Can Larry Pressler save the Democrats?
Margaret CarlsonPittsburgh Post-Gazette
In this age of public disgust with politicians, it’s not surprising that former Republican and now independent Larry Pressler is within striking distance of winning the open Senate seat in South Dakota by riding a campaign to clean up Washington.
This movie vividly re-creates the scandal involving a con man who, working a sting operation with the FBI, posed as an Arab sheikh and gathered public officials in a Georgetown house, on a yacht in Florida and in various hotel rooms in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to offer them bags of cash in exchange for clearing legal hurdles to open a fictitious casino in Atlantic City
Six U.S. representatives and a senator were convicted of bribery and conspiracy. Then-Sen. Pressler, however, said no and reported the shady offer to the feds. This display of probity so impressed Walter Cronkite that the anchorman called Mr. Pressler a “hero” on the “CBS Evening News.” The senator replied: “What have we come to if turning down a bribe is heroic?”
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