This stuff should be teabagger cable catnip:
At one point in his 18-year career in the House, Traficant was stripped of all his committee assignments by his fellow Democrats after he voted for Illinois Republican Dennis Hastert as Speaker. When the local U.S. Attorney’s office began investigating him in 1997, he charged that he was being targeted because then-Attorney General Janet Reno was getting blackmailed by the mob for being an alcoholic lesbian.
After his indictment, his theatrical performance before the House Ethics committee and his subsequent expulsion from the House, Traficant offered this puzzling comment about his future: “I will take with me a file, chisel and a knife. I’ll try to get some major explosives to fight my way out,” he said. “Then when I get out, I’ll grab a sword like Maximus Meridius and as a gladiator, I’ll stab people in the crotch.”
Here’s a reasonable collection of some of the wit and wisdom of this Congressman/felon.
cleek
everybody cover your crotches!
The Moar You Know
Fucker stole my idea.
MacsenMifune
I forgot about this guy, he and Zell Miller could do a radio show batshit and crazy in the mornings
The Moar You Know
PS: I knew we’d see this sack of crap back one day. He’s too insane and too unethical to be anything but a Congressman.
LoveMonkey
How long before people tire of the routine called “Every day, work hard to find the stupidest and craziest people on the intertubes, and then declare that the whole world is just all stupid and crazy.”
sparky
my fav quote: “For seven years, a mastermind was in jail.”
nice to see the Ds bringing teh crazee for once. wouldn’t wanna concede all of the asylum to the GOP.
sparky
@LoveMonkey: that will happen when people lose the hard-wired impulse for hierarchy. or when they pry teh intertubz from our cold dead fingers….
Polish the Guillotines
That is, like, the most awesomest 80’s action movie quote I think I’ve ever heard. I wish I wrote it.
Fuckin’ awesome. Damn.
DougJ
How long before people tire of the routine called “Every day, work hard to find the stupidest and craziest people on the intertubes, and then declare that the whole world is just all stupid and crazy.”
For me, it will be at least 10 years. I can’t get enough.
zoe kentucky in pittsburgh
I absolutely love the idea of Traficant getting together with Zell Miller– both of them could do a big public come-to-Jesus/GOP conversion and announce that they’re available for their own show on FoxNews. The GOP loves I-used-to-be-a-dem stories, (see David Horowitz), the batshittier the better. I’m sure they could make themselves millions in a year.
FoxNews is only 2 demented, deranged angry lions short of a circus, Miller and Traficant could be the ticket to their completion.
CapMidnight
Let him be Tom DeLay‘s Dancing with the Starbursts dance partner, and I’ll shoplift a teevee to watch.
LoveMonkey
@DougJ:
There are alternatives. Have you tried electroshock therapy? How about skydiving without a parachute?
Zifnab
So here’s the real question. If he shows up on FOX, will he have a D or an R next to his name?
geg6
@Zifnab:
Oh, he’ll stick with his D. Youngstown is pretty much in my back yard. I know it and the people there well. And I have been seeing and hearing Traficant almost my entire life. My mom once interviewed him for the local paper (yes, I live in PA, but Youngstown is as close as Pittsburgh is to me). I have no doubt that he’ll run for something political again. The people of Youngstown LOVE him, still today. And let’s just say that there is a group of very wealthy and powerful people who are probably only well-known among FBI agents and who pretty much run the city of Youngstown who know that Traficant is their boy. And they’ll bankroll him again if he wants it.
Anne Laurie
@DougJ: Or, to quote the Wendell Berry poem JK posted last night…
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
Koz
The idea being that one liberal Democrat Congressman got indicted and convicted, regretting the hundreds of others who’ve escaped so far?
Zifnab
@Koz: Anyone who votes for Denny Hastert for House Speaker is no liberal.
Mr Furious
The Dems could use some of that commitee-assignment-stripping fortitude these days….
slippy
@geg6: Wait, he’s a convicted felon! In most of America that means you can’t even fucking *vote* anymore, let alone run for office!
What is up with the double standards?
MNPundit
Whenever I read his name I think of it as “Trafficante” and pronounce it “Traffi-KAHN-TAY.” Cuz it sounds nice to my ears.
The Grand Panjandrum
As long as he wears that awful small animal on his head I would watch! That’s entertainment all its own. It’s like watching those two old geezer in the balcony on the Muppets Show–hard to say why it is so funny,–it just is. (OK you do have to be high to really and truly enjoy it, but just think of all the gut busting laughter.)
Butch
Wuz thinking maybe he can be an alternate to Jenna on the today show.
cleek
i can’t wait to see the Traficant / Blagojevich death match.
JK
Doug,
James Traficant is one of the sleaziest and slimiest politicians to ever serve in Congress, but he’s also one of the funniest and most entertaining.
Trafficant should be teamed up with former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson, who I regard as the other funniest and most entertaining member of Congress, to co-host a cable news show.
Exurban Mom
I heard the other day that someone is holding a fundraising dinner to celebrate his release, and they sold over 1,000 tickets.
Makes me so proud to be from the Buckeye state….
Anne Laurie
@Exurban Mom:
Well, if you look at it that way, it does help verify the Michigander conviction that the best thing about Ohio is that its location makes it easy to leave for better places. And right now Michigan can use whatever scraps of superiority it can get! (/snark)
Wilson Heath
Never underestimate Trafficant. I believe he’s still the only person who has ever beat a federal RICO rap pro se. The demagogueing whack job might have some more tricks up his sleeve.
Exurban Mom
@ Anne Laurie
You know the directions to Michigan from Columbus, Ohio?
“North ’til you smell it, West ’til you step in it.”
Just sayin’. /anti-Michigan, anti-Big Blue snark
Josh
DougJ, is your second link meant to go to the same place your first one did?