Traficant Expelled.

July 25, 2002

Well, boys and girls, if you head over to the Ohio 17th district web page at house.gov hoping to get Traficant’s one-minute speeches, you won’t find them there. Less than twenty-four hours after his expulsion the web site has been taken down, and those speeches — which are public record — are no longer available. At least not there. They are available here, however.

So I’ve been thinking, what do I really think about Traficant?

First of all, is he a crook? Well, probably. I haven’t read much of the trial or hearings — in fact, I’m slogging through them right now — but I suspect he’s been doing some things that aren’t quite ethical. To say the least.

Is he a nut? Quite possibly.

Is he a party turncoat? Hell yeah.

But do I like him anyway? Yes.

To be quite honest, after reading Traficant’s many one-minute speeches and reading trial transcripts, I have to say he’s more than a just colorful character. And I agree with Traficant’s own statements at the adjudicatory hearings and the sanction hearings that he was probably expelled more because fellow congressmen found him to be distasteful and less because he was a crook.

I think he’s guilty as all hell, but I do think he was an easy target. I think there’s a lot more influence peddling going on than Congress wants to admit. I think Traficant was an easy target - - someone they could put in front of the firing squad and say to the American public, “you see, we are looking out for your interests.”

But it takes a special kind of person to stand up in Congress and offer the fact that one soccer player bit another on the genitals as evidence of the world’s hell-in-a-handbasket trend. It’s hard for me to believe that he was selling his district down the river; I think he made some deals, did some under-the-table stuff, but was in his own mind not doing anything particularly destructive. I do think he was trying to represent his people. And there’s something about Traficant — perhaps his folksy demeanor that does not seem affected, perhaps his willingness to rave about things in congress — that says “Davy Crockett.”

If Crockett took bribes and demanded kickbacks from his employees, that is.

We need more people, not less, like Traficant. Not necessarily with his politics or his corruption or his paranoia, but his straight talk, cut-to-the-chase attitude and willingness to poke fun at himself as well as others. Those were his most endearing qualities — and probably the reason he served nine terms, eighteen years, in Congress.

He may have been a crook. But at least he was a funny crook. That places him a step above many other people in Congress and the White House. I expect Traficant will be missed.

Posted in Archived Unsorted