The Duke Goes Down & Oil for the Poor

SAN DIEGO — A tearful, trembling Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Rancho Santa Fe) resigned Monday after pleading guilty to receiving $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors and evading more than $1 million in taxes.

The money involved makes Cunningham's the largest bribery case since several members of Congress were convicted of the crime in the early 1980s.

The downfall of Cunningham, an eight-term congressman and decorated Navy fighter pilot from the Vietnam War, began with revelations about the sale of his house in Del Mar Heights to a military contractor at an inflated price two years ago.

But in a plea agreement, Cunningham admitted a pattern of bribery going back to 2000, with contractors supplying him with Persian carpets, silver candelabras, a Rolls-Royce, antique furniture, travel and hotel expenses, use of a yacht and a lavish graduation party for his daughter.

In return, Cunningham used his high-ranking position in Congress — he served on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and the House Intelligence Committee — to "influence the appropriations of funds and the execution of government contracts."

"I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my high office," Cunningham, 63, said outside the federal courthouse. "I know I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation [and] my high office." Cunningham left without answering questions.

Cunningham, who represented an affluent suburban district, faces a possible sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a $350,000 fine when he returns Feb. 27 to the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns.

*snip*

Democratic leaders were quick to argue that Cunningham's crime is part of a pattern.

"This offense is just the latest example of the culture of corruption that pervades the Republican-controlled Congress, which ignores the needs of the American people to serve wealthy special interests and their cronies," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).

Cunningham has a history of publicly bursting into tears. He did the same thing when pleading that his drug-using son should receieve less than the mandatory minimum sentence for drug possession Rep. Cunningham had helped put into law.

Of course, it would be folly to suggest that corruption is something new which we're only suffering from thanks to the Bush Administration. But certainly the rich history of payoffs, cronyism, and general skullduggery that this White House is so fond of hasn't helped.


In other news, left-wing folk hero and conservative bogeyman Hugo Chavez is apparently going to deliver on his promise to deliver low-cost heating oil to poor residents of Massachuseets:

QUINCY, Mass. --Tens of thousands of low-income Massachusetts residents will receive discounted home heating oil under an agreement signed Tuesday with Venezuela, a key supplier of U.S. oil imports whose government is a political adversary of the Bush administration.

The agreement would distribute oil from a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company at 40 percent below market prices. It gives President Hugo Chavez's government standing as a provider of heating assistance to poor U.S. citizens at a time when U.S. oil companies have been reluctant to do so. Meanwhile, Congressional efforts to expand aid in response to a spike in winter heating costs have failed.

U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat who met with Chavez in August and helped broker the deal, said his constituents' needs for heating assistance trump any political points the Chavez administration can score.

"This is a humanitarian gesture," Delahunt said, speaking after a news conference with Venezuelan officials outside the home of a constituent who will receive heating aid. "It has nothing to do, as far as I'm concerned, with anything between the Bush administration and the Chavez administration.

"This is going to alleviate the fears of people who were wondering whether they were going to be able to get through our cold, bitter New England winter."

Chavez has become one of Latin America's most vocal critics of U.S.-style capitalism, which he calls a major cause of poverty. U.S. officials, meanwhile, have accused Chavez of endangering Venezuelan democracy by assuming ever-greater powers. During a short-lived 2002 coup against Chavez, the U.S. government promptly recognized the new leaders, who were soon driven out amid a popular uprising.

Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican like President Bush, cheered the agreement during a Statehouse news conference, saying, "I want to say thanks to U.S. Rep. Delahunt and all of those around the world working to get lower-priced energy to us."

He refused to respond to a question about the propriety of dealing with Chavez, however.

Certainly, opponents of Hugo will smell a rat and accuse the Venezuelan president of buying support as a way to neutralize his antagonistic relatonship with President Bush while at the same time highlighting the failures of the neo-liberal economic model Chavez fights against so vociferously. Doubtless that's the plan, but it won't matter to people who would otherwise freeze their asses off in the Massachusetts winter.

I don't know when staying warm became such a contentious issue. Whatever happened to just wearing a sweater?