As the US political world takes stock of Alaska senator Ted Stevens's stunning fall today, it's worth noting what Congress would lose if the man ends up resigning or - heaven forbid - in prison. Yes, Stevens is a notorious scoundrel. But he's also a hilarious scoundrel.
Here, I humbly present the top 10 most ridiculous Ted Stevens moments....
10. Stevens is somewhat notorious among the Washington press corps for his hostility to 99.9% of media requests. But the height of his crankiness came in 2006, when the senator accused CNN correspondent Joe Johns of "ambushing" him with a request for a TV interview outside of the usual hallway where senators address the cameras.
Stevens filed a formal complaint against Johns, who was ultimately found to be doing nothing but his job.
9. The Incredible Hulk tie. Stevens undoubtedly found his ridiculous inspiration in the lime-green comic book character who shares one major trait with the senator: You wouldn't like either of them when they're angry.
But Ted's embrace of the Incredible Hulk tie was hardly self-deprecating; on the contrary, he took the comic-book fixation very seriously. The former Republican Senate leader said Stevens wore the tie only on days when he was especially "pumped up". But it didn't save him from the "saddest day" of his life, when he failed to pry the Alaska wildlife open to oil drilling. Dang!
8. Even funnier than his crusade against Joe Johns was Stevens's response to the New York Times when asked about his oil-drilling push in 2005:
"I'm never confident of anything - I keep telling you that!" Mr. Stevens, wearing the Hulk tie, declared Tuesday, barking at a mob of reporters after explaining that the sleeping pill he took the night before was just now making him groggy.
Don't you hate it when sleeping pills suddenly kick in during press conferences?
7. "I'm a mean, miserable SOB," Stevens proudly informed his colleagues upon taking over as chairman of the uber-powerful Senate appropriations committee in 1997.
Speaking of his predecessor, Stevens added, "Senator Hatfield had the patience of Job and the disposition of a saint. I don't." You don't say, Senator!
6. In December 1978, Stevens and his wife Ann were flying into Alaska when their plane crashed, seriously injuring the senator and killing his wife. Wait ... that's not one of the silliest Ted Stevens moments, that's one of the saddest.
5. Not everyone can inspire a popular techno song and a mass techie activist movement with a single speech. But Stevens did, back in June 2006, with an unwitting masterpiece delivered from the Senate floor about the perils of regulating the internet.
The speech became famous because Stevens bizarrely referred to the web as "not a truck" but "a series of tubes". Yet what went unnoticed was the brilliant introduction, in which Stevens describes receiving "an internet" after signing up for what appears to be Netflix. Take it away, Ted:
There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mailbox when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right ... I just the other day got -- an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially. So you want to talk about the consumer? Let's talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren't using it for commercial purposes ... The regulatory approach is wrong.
4. Stevens followed up his "series of tubes" witticism one year later with a downright brilliant question during a Senate hearing on number portability - i.e., the ability to keep one cell-phone number while switching service providers. The link provides a full transcript, but his final word on number portability was:
Is it coming? Why shouldn't I be able to say, just by a little switch on my phone at home that's wired, I'm going off on the wireless now, I want to use this as I ride my motorcycle. I'm bad. Pardon me.
3. Two words: Coot Off. I'll leave it to Jon Stewart to explain:
2. The Washington Post discovered last year that Stevens had added a very strange error message to his campaign website. Here's just one excerpt from it:
If I were a gambler, I would bet that a cat (an orange tabby named Sierra or Harley) somehow jumped onto your keyboard and forgot some of the more important pointers from those typing lessons you paid for. Based on the actual error encountered, I would guess that the feline in question simply forgot to place one or both paws on the appropriate home keys before starting.
Sadly, the error was ultimately revealed to be the work of hackers as opposed to the senator himself. Which just makes it funnier, in a way.
1. It's hard to pick the single silliest Ted Stevens moment. But only one of his escapades featured both homemade cereal boxes, a host named Mr Whitekeys, AND a funny wig. Back in February, he attended a local Alaska arts contest called the Crafters Smackdown, where bribes were apparently encouraged (no indictment jokes, please), and scored first prize with his creation of a Gold Rush Crunch cereal box.
Please click on the link above, if only to see the wig Stevens wore. And to marvel at the legend of the US Senate.
