Over the weekend, a national news story caught North County's fading black eye – and poked it again.
As the Bush administration winds down, petitions for pardons are spiking, it seems. Roughly 2,300 felons – some famous, most not – are seeking clemency.
Dating back to George Washington's amnesty for the leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion, presidents have exercised this sweeping pardon power enumerated in the Constitution.
Given the natural desire for freedom, it would be news if convicted criminals didn't plead for mercy.
Though President Bush has been relatively stingy when compared with other modern presidents, he could open the floodgates the way Bill Clinton did in his shameless final hours.
Still, it struck many locals as shocking that Randall Harold Cunningham – in happier times known by the cuddly given name of “Randy” or the macho honorific “Duke” – had the gall to join the throng of mercy beggars.
People seemed genuinely surprised that the former congressman was seeking divine deliverance from his prison sentence.
Upon reflection, however, Cunningham's appearance on the list makes perfect psychological sense.
Anyone who thinks otherwise wasn't paying close attention during the rise and fall of the nation's most corrupt congressman ever tossed on ice.
In the book “The Wrong Stuff,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning team of writers describes Cunningham's penchant for magical thinking after his tear-stained mea culpa at his 2006 sentencing to more than eight years in prison:
“Randy Cunningham's pledge to Judge Burns that 'repentance will be a lifelong endeavor' didn't last all that long. Less than an hour after proclaiming in open court that 'no man has every been more sorry' and declaring that he had 'accepted responsibility' for his illegal actions, the disgraced former congressman struck a much different note in his jail cell at the San Diego Metropolitan Correctional Center. Dave Dallaire, who was overseeing his security now that he had been taken into custody, heard Cunningham backpedal. 'He said this was a misunderstanding and he thought he was being ram-rodded into this,' recalled the deputy federal marshal.
“All that contrition and regret voiced just a few minutes earlier in the courtroom had morphed into the lament so familiar from convicts everywhere. It was a variation of 'I didn't do it; I don't belong here' that Dallaire had heard from so many others before.
“To those insiders who had dealt with Cunningham during the legal process, and to members of Cunningham's inner circle, this was no surprise. They knew that in private he was still rationalizing and defending his actions even while issuing apologetic public statements. No one saw this more clearly than Nancy Cunningham, who received frequent phone calls from her estranged husband after he was taken to prison. . . . 'He claims he's innocent, that he's been railroaded by the government, that he shouldn't be in prison. He says he signed the plea agreement under duress,' Nancy told Kitty Kelley in 2006. 'He even thinks he will be pardoned by President Bush,' she added, incredulously.”
In a sense, Cunningham's delusional request for presidential clemency is reassuring. It means the Navy ace hasn't changed his stripes now that he's worn them for a couple of years.
Now residing in a Tucson prison, Cunningham, 66, evidently still feels entitled to a hero's adulation. He still believes that the country he valiantly served in Vietnam owes him everything, including his freedom from the penitence he claimed in a courtroom to have embraced for the rest of his life.
As spectators of the human comedy, we have to love this old scoundrel. After all, North County helped him reach his full potential.
He was always an embarrassing buffoon while cavorting in office but, so long as he delivered pork to the 50th District, he was repeatedly pardoned at the polls.
Even after he'd been caught red-handed taking bribes from war profiteers – in effect, selling out his country for the posh country club – die-hard supporters hung with Cunningham until the bitter end, feeding his insane delusion that he was a guiltless victim who deserved a break.
If Cunningham hadn't sought presidential clemency, we might have had to add the role of sincere penitent to the official portrait of hero turned traitor.
As Cunningham's unpardonable petition proves, no revision is necessary.
Logan Jenkins: (760) 737-7555; logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com.
