# Most embarrassing public officials **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 18, 2009, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889 "2009-08-18T22:50:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Caffeine.addict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f475e1/32.png) [@Caffeine.addict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caffeine.addict)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/21 "2009-08-19T14:18:06Z")
> [@booklover](#): > > Seriously, I know the good citizens of Ward 8 in DC are thrilled to have Marion Barry representing them, but the rest of us could do without his shenanigans…including his[recent adulterous, semi-stalker relationship](http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=37514) with a woman who he also paid to do contract work for his office. > Oh yeah, and the whole failure to pay taxes + cocaine use stuff…that’s old hat. The most embarrassing part of Marion Barry is that its an ongoing process. The fact that he is steering contracts to his cronies and has steered much more than the rest of the Council says something. DC politics in general is pretty dysfunctional, but Marion Barry is one of the worst. Whats tragic about him is that it didn’t have to happen this way. He started out well, but he really lost his way. ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/22 "2009-08-19T14:36:13Z")
Blago. I mean, it’s just so skeezy and shameless. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/23 "2009-08-19T14:41:16Z")
> [@Caffeine.addict](#): > > The most embarrassing part of Marion Barry is that its an ongoing process. The fact that he is steering contracts to his cronies and has steered much more than the rest of the Council says something. DC politics in general is pretty dysfunctional, but Marion Barry is one of the worst. Whats tragic about him is that it didn’t have to happen this way. He started out well, but he really lost his way. Barry is who I came to nominate. I really don’t think it can get much worse than this never-ending story. He was a good man, he got addicted to drugs, and sex, and has since been a compelte leech to the system. After the recent hullabaloo he stated (something to the effect that) since steering these particular funds was legally under his control, he would not hesitate to spend them the same way again. ---
**Author:** ![cdsilv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cdsilv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cdsilv)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/24 "2009-08-19T16:04:15Z")
Well, he’s not an official yet, but I’d nominate the mule-f\*cker from Georgia who is running for state office - Neal Horsley - yes, that is his real name, and yes, he claims to have had sex with a mule. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/25 "2009-08-19T16:22:50Z")
And he says having sex with a man was more shameful than sex with a mule. I’m not kidding. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/26 "2009-08-19T16:25:12Z")
> [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](#): > > Blago. I mean, it’s just so skeezy and shameless. Yeah, he’s pretty bad. I mean, we had the issues with [George Ryan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ryan): active coverup of the licenses-for-bribes scandal (the practice which led to a wrongly-licensed truck driver being on the road, not understanding warnings about a part that was coming off his truck, which then killed six children in a van behind the truck), not to mention lots of steering of government contracts to friends, and paying family members a lot of money for doing nothing. And Blago makes [Rostenkowski’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rostenkowski) embezzlement/money laundering thing look kind of second-rate. ---
**Author:** ![Woeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Woeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Woeg)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/27 "2009-08-19T16:31:30Z")
> [@cdsilv](#): > > Well, he’s not an official yet, but I’d nominate the mule-f\*cker from Georgia who is running for state office - Neal Horsley - yes, that is his real name, and yes, he claims to have had sex with a mule. As well as with watermelons and Air Force men. But all that’s behind him. That’s a joke just waiting to happen! ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/28 "2009-08-19T17:03:20Z")
> [@Countrypolitan](#): > > Memphis Ex-Mayor Willie Herenton. A senile old fool, an idiot, and a clown who made a mess out of Memphis and then quit to run for Congress. No, wait, he’s in the mayor’s race again cos he doesn’t like the interim mayor. GET LOST, MORON! And, oh yeah, quit playing the race card every time you don’t get your way. Seconded. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/29 "2009-08-19T17:25:34Z")
I can’t believe nobody has mentioned [Budd Dwyer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budd_Dwyer) yet! What’s more embarrassing than calling a press conference to publicly blow your own head off? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/30 "2009-08-19T17:29:49Z")
