"... ever caught"

The fabulous emptywheel hosted Book Club at FDL with Marcus Stern and others who wrote the book (and broke the story) about Duke Cunningham. Fascinating stuff in the comments there...

For example, this is Stern:

"Charlie Wilson frequented the parties at the Watergate and later the Westin. We had several interviews with him for the book. He defends earmarks. But he adds something interesting, I think, even though we have never reported it, not even in the book. He said he had to use earmarks to get money for the mujahideen in Afghanistan back in the 1980s because there wasn’t public support for that effort or even support within the CIA. But, he notes, there is a lot of public support and support in the administration for the war on terror. So he would not need to do today what he did then, he notes. The Cunningham scandal shows us that a lot of the earmarking today is blatant profiteering rather than policy kibitzing."