Harassed by an older congressman

I’ve interned for three U.S. congressmen, and until Thursday, I could say I was never harassed by a congressman.

You would think an older U.S. congressman would have better sense than to spend time and taxpayer-funded accoutrements harassing a young woman – especially in the era of Gary Condit and missing intern Chandra Levy.

But you would be wrong.

I know, because on Thursday, I was that young woman. And that congressman was none other than Nebraska Republican Tom Osborne.

If you wonder how an elected federal official (Condit, Clinton, etc.) can have the hubris to behave as he wishes with a young girl and feign innocence, Mr. Osborne is a terrific case study into such pathology.

He is the living illustration of the adage that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Late Thursday evening, the former Nebraska football coach turned politician, Rep. Osborne – obviously angry about a column I wrote last month – telephoned me at my home, insisting that he wanted to speak with me. But when I told him I didn’t want to speak with him and asked that he not call me again, he couldn’t take “no” for an answer. Even after I asked him to stop harassing me and hung up, the stubborn Mr. Osborne – like a pathetic, jilted lover – called right back.

“I just want to talk to you,” Osborne told me. But, although I made it clear that I did not want to talk to Osborne, he pushed further. Upset that I’ve written about his hypocrisy posing as a religious conservative, do-gooder Congressman, when in his past life he was anything but – playing criminal after criminal on his win-at-all-costs football team and then attacking the victims of his athletes’ crimes – Osborne wouldn’t leave me alone.

In fact, Osborne wasn’t really interested in talking to me. The goal of his calls to my home was quite obviously to intimidate me. He told me that his office traced telephone calls to my number. Of course they did. Big deal. My office made calls to obtain information for a column about Mr. Osborne’s ridiculous pork-barrel amendment to the Education Bill – ripping off taxpayers to the tune of $150 million for a dubious “mentoring” program. I also wrote about Mr. Osborne’s particular version of mentoring, in which he spawned unchecked behavior of violent criminals – sex offenders, brutal assaulters, shooters – on and off his football field.

And since he’s already wasting $150 million of taxpayers’ money, what’s another 50 cents worth of harassing long-distance phone calls on taxpayer-funded phone lines to scare a young woman who is embarrassing him?

It’s not the first time he’s spent taxpayer money to harass me. In June 2000, then-congressional candidate Osborne was angry with a column I wrote assessing his fitness (lack thereof) to serve in Congress. Although this was clearly a campaign matter, in a possible federal election campaign law violation, Osborne promptly used his taxpayer-subsidized office, telephone number, secretary and e-mail address at the University of Nebraska Alumni office to harass me. He wanted “to visit” me, he wrote. Right.

There is a distinct pattern here. In September’s Talk Magazine, on the stands tomorrow, the similarities between the scandal-ridden officeholders are uncanny.

Mr. Osborne quite obviously wants to silence me. Just like Condit’s calls to stewardess Ann Marie Smith were meant to intimidate her into silence and into signing a document absolving Condit of an affair with her. Just like Bill Clinton’s lawyers and private detectives tried to silence witnesses and paramours in his many scandals. And just like all of those women, Mr. Osborne’s ominous phone calls do not scare me.

In Talk, the Levys (Chandra’s parents) speak of being bothered by Condit’s tone of voice when they spoke with him. Kind of like Mr. Osborne’s unwanted voice on the phone bothered me. Or, at least, made me laugh – at the fact that a 64-year-old freshman congressman began the congressional off-season repeatedly phoning me (over three decades younger), when, like most normal congressmen, he should have been concerned with helping his constituents back home. The Levys talked of their expectation that one day Condit would speak up “like a man.” I’m still waiting for Congressman Osborne to behave “like a man,” too. So are the many victims of his former players.

Don’t hold your breath.

The similarities in capacity for hypocrisy are certainly breathtaking. Condit last made big news, according to Talk, when he publicly attacked Bill Clinton for his behavior with Monica Lewinsky in letters to Republican leader Newt Gingrich, in TV press conferences, etc. We now know he didn’t have a moral leg to stand on. Osborne did the reverse. He immorally supported and propped up criminals with virtual impunity and belittled the serious nature of their crimes. Now, he’s making the Condit-like morality play.

Talk says Condit once posed for a gag-gift “Hunks on the Hills” calendar, posed for the risqu? biker magazine, “Easyriders,” and, as I’ve previously written, acted in the movie, “Return of the Killer Tomatoes.” Now, it’s Tom Osborne who’s the poser – as a mentor, as a moral leader and as a congressman. He plays these roles with the same gauche, B-movie amateurishness as Mr. Condit did. It’s kind of funny to watch his neophyte acting abilities, telling October 2000’s George Magazine about “the messages we send our children” (indeed, Mr. Osborne) and that “America has lost its way.” No, Tom Osborne and his killing field athletes – who behaved that way off the field – they are the ones who lost their way.

And he’s posing as a “conservative” Republican, too. In fact, the pro-campaign finance reform, anti-death penalty, pro-government waste and spending, Osborne is among the McCainest of Republicans. At a reform school, Kearney’s Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Center, George quotes Osborne as excusing kids in the facility for a third time,
saying, “You guys have been dealt a few bad blows, and some of you probably didn’t come from the greatest home life.” Sound like a conservative to you? Me, neither.

Reading Osborne statements at an April sportsmanship seminar is even more laughable. Nando.com quotes him as saying he is “concerned about a decline in good character … among athletes.” Indeed. In 1993, when his player, Christian Peter, sexually assaulted Miss Nebraska Natalie Kuijvenhoven, George reported that Osborne minimized the serious nature of the assault, questioned her motivation, making up a baseless story that her boyfriend had been cut from the team. After convicted and sentenced, Osborne suspended Peter for only a practice game.

When Kathy Redmond reported Peter’s two rapes against her, Osborne questioned her motivation – fabricating allegations that her sister had been raped, too, and she wanted the same attention from family members as her sister. He also minimized the brutal assault by player, Lawrence Phillips on his former girlfriend, attacking the eye-witness account of Sandy Worm, who saw him drag her by the hair down three flights of stairs and then pounding her head against the wall.

“There was no brutal beating,” Osborne told George.

None of this is to mention Osborne-defended players (like Tyrone Williams and Riley Washington) who shot at people or (like Jason
Jenkins) took out a victim’s eye. “I’m certain there was no intent to hit anyone with gunfire,” said Osborne. According to George, “Lincoln County Attorney Gary Lacy complained publicly that in a string of cases Osborne had used ‘his influence to disrupt the criminal justice system.'” Interfering with investigations, obstructing justice. How very Condit-esque.

This is the congressman that harassed me on Thursday. I guess I’m just the latest victim to survive his verbal assaults. And you thought Chandra and Monica’s boyfriends were bad.

Given the similarities in phoniness and immorality, it’s no wonder that Osborne declined comment when “Inside Edition’s” Les Trent asked him on camera about the conduct of Condit and whether he should resign. Some of Osborne’s players – for whom he stood up – did a lot worse.

But, no worries. Blind Nebraska football fans will, no doubt, re-elect Osborne for as long as he wants – so that he may serve to harass many others. Talk quotes a friend of delusional Mrs. Condit, saying, “Her illness is that she’s in love with him.”

Another coincidence. That’s Tom Osborne’s constituents’ illness, too. So why can’t he harass them, instead of me?