Not since Richard Nixon has a man matched the zeitgeist of the times as perfectly as does Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, who just announced a run for the White House in 2008.
The knee-jerk ‘pooh-pooh birds’ in the ‘negative nabob crowd’ are missing some good reasons–and some good laughs as well–for paying close attention to this Republican Representative from a suburb of San Diego.
Actually, they may be missing ten good reasons…No kidding… He could teach us all… a lot.
Top 10 Reasons To Go Dunkin’ with Duncan:
10. “A Man for our Time.”
We are currently in the fifth year of the war in Iraq. Remember the towering figure that came along during the fifth year of the Vietnam War?
Right! Richard Nixon! And guess what? Just like Nixon, Duncan Hunter is a politician who isn’t afraid to refer to himself in the third person.
During his announcement speech yesterday, for example, he said that “In typical Duncan Hunter fashion, I didn't consult with any Republican leader."
9. Duncan has a “Secret Plan to End the War.”
Well, Nixon did. And he got us the hell out of that unpopular war, too… just five years later!
So we think Duncan probably does, too.
8. Is unburdened by useless emotions.
In June 2000, the Pentagon Inspector General reported that several important projects had lost funding because "two congressmen" (Dunkin Duncan Hunter and Randy the “Duke-ster” Cunningham) had pressured defense officials to shift money to give the-still un-indicted Brent Wilke’s company a contract to digitize historical documents from the Panama Canal Zone.
The shift in funding was causing some military officers to "lose confidence in the fairness of the selection process," the Inspector General reported.
Is our man Duncan burdened by old-fashioned guilt or shame?
No way! And, let’s face it, watching disgraced former Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham “boo-hoo” it through his off-to-the-slammer address to the nation was an embarrassment to the nation.
Duncan’s made of sterner stuff. ‘Nuff Said.
7. Can Teach Us “Chutzpah for Gentiles”
He’s currently under investigation by the FBI for helping loot the U.S. Treasury of as much as $190 million for Defense contracts the Pentagon never asked for, and didn’t want.
The money went to ADCS instead of projects for the Army's UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, Air Force bases, and a parts center in Oklahoma, according to the report by the Pentagon inspector general, prompted by a request from a Defense official.
So, what’s he do? Announce that he's… resigning?
No way, Jose… he’s running for President! In his speech, Duncan got serious for a moment… “You know, 26 years ago, I campaigned as a candidate for Congress on this waterfront. And in this harbor, there were ships that couldn't sail, Navy ships, and in our carrier air wings, there were aircraft that couldn't fly because of lack of spare parts.”
If that’s not chutzpah, we don’t know what is! Go Dunk Go!
6. Helped San Diego become Corruption Capital of America… from Scratch!
Anyone can excel at semi-organized crime in a place like Brooklyn or Detroit. But San Diego has long been known as “Iowa with a beach.”
To go from there to its current lofty status as a place with Congressman on the take from Defense Contractors on the loose in a bankrupt city that can’t seem to elect a Mayor that can remain un-indicted…
A billion dollar pension shortfall…Rogue contractors like Titan Corp bribing everything that moves… no wonder it's a place where Bobby Inman’s SAIC can feel right at home!
Sure he had help… but Duncan was there!
5. Could help laid-off American workers retrain for white collar crime.
Unless you count the hookers in Brent Wilke’s hospitality suite, Duncan Hunter’s coziest relationship has long been with his biggest campaign contributor, defense contractor Titan Corp., which issued a press release in 2004 announcing they were purchasing a half-billion dollars worth of a product that didn't exist from a company about to go bankrupt, whose excited investors were soon left holding the bag.
That's genius!
“SkyWay Communications Holdings Corp Announces New Business Strategy as the Result of Agreement with Major US Defense Contractor,” read the press release headline.
"We are excited about the possibilities Sky Way Aircraft System technology offers," said Titan's David Stinson.”
But here's the beauty part…
Before signing on with Titan the excited Mr. Stinson was the executive vice president of Intergraph in Annapolis Maryland, which had an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) deal with Brent Wilke’s ADCS Inc. that first opened the money spigot now being investigated by the FBI.
