POLITICAL SEX SCANDALS

The day after Memorial Day I began to write a commentary relative to the “Political Cancer that is killing America”, but with events of the past few days I have scrapped that work and decided to address the subject from a slightly different angle.

Over a period of the last six decades following World War II this country has slowly changed, and in my opinion not necessarily for the better, because far too many Americans have lost their work ethic and elected to live as a recipients of government hand-outs. Permit me to make a distinction in noting that Social Security is not a hand-out or entitlement, because we paid into that program. It was greedy, dishonest politicians who took money out of the trust fund, and have not repaid the IOUs. That amount is not included in the national debt and I’m not sure if anyone knows how much is owed to Social Security!

During the last 60+ years, many Americans found comfort in a government with the political scam of providing “womb to tomb” financial support. Our work force is approaching a tipping point where more people will be on some form of welfare than employed. We are also rapidly approaching a workforce that has more people working for government than for privately held companies, and considering that the government is paying twice the pay level of private companies and huge benefits, we have big trouble economically.

As part of my original commentary I was expressing my concerns about the ethics of our government officials, and then what happened were the extremely shocking admissions of very liberal Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) (a real firebrand) that he has been participating in internet “sexting” with at least six women over the last three years. When initially confronted, he lied and continued to lie for a week. I say shocking, but really so? Inappropriate sexual behavior has been going on far too long in Washington without proper attention and appropriate reaction from the electorate.

Permit me to summarize a brief history of political sex scandals as noted in a recent Washington Post article:

Rep. Anthony Weiner - 2011
Senator John Ensign - 2011
Rep. Chris Lee-2011
Rep Eric Massa- 2010
Rep. Mark Souder- 2010
Gov. Mark Sanford-2009
Gov. Elliot Spitzer- 2008
Sen. Larry Craig – 2007
Sen. David Vitter- 2007
Rep. Mark Foley- 2008
Gov. James E. McGreevy – 2004
Ill Sen. Candidate Jack Ryan- 2004
Rep. Gary Condit -2001
Pres. Bill Clinton – 1998
Sen. Bob Packwood – 1995
Rep. Barney Frank – 1990
Sen. Gary Hart – 1988
Rep. Gerry E. Studds- 1983
Rep. Daniel B. Crane – 1983
Rep. Wayne L. Hays – 1976
Rep. Wilbur Mills – 1974

Were I to continue to look into the history books the list would be much longer, but this clearly establishes a pattern of bad behavior within both political parties that is totally unacceptable for any occupant of the White House or either House of Congress.

Rep. Weiner should be run out of Washington on a rail and he should be dismissed from Congress without any pension benefits. Punishment of this order has rarely been enforced, and the perfect example is ex-President Bill Clinton who walks around as if nothing ever happened. His behavior was totally deplorable, but politics saved his skin and the American public wrongly turned the other cheek.

Thus we get what we vote for and we have no one to blame but ourselves for permitting these scumbags and perverts to prevail. Please tell me how our President and members of Congress can tell other countries how to run their governments when we permit this shameful conduct to go forward without strong penalties?

SHAME, SHAME on us.

COMMANDER GRANGER