Don't Miss the Corruptathon

By Lee Russ

Thursday, November 24, 2005 at 11:09 AM

It isn't often that I find myself sympathetic to Republicans, but, come on, you have to feel for a party faced with a new scandal EVERY day.  Along with those scandals comes the need to raise money to defend the scandaleers.  After all, you wouldn't expect the scandaleers to use up the money they improperly acquired to defend their acquisition of it, would you?  Where's the profit in that?

No, the Republicans need a BIG idea, one that can cover all the scandals, big and small, coast to coast, no matter what the underlying sleaziness may have been.  One big "thon" to cover DeLay, Abramoff, Ney, Noe, Norquist, Frist, Reed, Blunt and the many other scandaleers, known and unknown.  So, to all my Republican friends, I offer the following idea; take it, it's yours, you need it:  hold a televised Corruptathon.

It's like a telethon, but for crooks.  Known crooks, accused crooks, suspected crooks, and wannabe crooks.  You probably can't get Jerry Lewis, but maybe you can get some other good (right-leaning) folks like Ron Silver to host.  Or maybe a teen starlet whose IQ roughly equals her age (I leave the list and the ultimate choice to you, my Republican friends).  You can run it over Memorial Day weekend, maybe, think of the possibilities of tying in your request for money to the past sacrifice of our veterans.  Maybe even a theme song about how they died to protect your right to steal, launder, and skim?

And since the Corruptathon idea owes its existence to the unparalleled binge of dollar grabbing exhibited by our Republican practitioners of the "free market" concept in politics, you can design the event accordingly.  No simple request for money, no parading the scandaleers and their families across the stage, no talking about how the kids won't be able to attend Harvard, Yale and the University of Texas if dad has to pony up all the ill-gotten gains earmarked for the kids' education.  That's too obvious, too easy.

No, we structure the Corruptathon to reflect the activity that gave rise to its need.  It'll be a big, rambling game show, with audience participation, all based on the creativity that the audience can muster up in solving unethical dilemmas.  Every half an hour, the host describes an unethical dilemma, a scenario where the laws and regulations of the land hamper the ability of a well-meaning scandaleer to take money, to use money, or to give money.  Audience members pay $10 each to offer up their solutions, and at the end of half an hour, the audience fees get divvied up, one third to the viewer with the best idea to circumvent the rules, two thirds to the "Save Our Scandaleers" (SOS) fund.  And lets face it, maybe every now and then, the SOS fund gets a little more than two thirds.  Who's gonna know?  Who's it hurt?

So that's it, that's my idea, it's yours, my Republican friends. You have to like it, it appeals to every sense of unfairness that I know you have.  And the best part is, you just might identify somebody in the audience whose ideas are smart-twisted enough to keep an eye on.  After all, there just might be a lot of openings coming up for Republican scandaleers to replace the current crop when they go away for that "vacation."