Memorial Day Weekend, and the public tennis courts are full in Rehoboth Beach. It's a great day to be playing outside, and the two private courts at the Henlopen Acres Beach Club are more booked up than is usual for this early in the season. I don't know if Scanlon reserved a play time there or not but he is a tennis buff.
Yesterday was the first day of work for life guards at the beach here. I'm not sure what their pay is for this season, but last year it was $11.65 per hour. That is what Republican operative and former Abramoff partner Michael Scanlon was paid for the six day a week jobs, which he had done as a kid, and again in 2002 through 2005. Although he wanted to serve, Scanlon was not hired to be a guard this season. There was concern that his notoriety would be disturbing to beach goers here. There is no indication that he had ever tried to serve in the National Guard.
Tennis playing in Iraq was not so easy this weekend. A coach and two players were stopped, and told to get out of their car. Unknown assailants noted that they were wearing shorts, so they shot and killed them. There had been warnings that shorts were not acceptable, but I guess these three didn't know how dangerous shorts can be.
Happily for Michael Scanlon the U.S. is a different place. Because he had been Tom DeLay's press secretary, the boyish looking lobbyist was picked by Abramoff to form a partnership. They eventually stole 80 million from the Indian tribes that they were "representing."
As part of his plea deal Scanlon will have to return about 19 million; but it seems clear that he will still be a multimillionaire as a result of his crimes. Last year he bought a house in Rehoboth, currently valued at over 2 million. It is in his wife's name. Seven years his junior, he met this, his second wife, while she was working as a waitress one summer. State records indicate that there are six properties in Southern Delaware still in his own name. Under the Bush administration, crime does pay.
She's not exactly suffering either, but it almost makes you feel sorry for Martha Stewart. And she says that tennis whites are a "good thing."
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