I don’t remember the guy’s name, but he was in the New York State government maybe two decades ago. At the time, the Monroe County airport was being completely gutted and refurbished. Everything was being changed. A number of local artists were going to donate paintings and sculptures to it. Read that again: Donate. As in for free. Idiot politician comes along and says that the art is a waste of taxpayers’ money. People try to explain to him what the word donate means. He digs in his heels harder and whines about the damn tax-and-spend Democrats. Eventually, he got his way. The new airport was stark and lifeless. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/31 "2009-08-19T17:37:39Z")
My Congressman, Jim Moran, has threatened several people with assault, and his wife once called the police on a domestic-violence complaint. Perhaps his most singular embarrassment, however, was when he got into a scuffle with an unarmed eight-year-old boy, whom he claimed was trying to carjack him. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/32 "2009-08-19T18:14:22Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > Here in northeast Ohio, there’s James Traficant, the former Democratic congressman who’s about to be released after eight years in the pokey on charges of being convicted of taking bribes, filing false tax returns, racketeering, and wearing the most hideous toupee since Howard Cosell: > [Research - Ohio History Connection](http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/images/Traficant.jpg) > He’s been the news again lately because of his impending release on Sept. 2, and because the Mahoning Valley Scrappers Class A baseball team were forced to cancel “Traficant Release Night” after protests that it was in bad taste. When Traficant went to jail, those wearing a toupee to a Scrappers game got in free. Now that’a a team with a sense of humor. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/33 "2009-08-19T20:38:04Z")
> [@Pyper](#): > > That was hilarious. I nominate 8th grade student Kierra Bell as Councilwoman Conyers’ replacement. From the evidence in that video, she could do the job about one hundred times better. If there were a scholarship fund set up, I’d donate $10 right now. For my nomination, I’m going to go with Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory: ![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/VYuf4QlpaS0/maxresdefault.jpg)https://www.youtube.com/embed/VYuf4QlpaS0?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/34 "2009-08-19T21:19:19Z")
> [@Fetchund](#): > > I’m from the land of Michelle Bachman, and Jesse Ventura. Why we turn out the real nutjobs, I’m not sure. Coming from Iowa, we have [del]Grand Wizard[/del] Representative Steve King and the new King of the Deathers Sen. Charles “Obama wants to kill your Granny” Grassley so i feel your pain. At least one of yours is out of office now. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/35 "2009-08-19T21:41:43Z")
Superb nominees across the board. Here in Texas, we have Tom DeLay, who can’t seem to avoid ethical quagmires, and after the campaign finance violations and connections to Jack Abramoff, resigned his seat. But never fear, he’ll be on _Dancing with the Stars_ this season! Governor Hair, er, I mean Rick Perry - former cheerleader famous for muttering “Adios, mofo,” to a reporter after an interview. Lately he’s making hay by showing up at tea parties and making statements about Texas seceding from the Union. Which is good in a way, because it pretty much kills any chance of this goon inflicting himself on the national scene. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/36 "2009-08-19T22:05:43Z")
Alabama has an embarassment of riches on this one. They’ve had: James “Big Jim” Folsom- Democrat, a liberal-ish governor and mentor to George Wallace (who later married his niece) who appeared on television so drunk he couldn’t remember the names of his own wife and children (not even his son, who he referred to as “my son… my… son… my BOY!”- his difficult to remember name was Jim Folsom, Jr. [later the governor himself]) Forrest “Fob” James- as a Democrat he was elected governor and FUBARred (if that’s a word) the public education system, and after a hiatus he became a Republican and was elected and did such cute things as imitating an orangutan on national TV to protest evolution being taught in schools. His wife is a major Fundie who spent many thousands of public dollars taking the state jet to Fundie conventions. (Just for extra shits and giggles, in private Fob’s a heavy drinking stogey smoking foul mouthed good ol’ boy as opposed to his “love me some unborn fetuses and unburnt flags and Jesus stuff!” public image, and his substantial estate [multimillionaire from athletic supplies] is managed in part by his ‘gayer than Liberace watching Judy Garland at a county fair quilt show’ lookalike brother.) Guy Hunt- the AmWay salesman and proud GED holder who became governor when the two Democratic candidates destroyed each other with mudslinging and write-in campaigns. Said on nationwide TV of living in the Governor’s Mansion “Lord we’s in hawg heaven in that place!”, and used everything from his security guards to state owned tractors and roadbuilding equipment to improve his own farm. Later impeached, successfully, and spent twenty years sueing and trying clear his name. (Died earlier this year.) My favorite moment due to my “inside knowledge” was how he used his daughter. One of his girls was born severely mentally retarded and attended a school for the mentally disabled I worked at in Montgomery when he was governor. His daughter- I’ll