Can we go back to this Gary Condit situation for a minute? The last time we saw Condit he was leaning against the pay phones at Washington's Dulles airport decked out in a tan sweatshirt over a white dress shirt, the tails of which hung out over his jeans which, in turn, reached to his white tennis shoes.
We were told, at the time, that the distraught Mr. Condit was returning to California to have some "healing time" with his children. I mentioned, on MSNBC that morning, that the pictures at which we were looking did not, in any way, match the words we were being fed.
This, notwithstanding the fact that in the two months that had elapsed since the Niagara Falls of information about the honeys, babes, girlfriends, consorts, companions, mistresses, doxies, paramours, dulcineas, sweethearts, lovers, and a giver-of-an-expensive-watch-which-came-in-a-box-that-had-to-be-tossed-out-in-a-whole-nother-State was in all the papers he hadn't felt any burning need to heal (now THAT'S a world-class oxymoron!) with his family.
Condit has not been seen since. This past Sunday his hometown paper, the Modesto Bee, and its sister paper, the Fresno Bee, printed an editorial which called upon him to resign. The Associated Press wrote, "The Modesto Bee editorial, put on the newspaper's front page, described Condit's conduct during the search for Levy as "abhorrent.'"
"Abhorrent" is not that good a word for your hometown newspaper to use if your name is in the same sentence. There is every reason to suspect someone will make a television ad out of it. It is what we call in the business, a contrast ad: An announcer intones gravely: "Gary Condit's behavior was called abhorrent by the Modesto Bee" over a grainy shot of the front page editorial with the word "ABHORRENT" popping out of the copy.
Fade to video of OUR guy, his wife, and kids smiling as they stand behind a serving line helping feed poor people at a shelter during Thanksgiving. (Can we get some footage of an elderly woman - Wait! Wait! Maybe an elderly NUN - kissing our guy's hand in gratitude?)
This is why I'm paid the big bucks.
Lo and behold a statement from Condit shows up decrying the editorial which says, "It is terribly unfair and disappointing that the Bee would have come to any decision about me without first allowing the investigation to continue and hearing what I have to say."
Garr, we've entered an entirely new geological era waiting to hear what you have to say.
Condit's staff director, Mike Lynch, used the editorial to get his mug on CNN to announce that Condit is not going to resign but is, in fact, going to run for re-election next November.
Even in the world of big-time Washington politics, where no trick is too cheap, this smacks of a contemptible swindle:
- They announce he is running for re-election so they don't foreclose
any fundraising ability he might have left.
- They raise money for his bogus re-election campaign.
- Down the road he announces that, because the forces of evil have
been arrayed against him, he is NOT running for re-election.
- Then he uses the money in his campaign account to pay his legal
and PR bills.
Don't tell me about the FEC rules against using campaign funds for private legal bills. There have been calls for a House Ethics Committee investigation. That's more than enough of a loophole.
There is, however, one small flaw in that otherwise cunning plan: A couple of weeks ago Condit backers held a rally in support of their guy. Condit's Congressional District has a population of about 600,000 people. Barely 100 people showed up, one of whom was his father.
Condit has SLEPT with more people than that.
* Find out what ROTFL means. And see a nice Catchy Caption on the Secret Decoder Ring.
Who says the State Department has no sense of humor? A Reuters report has State Department spokesman Philip Reeker marking Fidel Castro's 75th birthday with the following: "Inasmuch as Castro has reached the mandatory retirement age for dictators, we hope he will be moving on soon into retirement."
� 
