Countdown: KO's top 25 most corrupt politicians list

[Wetzelbill]

Run time: 06:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSwEQIuWXy0   Posted on YouTube: December 12, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: December 12, 2008 By DU Member: Wetzelbill Views on DU: 2818

 
Top 13 today, the rest tomorrow.

[Rhiannon12866]

1. Fascinating series! K&R! Thanks!

Can't wait for part two...:applause:

[Wetzelbill]

2. Yes it should be great

:)

[Rhiannon12866]

13. Not only who he names...

But also what he has to say about them...:D

[SalmonChantedEvening]

3. Those acts are already hard to follow.

Can't wait for the rest!

WB :hi: :hug: :)

[Lancer]

4. Bets for who's in the Top 12?

My (untainted) money is on Albert B. Fall, Harding's Secretary of the Interior. He got his friends to do the dirty work of awarding private contractors leases on naval oil reserves, most notably in Teapot Dome, WY. Fall is the only former Cabinet member thus far to have spent time in the slammer. "So crooked they had to screw him into the ground."

[Faygo Kid]

9. I guess Fall, as well. Duke Cunningham will make it, Agnew is a shoo-in, and Adam Clayton Powell.

Off the top of my head. Mayor Jimmy Walker of New York is another good bet, and Huey Long could fly in there, as well.

[SanchoPanza]

14. William Tweed has to be in the Top 5, if not Number 1

Of Tammany Hall fame. He stole anywhere from 50 to 200 million dollars from New York City in the 1850s and 60s to enrich himself and other members of his political machine. Adjusted for inflation, that would be between 800 million to 3.2 billion dollars today.

[rosesaylavee]

5. Yikes

[Berry Cool]

6. Anyone want to take bets on #1?

I hope it's your friend and mine, the inimitable Dick Cheney.

[Wetzelbill]

7. Abramoff has to be up there

Depending on if KO considers him an actual politician or not. Maybe DeLay is in the top five, but Cheney would have to be tough to beat.

[Faygo Kid]

10. Not a politician, but he may drag DeLay into the top 12.

[Jack Rabbit]

8. KO is referring to Spiro Agnew in his teaser

However, Spiro shouldn't be alone among Vice Presidents on the list. Schuyler Colfax, Grant's first veep, was quite a piece of work.

Since the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, it was up to them to impeach Colfax. However, they bent over backward and came up with one of the 25 top lame excuses for political gutlessness in American history: Colfax had committed his crimes, mostly excepting bribes in the form of stock from the railroads, while speaker of the house and therefore they could not impeach him because he had done nothing wrong while vice president. It's still a better excuse than the one given for not impeaching Bush or Cheney.

President Grant dropped Colfax from the ticket when he ran for re-election in 1872.

Also, expect some members of President Harding's Ohio gang in tonight's list. Ed Meese, Reagan's Attorney General who had to recuse himself from an unusually high percentage of federal cases, might get a shout out. He certainly deserves a dishonorable mention.

[Jack Rabbit]

11. Ah, shucks, we have to wait until Monday.

The crook who embezzled almost a quarter of his bureau budget was Charles Forbes, the first director of the Veterans' Bureau, now the Department of Veterans' Affairs. As bad as the VA was under Bush the Frat Boy, nobody who worked for Bush had anything on Forbes. President Harding found out about Forbes' misdealings in the Spring of 1923, but allowed Forbes to flee to Europe to avoid prosecution. In March, Charles Cramer, the legal council for the bureau who helped Forbes keep his activities under wraps, committed suicide.

Other members of Harding's Ohio Gang who KO should mention are Jess Smith, another suicide victim who was part of the embezzlement conspiracy in the Veterans' Bureau; Harry Daugherty, Harding's crooked Attorney General, who accepted bribes to look the other way; and Interior Secretary Albert Fall, who received kickbacks from the Sinclair Oil Company for leasing at bargain basement prices right to explore for oil on federal lands at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, in the signature scandal of the Harding Administration.

[ihavenobias]

12. K & R