Raking Muck With Steven Cash
Republican Senator Ted Stevens, Alaska, could be called an American Hero. He has stuck with the American government for an arduous six decade career and is an honorary president pro tempore emeritus. He currently boasts possession of the seventh-longest Senatorial term in American history, holding unopposed the title of longest-serving Republican senator. Since his deep-rooted term began in December of 1968, Senator Ted Stevens has been a key player in benefiting the economic and social welfare of Alaska, claiming responsibility for legislative measures such as the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. On July 29, 2008, however, came one of the man's less-than-heroic moments, as patriot Theodore Fulton Stevens was indicted by a grand jury on seven counts of failing to report a slew of illicitly-received gifts. Despite a "not-guilty" plea, he was convicted on all seven counts only six days ago, and saving some magical, pardoning external interference, it's relatively safe to assume that poor ol' man Stevens ain't seein' daylight for long, long time.
Yes, how easy it is to rag on the man simply because of the gross disregard he displayed for the American people and his responsibility to them by committing seven felonies. But place yourself in the senator's position; you're old, bored, and materialistic. You want things, but you don't want to pay for them with your meager Senatorial salary, which can sometimes be a whole 30,000 dollars short of 200,000. How else will you afford vacation home-necessities such as a new first floor, a garage, a wraparound deck, plumbing, electrical wiring, a Viking gas grill, expensive furniture, and badass multipurpose tools? Exactly, you'll contact a powerful oil company with which you are aligned--let's say VECO--and ask their CEO--let's say Bill Allen--if he would be so kind as to give you a few, or all, of those unreported gifts. Let's say $250,000 worth. And you might as well toss in a new Land Rover for one of your sons, too. Why the hell not?
Oh, right. That whole justice thing. And unfortunately for Stevens, it's been (expletive) served.
For those of you who wish to remember him fondly as the handsome, dangerously loony, out-of-touch Senator who lacked half a grasp on the state of the modern world, I'll leave you all with his most well-known and insightful address to the American country, taken from the six-page collection in progress, "Stevensisms: Conservative Words of Wisdom from A Corrupt and Loony Senator":
They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.-Senator Ted Stevens
Stevens on verdict: “Dude, I am absolutely (expletive).”