call her Susie- could not construct a sentence- she rarely said much beyond ‘Daddy’ (which she called most men including me- didn’t matter if we were young/old/black/white/remotely looked like her father) or ‘Coke’ or ‘hungry’- got the picture? Severely mentally retarded, and there’s nothing wrong with that. So, when Guy (Governor Gomer as he was nicknamed at the time) begins getting into trouble over the impeachment (one of the issues was his acceptance of a small fortune in “love offerin’s” from speaking engagements as a lay minister while governor, in cash, unreported to state or federal IRS) he went on television and stated, tears in his eyes, his wife behind him with hands on his shoulders nodding assent, “They say I’m a crook, they say I’m a bad man, and I can take it for myself, I know it’s not true, but it’s the way it’s affected my family that’s really got me. The other night our little baby Susie, who’s been afflicted since birth, she came up and got in my lap and said 'Daddy, I don’t care what they say about you, I don’t believe ‘em, and just you remember they said worse about Jesus’.” Everybody who worked at the organization I worked at was talking about nothing else the next day. “If ‘Susie’ said three words together he’d be on his knees praising Jesus for a miracle!” Unless Susie was a brilliant performance artist who faked severe and nearly non-verbal mental retardation in daytime and then went home and said “Damn this gets old sometime. What’s for dinner?” then it was a flat out lie told while invoking Jesus and crying crocodile tears and using his retarded daughter for emotional clout. There have been others. Don Siegelman is the recent governor who went to prison (though I honestly do believe that Rove was involved in that) and then there’s the brilliant Representative Terry Everett ® who opposed the Starr Report being put on the Internet because it included sexually graphic material that would violate Alabama’s pornography laws. (Honestly didn’t have a clue that not one teenaged boy in Alabama is going to read the Starr Report looking for porn as he honestly thought somehow it was filtered in areas where porn was illegal.) ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/37 "2009-08-19T22:56:02Z")
> [@cdsilv](#): > > Well, he’s not an official yet, but I’d nominate the mule-f\*cker from Georgia who is running for state office - Neal Horsley - yes, that is his real name, and yes, he claims to have had sex with a mule. I thought you might be kidding, so I looked it up on Google. Holy… :eek: Will somebody think of the watermelons? ---
**Author:** ![Ataraxia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Ataraxia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ataraxia)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/38 "2009-08-20T00:17:20Z")
I nominate Ralph Klein, former mayor of Calgary, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, and premier of Alberta, Canada! In reaction to his objection to the presence of the Hell’s Angel’s in Alberta, the group released a photo to the media of Klein in a bar drinking with two members of the Grim Reapers Motorcycle Club. A notorious alcoholic, he once harassed people at an Edmonton homeless shelter, calling them “bums” and throwing change at them. In the Alberta Legislature, proclaimed “I don’t need this crap” when presented with a Liberal health care policy book and proceeded to throw the book at a high school aged page. Oh, and remarking upon Belinda Stronach’s decision to cross the floor to the Liberal Party he said "“I wasn’t surprised that she crossed over to the Liberals. I don’t think she ever did have a Conservative bone in her body. Well, maybe one”. (Referring to her former boyfriend and Conservative MP Peter McKay). Rob Anders is another politician who causes massive embarrassment to not only his riding in Calgary, but sometimes the entire country. He was the sole MP to object to Nelson Mandela being granted honourary Canadian citizenship, preventing the act from being unanimous and forcing the House to find another way to grant Mandela the honour. Despite outrage from the public and fellow Parliamentarians (Prime Minister jean Chretien called him “stupid”), he called Mandela a terrorist and communist to the media. In response to the controversy, Mandela, being far more generous than necessary to a lowly backbencher who has to be consistently muzzled by his own party, personally called Anders’ office to discuss the issue. Anders refused to take the call. He later admitted to the CBC that part of his decision to vote against the motion was because the Liberals blocked his party’s attempt to honour the 50th wedding anniversary of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/39 "2009-08-20T02:08:18Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I can’t believe nobody has mentioned [Budd Dwyer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budd_Dwyer) yet! What’s more embarrassing than calling a press conference to publicly blow your own head off? I don’t think I’ve ever heard about that before. Very strange. Maybe I was camping that week?!? ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889/40 "2009-08-20T07:41:00Z")
40 posts and no one has mentioned George W Bush? He was an embarrassment and a black eye for this country. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-embarrassing-public-officials/506889.md?page=3)