Birds of a feather flock together, and there’s a couple of interesting birds doing some flocking all over the country.
You remember Al Gore, your vice president? You remember. The guy who walks the campaign finance tight rope. Yeah, that Al Gore. Well, he has a campaign manager who knows the same questionable tactics.
It was just ten years ago that Rep. Tony Coelho (it’s like Quell-o, and no it’s not a new type of dessert) just packed his bags and said goodbye to Washington, D.C., and his position as Majority Whip. Why? His legendary financial deals and sleazy campaign fund raising methods had him headed for a major investigation tied to the Savings and Loan swindle.
CNN reporter Brooks Jackson wrote all about Coelho and his shady deals in his book, “Honest Graft.” Americans need to learn that putting two sleaze balls together can only mean one thing: Slime.
Well maybe now Coelho will get his due, finally. The U.S. State Department has charged that Coelho wasted thousands of taxpayer dollars and illegally hired his buddies while he ran the U.S. pavilion at the 1998 World’s Fair in Portugal.
The U.S. Information Agency has reported that Coelho broke a bunch of rules by putting his niece and two stepsons of Portuguese Ambassador Gerald McGowan on the payroll, with highly inflated salaries of course. After all, if you’re going to do someone a favor you might as well do them a big favor.
Naturally, Coelho didn’t stop there. He spent $18,000 per month in tax dollars to rent a luxury Lisbon apartment for himself. And of course he had to have a chauffeured Mercedes-Benz limo to shuttle him around and help him to look far more important than he was.
He’s also accused of improper use of $210,000 in donated airline tickets and making the U.S. government liable for a $300,000 personal loan he put together for himself at a Portuguese bank.
You would think a man like Coelho would be poisonous for any politician to have around. Guilt by association would certainly come to mind. Any honorable politician would drop him like a hot potato the instant such a charge is issued. Unless, of course, you happen to be Al Gore.
Gore managed to shake off some mighty serious charges regarding campaign finances in recent times, so he apparently has an attitude of superiority. Gore has gotten away with so much abuse of public funds that he must certainly think that there is no way Coelho could hurt him. He believes he is untouchable.
In fact, Gore and Coelho are the perfect match. Coelho’s resume qualified him perfectly for his present job as Gore’s campaign chairman. Both are masters of deception and deceit. Both have gotten away with their sleazy deals for years unscathed. So in spite of the State Department claims of impropriety, Gore has not chosen to give Coelho the axe, as any honest elected official would do. No, instead Gore has defended him on Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS.
It’s the same old tactic we’ve seen so many times. He simply said that Coelho is “doing a terrific job” and is not in any danger of being fired. Gore knew about the slime he hired before the facts came out. Those facts, and some we may not ever learn about, were the very qualities that qualified Coelho for the job in the first place.
Which leaves us with some important questions: If Gore has hired Coelho, what other sleaze balls does he have in his army of soldiers? Not only in his campaign, but working for him as vice president? If he actually were to be elected president of the United States, what characters will come with him?
When will America wake up? Character does matter. Morality does matter. When you get a bad character in office he brings all his buddies with him. Let’s turn all this around for a change. Let’s prove to the creeps who are trying to sell our country to the Chinese that we can see through what they are doing and won’t put up with it any more.
It is time for us to put honorable men and women back into the leadership positions of our great nation while our nation is still great.
