Keeping up with the bizarre utterances and antics of perennially ethically challenged Loudoun Republican Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) would of course be a full time job even in normal times, but he’s been on a real roll the last few days that’s made it a special challenge.
As a public service, we’ll offer just the highlights:
• Eugene claims Pope Francis as “facebook friend”
On Eugene’s “Public Advocate” website on February 25, Eugene posted a press release with the headline “Pope Francis ‘Friends’ Eugene Delgaudio Heavenly Vision About Internet,” and concluding with the boast, “It is a wonderful thing to have God’s top leader as a facebook friend.”
You have to read the release pretty carefully to discover, however, that the sum total of the basis for Eugene’s assertion of electronic buddy status with His Holiness is that (a) the pope said the other day that the Internet is a “gift from God” and (b) Eugene said sort of the same thing back in 1999.
• Eugene says he hasn’t “seen or spoken with” Donny Ferguson since 2007 . . . just possibly a lie
Eugene has managed to infuriate many otherwise kindred right-wing homophobic tea party “Christian” nut cases in Texas by mailing out dirty-trick literature on behalf of right-wing homophobic tea party “Christian” nut case U.S. Senate candidate Steve Stockman that dumps on other right-wing homophobic tea party “Christian” nut case candidates running in the Republican primary. The fact that former Delgaudio aide and acolyte Donny Ferguson is Stockman’s spokesman did not escape the notice of the right-wing Texas crowd, who have raised accusations of improper and possibly illegal coordination between Delgaudio’s nonprofit and a political campaign. One irked Texas right-wing “Christian” nut case has now sent out a Twitter feed featuring a phone interview he did with Delgaudio the other day in which he asked Delgaudio point blank about his connection with Donny. Delgaudio is heard on the recording asserting, “I haven’t seen or spoken to Donny Ferguson since 2007.” This might just possibly be untrue, given that Donny has been continuously doing paid work for Eugene in the years since, receiving tens of thousands of dollars (a lot of it at taxpayer expense) to produce Eugene’s “news[sic]letters” and postcard mailings.
• Maybe some intern did it
Delgaudio’s boyish attorney Charlie King announced with great fanfare today that, in connection with Eugene’s upcoming court case in which he is facing removal from office for corruption and misuse of office for private gain, he is seeking to subpoena the Southern Poverty Law Center, which labeled Eugene’s Public Advocate anti-gay organization a “hate group.”
Stunts like this are of course part and parcel of Delgaudio’s venerable strategy of trying to distract attention from the substance of the corruption charges against him and to claim that he is merely being picked on by the vast left-wing conspiracy.
But even by Eugene’s standards, the “logic” of this subpoena, which is seeking all documentation surrounding the SPLC’s hate group designation, is a marvel of legal reasoning. To quote Attorney King: “Was the SPLC’s decision to name Pubic Advocate a hate group made reluctantly, after careful study, or did some intern decide to send out a press release? This is an important question.”
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