Stu Bykofsky: Shaggin' on our dime? We have needs, too
THE LATEST scandal swirling through Harrisburg proves there's nothing new under the sun, nor between the bedsheets. A dirty dozen politicians were indicted for illegally using state money to pay staffers for doing campaign work while on the clock, but Mike Manzo is a standout.
THE LATEST scandal swirling through Harrisburg proves there's nothing new under the sun, nor between the bedsheets.
A dirty dozen politicians were indicted for illegally using state money to pay staffers for doing campaign work while on the clock, but Mike Manzo is a standout.
While chief of staff to House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, Manzo gave a $21,000-a-year state job (later raised to $29,000) to a young woman he reportedly was shtupping.
He wasn't inventing the wheel here.
In 1976, it was revealed that Democratic U.S. Rep. Wayne Hays had declared independence from morality by giving a federal job to his blond paramour, Elizabeth Ray, almost 40 years his junior. Hired to be a secretary, she infamously admitted: "I can't type. I can't file. I can't even answer the phone."
Ray, 27, began working for Hays in 1974 as a clerk, but the layabout later landed in a luxurious office in the Longworth House Office Building. "Supposedly," she told the Washington Post, "I'm on the oversight committee. But I call it the Out-of-Sight Committee." Ray "earned" $14,000 a year, but those were in bicentennial bucks.
Keystone Staters have not yet heard from Manzo's friend-with-benefits, Angela Bertugli, who was chosen Greene County's Miss Rain Day in 2001, but you can bet the baying hounds of the press are pursuing her for insights to match that of the fabulous Miss Ray.
Women often complain about hitting the glass ceiling in some jobs, but never about hitting the shag rug in others. In this arena, women have always had a leg up.
As a politician's mistress, there's little chance your "job" will be outsourced to India - unless the guy just wants phone sex.
Bertugli reportedly got paid even though she didn't show up for work and had no real duties. D'uh! Why would you show up for work if you had no real duties? That would be as dumb as . . . Elizabeth Ray.
Is a "no-work" job such a terrible concept? Looking at his prodigious vacation schedule, some say George W. Bush achieved a "no-work" presidency - and did less damage to America when he was in Crawford than in D.C.
"No-work" jobs used to be filled by what were called "ghost" employees, but ghosts don't fill out bathing suits as well as a "raining" beauty queen. If the accusation against him is true, Manzo deserves praise for his ability as a recruiter. No lech like Hays, he was only twice as old as his spring fling, whom he reportedly bedded immediately after meeting her in a bar.
("Bedded" is imprecise. They did it in his car.)
I've been accused of laying down on the job, but not like this.
If he's guilty, Manzo ought to get jail time and make restitution to the state treasury. I don't know how he can repay all the free sex.
Just so there's no misunderstanding, politicians are entitled to as much sex as they can get their hands on. I just think citizens like you and me shouldn't have to pay for it. Why should we get screwed when we didn't get screwed?
Considering the damage politicians do when they are working, "no work" is an arrangement we should look into. "No man's life, liberty, or property are safe," Mark Twain said, "while the Congress is in session." Same for the Harrisburglars.
So, OK, elected officials: Don't show up in Harrisburg. Don't pass any laws. Let Rendell take care of everything.
As for Manzo, if he's guilty, I salute him for giving a new meaning to the term "pork barrel."
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns: