Burt’s Eye View: Blowing the Whistle on Waxman
by Burt PrelutskyI have come clean in the past about having been friends with Rep. Henry Waxman. We had met in the late 1950s at UCLA and wound up spending a lot of time over the following decade playing cards. In fact, once, some years later, I received a phone call from a guy profiling Waxman for the Washington Post. He wanted my impression of the young, pre-Congressional fellow. I told him that Henry was a terrible poker player, but was very astute at hearts. I said it made perfect sense because poker is a cut-throat game, every man for himself, whereas hearts is a game that involves constantly changing alliances. I regarded it as a perfect metaphor for a career in politics.
I knew from personal experience that Henry was a fish when it came to poker, but it was some time later that I found out how truly awful he was. Before being elected to Congress, he had gone to Sacramento as a state assemblyman. Wherever politicians congregate, you will find two things — poker games and lobbyists. As you can imagine, lobbyists are not there to win money from those they spend their lives trying to influence. But it seems that Henry was so inept that, in spite of their best efforts, they kept beating him. This so embarrassed the lobbyists that they finally banished him from the game. (more…)
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