"Because 'Lie' is a dirty word . . .

. . . the marketing department came up with something so much fresher."

By C William Boyer

Remember when Bill Clinton argued the meaning of the word 'is'? A classic bit of grammatical legerdemain, it went like this:

"It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If 'is' means 'is and never has been' that's one thing - if it means 'there is none', that was a completely true statement."

Hunh? Okay. Whatever. Now we've got San Diego Congressman Randy 'Duke' Cunningham [R] embroiled in a, uh, situation. Seems the honorable congressman from the great state of California recently sold his house for 1.675 million dollars. Now, given San Diego's superheated real-estate prices, it was probably a three bedroom house with one of those backyards no bigger than a king-sized bed, but something real curious happened a few months later. Seems the fellow who bought the esteemed congressman's house sold it ---- did we mention San Diego's super-heated, over-speculated real-estate market?---- and get this: he LOST MONEY! Lost 700,000 bucks!

SAN DIEGO, California (AP) -- In an astonishing turn of events today, a San Diego businessman is reported to have lost money in the San Diego real estate market. This strange phenomenon, in which a parcel of property is purchased at one price and then subsequently sold for less (dubbed a LOSS in technical real estate jargon and losing your ass to the average man) the loss-phenomenon was last seen in the late-80s and very early 90's. Paleo-economists at the Poindexter Intitute of Money were shocked to discover a living remnant of the California real-estatius lossium virus, having believed it eradicated in California except for a few small samples locked in a vault in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills.

Okay, I've gotta ask: who the hell loses close to three-quarters of a million dollars in San Diego's maddeningly over-priced real-estate market? This guy must be some kind of nitwit, right?

Well, actually, he's not a nitwit, he's Mitchell Wade, head of the defense contracting firm MZM Inc. Defense contractors, you know, they do business with the government via contracts doled out by the house defense appropriations committee. In MZM Inc's case, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. And who sits on the house defense appropriations committee and helped secure all that juicy government booty?

All you smart kids who guessed Randy 'Duke' Cunningham get a star.

So, what are we to conclude from this?

1) Mitchell Wade, head of the defense contracting firm MZM Inc., is the only person in the last five years to lose money in the San Diego real-estate market (did we mention home prices are skyrocketing at a clip of 25% annually?) and paid 700,000 more than the home's market worth [Aren't homes generally appraised before sale? Isn't it unlikely an appraiser would err by nearly 70% on the home's worth?--ed Nice point, Nickle-dick, but not necessarily. Mitchell Wade's company is making a lot of money and he's probably drawing a pretty hefty salary if he's a typical American CEO and hence might not have needed a loan and therefore never gone through the appraisal process; unlikely, yes, but not impossible.] . If he's that stupid, losing 700 large on a house, I wonder how good his MZM, Inc. defense products are? Hmmm. On second thought, remember the $700 hammers and $2000 toilet seats the Pentagon got caught buying a few years back?

Okay, so it's either that, or . . .

2) Mitchell Wade, head of the defense contracting firm MZM Inc., in a bid to 'fix' the appropriations system and land millions of dollars more in government contracts, essentially bribed Congressman Cunningham with 700 grand in slush money.

Here's a word defined: Bribe: n. Something, such as money or a favor, offered or given to a person in a position of trust to influence that person's views or conduct; illegal payment in exchange for favors or influence.

I don't know, call me cynical, but I'm putting my money on the second horse. Bribery, c'mon, Bribery!

Which brings us to marketing department's take on that old and nasty three-letter word: Lie. Lie has now been re-branded as a comprehensive statement.

With the revelations hitting the news like a turd in a punchbowl, Mr. Cunningham was asked to comment on the public perceptions of his house sale. A statement released by Cunningham's office Friday said the congressman was "working on a comprehensive statement that will address issues that have been raised recently."

Ooo, I like that. Can you imagine when you were a teenager, getting caught sneaking in the house at 4 am and stinking of beer and your dad demanding to know what you'd been doing?

"Dad, I'm working on a comprehensive statement that will address issues that have been raised recently."

No, that wouldn't work in my boyhood house nor yours, but in the big House on Capitol Hill, it just might. In the lexicon of the political class, Mr. Cunnigham's "comprehensive statement" will turn out to be nothing more than a carefully constructed lie.

By the way, here's a link to the San Diego Union article that broke the story.