Then there was that massage chair. Perhaps someone like, say, Lindsay Graham might need an expensive massage chair — I don't think he's ever been touched by a woman — but Stevens? With the long-suffering, devoted wife? For shame. Kinda makes you long for the days of Marion Barry smoking crack in a hotel room, then insisting "Bitch set me up!", doesn't it?
But the biggest misstep was Stevens's plot to festoon his Alaska domicile with more than $250,000 worth of improvements, more than doubling its size. (I think he got a raw deal from his interior decorator. Have you seen the photos? The Stevens Shangri-la looks like a Ponderosa Steakhouse.) The labor and materials were supplied by the now-shuttered oil-field service company VECO Corporation — as a gift to their dear friend. Meanwhile, Stevens claimed the renovations came out of his own pocket. Because, you know, it's easy to save money when other people buy your stained-glass windows and sled dogs.
Behind the slime
Lesser-known Alaskans also contributed to this drama: there's Bill Allen, former CEO of VECO, who pleaded guilty to bribery charges involving Alaska lawmakers last year. (Allen subsequently mangled his head in a motorcycle accident and now has difficulty speaking, though he still remained articulate enough to indict his former chum.) He and fellow company executive Richard Smith also pleaded guilty to federal extortion, conspiracy, and fraud charges, conceding that they wooed pliable Alaskans legislators with cash and job offers and illegally reimbursed their employees for political contributions. The politicians in question, former state representatives Pete Kott, Tom Anderson, and Vic Kohring (representing good ol' Wasilla) have been sentenced to prison. State senator John Cowdery and state representative Bruce Weyrauch are still awaiting trial.
And then there's ethics-challenged, Troopergate-inviting Palin herself, who served as a fellow director of Stevens's "Excellence in Public Service" 527. (Note to Queen Sarah: presiding over an Excellence in Public Service 527 headed by Stevens is like presiding over a detox clinic founded by Amy Winehouse.) It makes hypocritical sense, really. She's the perfect figurehead for the seamy side of Alaska — just as it looks simple on the surface, so too does Sarah Six Pack. But beneath the Barbie façade lurks something truly evil.
So why does our oiliest state produce such slimy politicians? Is it just me, or do you want to scream at the top of your lungs, like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, "Who are you people?"
I should amend: in Alaska, there are no people. Isn't it great how Palin claims that it's the perfect example of "Main Street USA," yet Main Street is paved with bricks of oil-gold and nobody lives there? This is a place where the governor herself once insisted that dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth together. (Here, she must have been thinking of her colleague, Stevens.) A place where caribou outnumber humans. A place where it's illegal for moose to fornicate on city streets.
It reminds me of a special Disney World theme park, a chilly Tomorrow Land where pterodactyls leer at children from a dog sled, and inside every decorative igloo, wizened politicians get their pockmarked backs massaged by Caribou Barbies wielding spritzers of — what else? — oil. Look away, kids! Children must cross the Bridge to Nowhere with an adult present. It's a scary world up there.
