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One Reporter's Opinion: Duke Cunningham - From Hero to Crook George Putnam It is this reporter's opinion that within months, it will be the voters' responsibility to mark the ballots for or against members of Congress and a third of the Senate of the United States of America. And when elected, each of the chosen ones will take a pledge of DUTY, HONOR AND COUNTRY, and each elected official will be weighed on personal ethics, integrity and behavior. And then each must demonstrate his or her allegiance to our Constitution.
Each one will be asked, "How will our country benefit by your actions, and what attracted you to serve in Congress? If your answer is 'power' or 'money,' please step down and allow another civil servant to serve our country. And if your attraction to Congress is leadership and intellect, examine Webster's logic: 'One whose example is followed.'"
Our nation needs men and women with a noble purpose that transcends money, power and personal aggrandizement. Integrity includes honesty. And more salient: WHO HAVE YOU ALLOWED TO BUY YOUR VOTE?
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That brings us to the disgraced former Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham, a California Republican who pleaded guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes and evading more than a million dollars in taxes.
Cunningham, a U.S. Navy pilot during the Vietnam War, saved the lives of fellow Americans, at great risk to his own life, and was awarded the Navy Cross – the second-highest medal for bravery. Yet Randy "Duke" Cunningham is charged in a corruption case with no parallel in the long history of the U.S. Congress. Prosecutors label Cunningham's crimes as "unprecedented" for a sitting member of Congress.
Cunningham was a member of the House Appropriations Committee from 1998 to 2005 and served on the committee that provides funding for the Defense Department (our national security). That gave him access to a potential sellout of our government's contracts – and sell out he did.
Cunningham actually put a price on the illegal services he provided! The prices came in the form of a "bribe menu" in which he detailed how much it would cost contractors to order multimillion-dollar government contracts.
For example: an escalating scale for bribes, starting at $140,000 and a luxury yacht for a $16 million Defense Department contract. And each additional million dollars in contract value required another $50,000 bribe. (The rate dropped to $25,000 per additional million once the contract went above $20 million.)
One Defense contractor pleaded guilty to giving Cunningham more than a million dollars in bribes in the form of cash, cars and antiques over four years, in exchange for more than $150 million in government contracts for his company.
Cunningham's sentence represents all of the sordid details of his crimes via photographs of luxury vehicles, yachts, homes, antique furniture and priceless Persian rugs. All of these and much more Cunningham received as bribes.
Cunningham and his co-conspirators gorged themselves at the national trough, regardless of the national interest. His crimes were part of a scheme to enrich himself by exploiting his membership on congressional committees dedicated to national security. Cunningham tearfully admitted his guilt. His words: "I broke the law."
For all of this, Cunningham may spend as little as six years in jail. But defense attorneys say no member of Congress convicted of corruption has ever received a sentence as long as six years. As part of his plea agreement, the prosecution agreed not to seek a prison sentence of more than ten years.
As this is being reported, Senator Trent Lott, R-Miss., in response to the current corruption scandals, is authoring legislation to make it harder for members of Congress to earmark federal money for pet projects and require greater disclosure of lobbyist's contracts with lawmakers. But it's small potatoes to require senators to list meals or refreshments from lobbyists and disclose the value of such miniscule handouts.
Who was it who said: "Integrity must reflect when you look into the mirror or when you hear its voice resonate in the dark of night and you wake up each morning without flinching in your soul. Can you match the morals and ethics demanded by our superb U.S. Constitution"?
It all comes down to personal CHARACTER. Who was it who said, in describing the word, "Character is doing what is right when nobody's looking"?
It's hard to understand what happened in the case of someone like Duke Cunningham – a hero, on one hand, and a crook, on the other – who seemed to forget all about the integrity and character that at one time gave him the strength and courage to save lives at the risk of his own life. The loss of trust and faith in him and other elected officials by the constituency is the far-reaching damage done by his fall.
Editor's note:
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