The Ledge #81: Brazilian Julie

Scum Dealers and Our Golden Boy Senator

Three or four months ago, I told the story of a young friend and her treatment at a certain used car dealership. For those who don’t remember that episode, this woman traded in her vehicle and weeks later discovered that they had failed to pay off her original loan. After weeks of getting the runaround, they finally fulfilled their obligations.
What people don’t know is the aftermath of that report. Although I never mentioned the car dealer by name, and even though the people in this room didn’t catch my little hints, somehow all hell broke loose and various threats were made to my friends here at the radio station.
Well, I certainly feel vindicated after days of newspaper headlines. Not only have these fine people filed for bankruptcy, they’re dragging our state’s golden boy into the situation. I guess we now know why they didn’t pay off my friend’s loan – they couldn’t.
In case you haven’t read a newspaper or watched the news in a few days, here’s a rundown of the facts. The owner of this dealership discovered he was being investigated for fraud in September, 2004. One month later, he secured a three million dollar loan. Last month, the company filed for bankruptcy. Our Golden Boy Senator has had a lengthy relationship with the company’s owner; he was at one time his campaign manager and has been described as his “best friend”. Golden Boy was a board member of the bank who loaned the three million dollars. Additionally, the property used as a lien for this loan was being leased to Thune.
Additionally, there are many connections to the minority owner of this dealership. Actually, this guy is now the sole owner of what’s left of the company, as he paid $50 for the remaining 75% of the company. Funny, I would have given almost twice that. Anyway, besides financially contributing to Golden Boy’s campaign, his wife earned almost nine grand as an employee on the campaign. This guy also was the operator of at least one anti-Daschle website, daschlemansion.com, and personally bought full-page ads to promote the site in the Yankton Press & Dakotan.
Golden Boy finally spoke about the controversy this past Friday, and quite frankly he had very little to say. Of course, it helps when our local press is so afraid of being labeled as a liberal paper that they refuse to pose any follow-up questions or challenges to any silly answers. He wasn’t dumb enough to actually deny that he had a hand in any loans to the dealership; he just couldn’t talk about it due to confidentiality issues. He also claimed that he rarely talks to his so-called best friend, although at least one employee disputes that claim, stating that up to the bankruptcy filing they chatted almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Yet he had the nerve to blame his enemies for his problems, despite the fact that all of the issues brought forward so far are a part of the public record.
This is Golden Boy’s usual method of deflecting any controversy or criticism. It’s always the fault of Daschle’s former staffers. Some of his people have even claimed that Daschle’s people are responsible for the ongoing investigations against this dealership by the Attorney General of Iowa. How did they pull that out of their ass? This blame-the-bloggers approach is especially ironic when you consider that the infamous Jeff Gannon, the gay escort turned fake White House reporter, was employed by the Golden Boy campaign last year to create dirt against Daschle that was published on anti-Daschle blogs.
Good riddance, you former scum car dealer. Your business is gone, your million dollar home is for sale, and your best friend is apparently throwing you under the bus. As John Lennon once sang, “Instant karma’s gonna get you, gonna look you right in the face, better get yourself together darlin’, join the human race.”