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What’s in the Water on Capitol Hill?

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Political Scandal and American Pop Culture

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Abstract

Congressman Charlie Rangel of Harlem in New York City was a powerful member of his Party and in his state, playing a large role in convincing Hillary Clinton to run for the US Senate from New York. He also got involved in some bad behavior that earned him a censure by the House of Representatives, but his behavior did not meet our criteria for scandal and was more likely ordinary greedy politician behavior. Congressmen Eric Massa, Chris Lee, and Anthony Wiener, on the other hand, did engage in behavior, of a sexual nature, that did live up to the definition of scandal. It was most notably, the scandals of Massa and Weiner that contributed to our pop culture with the image of a “Tickle Me Massa” doll and the inevitable jokes playing off Weiner’s last name. Senator Larry Craig’s behavior following his arrest for solicitation of homosexual sex meets the criteria for scandal and gave us the “wide stance” defense.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Opposition (now cancelled) became the replacement for The Colbert Report after Colbert left Comedy Central to take over hosting The Late Show on CBS. Initially, Larry Wilmore , a longtime Daily Show correspondent, took over the slot with his show: The Nightly Show . Wilmore’s show suffered from low ratings and controversy and was soon cancelled. Comedy Central replaced it briefly with its game show @Midnight featuring questions about news and culture happening on social media platforms.

  2. 2.

    Powell’s behavior could fill an entire volume alone, but is beyond the scope of this discussion.

  3. 3.

    Powell v McCormack , 395 U.S. 486 (1969).

  4. 4.

    New York State Democratic Chair, Judith Hope , also played a key role.

  5. 5.

    Powell was not without controversy either. While serving as a member of the New York State Assembly he was accused twice of rape , one accusation coming from a 19-year-old intern with the State Assembly. Responding that these were consensual sexual encounters and brandishing the results of a polygraph test, still left a cloud over Powell, particularly because of the age of the intern and the fact that she was in a work relationship with him. There is also considerable confusion about his name with his having a half-nephew also called Adam Clayton Powell, IV . This Adam Clayton Powell was born Adam Clayton Powell Diago while his mother was living in Puerto Rico, but when he came to the mainland for college changed his name to the more Anglo naming convention.

  6. 6.

    If we want to add a broader consideration of a “contaminated” water supply, we could add Rangel into the mix since his troubles were taking place around the same time.

  7. 7.

    Massa left the Republican Party, in part, because of disagreements with the Bush Administration over the execution of the War in Iraq.

  8. 8.

    Massa had children in school and perhaps that played into his decision to keep his wife and kids back home in the district.

  9. 9.

    Massa may have ended the living arrangement and begun living out of his office by sometime in the fall of 2009.

  10. 10.

    The upcoming vote in March 2010 on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was expected to be close. The House’s original vote was in the fall of 2009, but the Senate passed a slightly different version of the bill on Christmas Eve. This vote would be on the final version of the bill and Massa was still opposed to it because of what he perceived to be a disproportionate tax burden falling on New Yorkers.

  11. 11.

    The Huffington Post reported on February 25, 2011, that Lee may have been seeking relationships via Craigslist with transgender women. The Web site Gawker.com allegedly had the stories of at least two transgender women who claimed to have exchanged emails with the Congressman. One of them had “a never before seen” photo of Lee.

  12. 12.

    I should point out that as work on this book was wrapping up, another Buffalo area member of Congress, Chris Collins , in fact from the same district as Lee, was indicted for insider trading and had announced a suspension of his reelection efforts. This behavior falls into the “Little Tin Box” category, but did garner a great deal of national media attention because Collins was the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 cycle. There has also been some excellent reporting by The Buffalo News on the story.

  13. 13.

    Such practices have created all sorts of problems for law enforcement, school administrators, and parents. Teens may not see what the problem is, but because of how laws are written in most jurisdictions they could be liable to charges of child pornography, even if the exchange is just among themselves.

  14. 14.

    A personal favorite incident of mine is when Weiner took to the floor of the House of Representatives in response to a statement by George W. Bush that criticized “the Democrat Party.” Weiner riffed for quite some time making references to “the Republic Party” to point out the reference by the president and other Republicans to the grammatically and legally incorrect expression of the Democratic Party’s name.

  15. 15.

    Major news outlets were, for the most part, giving him the benefit of the doubt until more and more photographs, sometimes accompanied by testimony of women with whom Weiner had conducted online conversations, sometimes of a sexually explicit nature came forward to corroborate the story.

  16. 16.

    There will be more about this pseudonym further on in the discussion of the pop culture aspects of these incidents.

  17. 17.

    There were later reports, repeated in The Hill , claiming the girl was actually closer to 18, but still above the minimum age in her home state of North Carolina to be considered an adult for the purpose of giving consent. The suggestion of the age issue came from investigative reporter Russ Baker , who had a reputation for some outlandish theories regarding government and politics, especially with respect to the Bush family.

  18. 18.

    This comes not long after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape in which Donald Trump is heard making disparaging comments about his own treatment of women and what he believed he could get away with because of his status as a “star.”

  19. 19.

    Comey had rather publically closed the investigation in July 2016 in a public statement where he admonished Clinton for inappropriate handling of classified information, but exonerated her of criminal wrongdoing.

  20. 20.

    At the time, there were various reports that he may have engaged in unwanted sex with other Navy personnel.

  21. 21.

    When the first photograph of Weiner in his briefs was made public, Stewart pointed to knowledge of Weiner he had gained when the two had shared a beach house when much younger. Looking at the photo on a monitor, Stewart said to his audience , “No way! No fu--ing way, seriously no way, in real life, in my memory this cat had a lot more Anthony and a lot less Weiner” (Spiering 2011). Stewart lamented the fact that this kind of story was normally in “his wheelhouse,” but since Weiner was his friend he was conflicted. The story he said, “was a slam dunk,” but hoped it wasn’t true.

  22. 22.

    Stewart went to the hospital after the show that night and received several stitches in his injured hand.

  23. 23.

    Stewart had taken time off to direct a movie.

  24. 24.

    In fact, during the writing of this chapter I posted on Twitter that I was writing about Anthony Weiner and without prompting I got back several references to “Carlos Danger .”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Elmira College, Elmira, NY, USA

    Jim Twombly

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  1. Jim Twombly
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Twombly, J. (2019). What’s in the Water on Capitol Hill?. In: Political Scandal and American Pop Culture. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01340-0_6

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