had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The Jones case was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright; the Clintons settled with Jones's legal team for $850,000 when they began to pursue an appeal. Alleged perjury by Clinton during that case led to his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives.

  The scandal-obsessed press hung breathlessly on descriptions of what Clinton did to his intern Lewinsky with a cigar, an incriminating semen-stained blue dress, and other sordid details of Clinton's personal life. Although his personal popularity took a hit, the Republican-dominated Senate failed to convict him of the charges. He left office more popular than ever with the American public.

  “I think what he did in this matter was reprehensible … I feel very comfortable with my vote.”

  — Mark Sanford

  82

  HILLARY CLINTON

  “Two for the Price of One” (1947– )

  “I'm not some Tammy Wynette standing by my man.”

  — Hillary Clinton

  Goldwater Girl, top of her class at Wellesley College, corporate lawyer, First Lady, U.S. Senator from New York, and secretary of state. Hillary Clinton has a lot of “firsts” to her credit. Her inclusion in this book is also something of a badge of honor; after all, most bastards are tough and ruthless, and Clinton is both of those things. She is also one of the smartest people to ever enter politics. Plus, let's face it, in order to get ahead as a politician, and to stay married to fellow bastard Bill Clinton, you've got to have some bastard in you as well. And Hillary Clinton surely does.

  But before she was First Lady or a U.S. Senator or secretary of state, Clinton was a ridiculously successful corporate lawyer. And during that time she became embroiled in the first of what proved to be a number of scandals: a failed 1980s-era real estate deal called Whitewater.

  In 1993 Independent Counsel Robert Ray was appointed to investigate the matter. His final report was issued in 2001, the year in which Bill left office, and he cleared the Clintons of all wrongdoing.

  The problem for the Clintons: Hillary was anything but passive when responding to questions about Whitewater. She was hardly mild-mannered about damned near anything, for that matter. Appointed by Bill to spearhead his health care reform initiative, Hillary came across as high-handed, imperious, and short-tempered in fielding anything other than softball questions from the press.

  Whitewater came to be seen by many as “Hillary's Scandal” in large part because several financial documents requested by the Special Counsel's Office mysteriously disappeared from the First Lady's East Wi
ng Office in the White House. They did turn up in a storeroom right down the hall as if by a miracle. It was, of course, the day after a key statute of limitations associated with the ongoing investigation expired. It was all too convenient, especially for the press, which had a field day.

  And then a remarkable thing happened: showing herself to be every bit as smart as advertised, Clinton set about reinventing herself. She became a cagier interviewee and someone to be taken seriously on policy matters. When she ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000, she won in a landslide after crossing and re-crossing the state and connecting with voters in ways most of her detractors wouldn't have thought possible.

  BASTARD COOKIE RECIPES

  Hillary Clinton came into the White House possessed of a pair of sharp elbows. When asked about balancing being a wife and mother with her career as a lawyer, she caustically remarked, “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life.” This did not play well with many traditional voters, and the Clintons' popularity took a hit. White House staffers convinced her to attempt to soften her image, giving the kinds of fluff interviews traditionally associated with First Ladyship, and even going so far as to publish her favorite cookie recipes in a women's magazine.