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Not since the opening of "Al Capone's Vaults" . . . ?

by Ken

Long before there were Teabaggers they were crazy loco over there on the Right, and verminously hypocritical lying scumbaqs . . . they've always had a home there. It's hard to say which of the stories Al Kamen tells in his WaPo "In the Loop" column today is more prize-worthy. But at least one of them is funny. Hilarious, I'd say.


I. A SECRET THAT LINKS DON RUMSFELD, AL HAIG,
J. FRED BUZHARDT & THE SHADES OF WATERGATE?

I'm tempted to call this the most thrilling "secret stash" story since the grand opening of "Al Capone's Vaults," but on checking, I find that that happened in April 1986, while our great adventure took place much earlier, way back in 1974.

As we know, Al can be snarky, and he sets up his first story, the tale of Donald Rumsfeld and What He Found when, as President Jerry Ford's designated chief of staff, he finally moved into the office formerly occupied by "Tricky Dick" Nixon's COS, Gen. "Crazy Al" Haig, by noting that Rummy, notwithstanding his latter-day image as a shoot-from-the-hip and damn-the-consequences kind of guy, was once "a cautious man, much more cautious than people give him credit for, maybe even hyper-cautious." I can't tell the story any better than Al (Al Kamen, that is) does, so let's let him do the honors. I think you're going to love this.

[A] "memorandum for the file" that [Rumsfeld] dictated on Sunday, Sept. 29, 1974, seven weeks after Gerald Ford assumed the presidency following Richard Nixon's resignation, recounts a problem that arose as he prepared to replace Alexander Haig as White House chief of staff.

Rumsfeld, temporarily in an office in the Executive Office Building, noted that he had met the day before "at approximately 5 p.m." with his pal Dick Cheney, then a presidential assistant, and others "to assist me in starting the move into Haig's old office" in the West Wing.

Rumsfeld recalled that the group helped him empty cupboards and closets and "look around the place."

He recalled that he wanted "to make sure that Haig had left nothing that he might want . . . and I wanted to make sure that there was nothing in the place that I didn't want there, such as recording equipment, telephone bugs and the like." Good idea.

"At approximately 5:15, I believe," an aide told him there was "a safe in the cupboard" by the fireplace in the office. At "approximately 7 p.m.," he recalled, he asked Cheney and another aide to get the safe combination "so I could start using it in the event I had classified material."

But an aide said that "there is something you ought to know about the safe." Seems the safe had not been opened during Haig's tenure. "Haig had apparently asked to have it opened" but former White House counsel J. Fred Buzhardt told Haig he didn't want it opened, Rumsfeld recalled being told.

So Rumsfeld told Cheney he "wanted the safe moved out of my office, unopened" and would check with counsel about letting Watergate investigators know it was there and, if possible, what might be in it.

He arranged for a guard at the door when he left his office later that night, he recalled, "to protect it from entry," in case there was "evidence related to the work of the Justice Department" or other Watergate investigators.

"I knew that I had not touched it nor had any of the people who had been in my office," he said, listing Cheney and others who'd been in there.

And no one had touched it the next morning when he called the counsel's office to "develop a procedure for transfer of the safe out of this office," he wrote. Before the safe was carefully put on a dolly to take it across West Executive Drive to a vault in the EOB, Rumsfeld made sure he got a receipt (which is attached to the memo) showing it had been transferred out of his custody.

There is an aide's note in the files - unclear whether Cheney wrote it - that on Tuesday, Oct. 1, word was sent to Rumsfeld "that the aforementioned safe was blown open and discovered to be empty. It was then sent to GSA for repair. Above action was supervised by the Secret Service."

And Rumsfeld's got the receipt to prove it.

I'm sorry, I just love this story. It's got everything: drama, skullduggery, unpredictable plot twists including a who'd-a-thunk-it surprise ending, and also in the end lotsa belly laughs. It's even got two quotes for the ages. First, there's former White House counsel J. Fred Buzhardt, in Rummy's recollection, telling "Crazy Al" Haig that he didn't want the safe opened. And then there's the sound of the Young Rummy already knowing how to cover his behind:

RUMMY: "I knew that I had not touched it nor had any of the people who had been in my office."

II. THE ONLY MYSTERY ABOUT OLD NEWT: HOW
DOES HE STILL DARE SHOW HIS PUSS IN PUBLIC?

Al has some fun with the way previous "caught in the act" pols have tried to talk their way out of their troubles: former SC Gov. Mark Sanford offering the "dreamy 'love' excuse" (with reference to "his famous hike down the Appalachian Trail to Argentina), and Eliot Spitzer earning "kudos for straightforward talk" in chalking his dalliances-for-megadollars misadventure up to "an act of stupid hubris," and Bill Clinton, well, you know all about Bill Clinton's gabalicious attempts to talk his way out of trouble.

And then there's Newt, who seems surprised to find his past amorous adventures a current subject of discussion. So, naturally he's got an answer, and if you haven't heard it, trust me, you're going to want to puke. Especially considering that he's pulled this stunt -- breaking in the next wife, in part at government expense, before the current one knows she's being dumped, including the first wife who was dying of cancer, one of the more repulsive tales of The Things Pols Do that I know of. Again I think the thing to do is to let Al tell the tale.

At a time when the country's facing peril abroad and economic turmoil at home, it might be good to have a leader with creativity - someone who can think outside the box, who can find novel solutions to very difficult problems.

That's why it was quite troubling to see all the derision, the guffawing, that greeted former House speaker and likely presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's explanation Monday about his affair, while he was married to his second wife, with a woman who became his third wife. . . .

He told David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network, whose viewers vote in primaries and may look particularly askance at sexual waywardness, that he had "felt compelled to seek God's forgiveness" for his behavior.

Interviewed in Iowa, Gingrich said his extramarital activity was "partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate."

This is excellent. His passion for America, not another woman, eventually led him on a path to do things that were "not appropriate." It's not easy to wrap yourself in the flag while you're naked. And it's not particularly comfortable. But it's certainly a lot more creative than the usual lame-o excuses.

Please excuse me while I go try to wash my brain out.

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