Why this is important is our no. 4 reason we like Duncan…
4. Can help ordinary Americans get shot at big bucks in drug trafficking.
Titan officials have never explained why a billion dollar defense contractor with sensitive government defense and intelligence contracts loaned its name and prestige to a soon-to-be-bankrupt firm whose owners were at that moment stripping it of everything not nailed down, and painting DC9’s to impersonate U.S. Homeland Security planes.
Skyway Aircraft, the shadowy St. Petersburg FL company whose investors Titan Corporation helped defraud with a press release announcing the purchase of as much as a half billion dollars worth of the company’s non-existent product…just before it went under… also owned a DC9 dubbed "Cocaine One" which was busted in Mexico in April of this year with 5.5 tons of cocaine onboard!
Criminal diversification! Duncan knows how its done.
3.Can’t Say "You Don’t Know Jack"…And Dana!
A Lear jet used by Cunningham and DeLay was paid for using money "passed through" to San Diego "businessman" Wilkes. DeLay flew from Dulles Airport in Washington D.C., to John Wayne Airport in Orange County, for example, to appear at a campaign dinner for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach.
Dana Rohrabacher gave a sterling personal recommendation, to Adam Kidan, the "dunsky (John Gotti's phrase) about to be indicted for paying for the brutal murder of Sun Cruz Casino Line owner Gus Boulis… with a check.
Rohrabacher was there when the cult first began to do business as The Enterprise, in Angola, for example, with Jack Abramoff… and Oliver North.
And Duncan's on a first name basis with them all!
2. Won’t Rest on His Laurels
The allegations of corporate lawlessness being leveled against Titan Corp. are unprecedented for a mid-sized defense contractor, on a scale not seen since the Lockheed bribery scandals of the 1970’s
.
Now Titan Corp has been purchased by even-larger Defense firm L3 Corporation, a leading provider of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems to the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, selected U.S. Government intelligence agencies and aerospace prime contractors.
With Duncan Hunter leading the way… there’s room for growth!
And the Number One Reason to Go Dunkin with Duncan…
1. "Knows How to Play the Game."
In a deal with Brent Wilke’s ADCS Inc. currently being “investigated” (until the heat dies down) by the FBI, Duncan taught a naive contractor how to inflate the price of software that cost $6000 per copy and charge the Pentagon more than five times more than the vendor was asking!
The deal Hunter brokered resulted–not just in massive mark-ups–but massive mark-ups on a product the Pentagon never even wanted or asked for!
“John Karpovich, who helped run the document conversion program at the Defense Department before his retirement, said Wilkes infuriated Pentagon staff by claiming that the document conversion money belonged to him,” reported the Washington Post.
"Brent came in and said, 'That's our money,"' Karpovich recalled. "He said, 'The congressmen put the money in there for us."'
Karpovich told us he’d watched the deal being put together by Bent Wilkes, House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, and the just-deposed No. 3 man at the CIA, Dusty Foggo.
“Brent called me said he heard the product was great, and asked me to meet him in Washington. He had a suite at the Watergate.
We met there and went to dinner with Dusty Foggo. He seemed like a sharp guy, at least he knew the inside of the government pretty well. We went to dinner with Dusty, and he and Brent talked about old times.”
Karpovich was castigated by Duncan Hunter, he told us, for trying to sell the software to the Pentagon too cheaply.
“In the meeting Duncan Hunter pointed to me and said to Wilkes, "Your boy doesn’t know how to play the game,'" said Karpovich.
“They took a $6000 product, gave it another name, and sold it to the defense department for $32000 a pop.”
"Later on we began to get calls from military bases around the country," said Karpovich.
“They were saying, hey, we just got this expensive software. What are we supposed to do with it?”
What a resourceful guy like Duncan would say: “Use it to armor your humvees!”
So, Duncan, no matter what anyone says, hang in there… And ignore the protests of any parents of dead soldiers who think we needed more armor instead of xerox's of old documents from the Panama Canal!
What do they know anyway?
