Shooting down Cunningham's legend

[kskiska]

Ex-comrades in arms say disgraced congressmanwas a good fighter pilot but a poor officer with flair for self-promotion

During his days as a Navy pilot, Randy "Duke" Cunningham headed a squadron whose members poked fun at each other by writing humorous entries in a journal dubbed the "hit log."

Cunningham would make entries in the book from time to time, singling out his subordinates for good-natured ribbing. But his writing was so riddled with misspellings and tortured punctuation that a junior officer took to diagramming the sentences, describing Cunningham's grammatical mistakes as "Dukelexsia."

(snip)

Back then, before he retired from the Navy and ran for Congress, Cunningham was known to the general public as a war hero. He was the gutsy fighter pilot who shot down five enemy aircraft during the Vietnam War, thereby becoming the only Vietnam-era naval aviator to earn the coveted title of ace.

But among his fellow officers and pilots, Cunningham – who pleaded guilty last month to taking $2.4 million in bribes as a congressman – had a somewhat different reputation. He was considered a bit buffoonish, a solid pilot but a less-than-stellar officer, a guy with a knack for self-promotion but not much talent for military leadership.

more…
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20060115-9999-lz1n15legend.html

[salin]

1. not only 10 months ago

this arrogant SOB was pulling in the dough and assets and clearly believed there would be no end in sight.