<\/p>\n
I was watching the debacle on CSPAN \u2013 the senate hearings, with that panel of portly gray-haired men \u2013 not a vagina to be found \u2013 all advising our leaders on the issue of whether birth control should be covered through insurance.\u00a0 Lester Worsham was reveling in it, running a simultaneous live commentary on his show, but the sound of his voice made me sick.\u00a0 I could only take so much vitriol.<\/p>\n The call was from a woman I knew at NOW who had a friend in the Commerce Department, who worked with a woman who\u2019d worked with Worsham back in the day.<\/p>\n It took a lot of phone time to work my way through that chain, building enough trust just to get the first friend to give me the number of the second.\u00a0 That was how I did business, staying calm, doing my best to sound trustworthy and empathetic.<\/p>\n The woman, the source, finally agreed to meet me, at a Shoney\u2019s restaurant in Brentwood.\u00a0 I got there just before 6 p.m., the place half-deserted, not a good sign at the supper hour.\u00a0 I recognized her from her own description, auburn hair, done up (though she\u2019d left out the startling shade), and blue print blouse.\u00a0 She had a hard edge to her face, looked like a smoker; like a smoker who wanted a cigarette really badly.\u00a0\u00a0 I ordered coffee just to keep her company with hers, very aware that she was jittery from more than the caffeine and nicotine.<\/p>\n I thought we might have to do a lot of dancing around, but she didn\u2019t want to linger.\u00a0 Apparently, once she\u2019d made up her mind to pass her tale along, she was taking a hit and run approach.\u00a0 I set my recorder on the table, and with a raspy confidential whisper, she told me what she knew.<\/p>\n Back in early \u201991, she said, yeah, it had to be, because the reason she came back to the office was she\u2019d left the divorce papers on her desk, and they had to be signed and returned by the next day.\u00a0 That would make it February, 1991.<\/p>\n I backed her up and steered her toward the point, whatever it was.\u00a0 Okay, so she\u2019d come back there, to this little AM station she was working at, secretary, receptionist, general slave girl, as she put it.\u00a0 She always left right at 5, didn\u2019t want to hang around.\u00a0 This new guy \u2013 Worsham \u2013 came in right about that time, to get ready for his evening call-in show.\u00a0 It was a dead time slot, and that didn\u2019t last for long.\u00a0 He worked his way up to the 1-4 p.m. slot in no time, Buddy\u2019s slot, and then, of course, he blew Des Moines for Chicago, who wouldn\u2019t, really?<\/p>\n But back then, he was a nobody, came from nowhere, didn\u2019t even have a resume on file, and she should know.\u00a0 He was working the dead shift, and there was something about him that gave her a real bad feeling.\u00a0 Not the usual stuff, you know?\u00a0 The ass-grabbing, call you sweet cheeks, all that baloney.\u00a0 He was like that, too, but there was something else about him, almost like he had superpowers, you know?\u00a0 Like he knew how to make trouble in ways no one ever thought of before.<\/p>\n \u201cYou probably think I\u2019m nuts\u201d, my informant shook her head.\u00a0 \u201cBut Buddy Tartello?\u00a0 The afternoon guy Worsham replaced like that<\/i>?\u201d\u00a0 She snapped her tobacco stained fingers in my face.\u00a0 \u201cHe was a great guy, everybody loved him, talk about a fella who could have gone places. You\u2019d never have thought he was the kind to do what they said he did.\u201d<\/p>\n Again, I prompted, not sure I really wanted to hear.<\/p>\n \u201cSuicide\u201d, she hissed, as if reminding me of something I was supposed to have known.\u00a0 \u201cBlew his brains out.\u00a0 They said it was because he was taking kickbacks, but that wasn\u2019t what was happening.\u00a0 I know that for a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n The facts, finally?\u00a0 She\u2019d gone back for her divorce papers, slipping into the building \u201con the QT\u201d.\u00a0 For one thing, she wasn\u2019t supposed to have a key to the outside door.\u00a0 For another, Worsham was alone that time of day; it was a small station and he did his own technical work, which the owner loved, because it saved him money, even though they reported a sound engineer on the FCC logs, officially speaking.<\/p>\n Anyway, she slipped into the office, didn\u2019t even turn the lights on, and was inside when she heard voices in the hallway.\u00a0 She peeked out through the door, open just a crack, and saw Worsham paying off some guy in a slick suit.<\/p>\n \u201cWait\u201d, I held up a hand.\u00a0 \u201cYou mean he was taking<\/i> money, right?\u00a0 Payola?\u201d<\/p>\n She shook her head emphatically, then looked around as if her movements might have attracted attention.\u00a0 The place was still uncomfortably deserted.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, the guy in the suit, I\u2019d seen him around, he was some political guy, kind of weird when you think about it, since the \u201992 elections were still so far off, but he was definitely in that business, and Worsham handed him a wad of cash so big he couldn\u2019t carry it in his pants pocket.\u00a0 He tried, and it made him look, well, you know.\u00a0 That\u2019s how I got such a good look.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t even in an envelope, like Worsham was just being\u2026what\u2019s the word?\u00a0 Brazen, yeah, that\u2019s it, a kind of screw you, we\u2019re not making this all pretty and neat.\u00a0 The guy took the roll of bills, had to smooth them all out and put the wad in his jacket pocket.\u00a0 Didn\u2019t even have a briefcase on him.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that the way those high flyers do it?\u201d<\/p>\n I sat for a second, wildly trying to put this all together.\u00a0 \u201cOkay, so, you\u2019re telling me that Lester Worsham, in February of 1991, is paying off a political operative with big wads of cash?\u00a0 This nobody guy working for beans in some boondocks radio station?\u00a0 Maybe it was someone else\u2019s money?\u00a0 Maybe he was just the go-between?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHave you ever met Lester Worsham?\u201d, she stared at me.\u00a0 \u201cThat man doesn\u2019t carry water for anyone, and never did.\u201d\u00a0 She reached for her purse. \u201cAnyway, that\u2019s all I\u2019m going to say.\u00a0 And if you so much as hint that it was me that told, I\u2019ll deny the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n And with that, as if her tolerance for tension had been reached, she scooted out of the booth so fast the cups rattled in their saucers.\u00a0 I was left there with my mouth gaping open.<\/p>\n Back home, I worked though everything I\u2019d heard, weighed the pros and cons of posting the story.\u00a0 It was no doubt sloppy journalism, but I went with it, being oh, so careful with my wording.\u00a0 The blogosphere.\u00a0 The last frontier of free-for-all gray-ethics reporting.<\/p>\n I wrote it up overnight, hitting the \u201cpost\u201d button some time after midnight, bleary and haunted, feeling like I\u2019d set something irrevocable in motion.\u00a0 This wasn\u2019t innuendo or some philosophical commentary, this was an assertion of fact, evidence of a real crime.\u00a0 I felt like I\u2019d activated some launch sequence code.\u00a0 Whether my missile would score a direct hit and take out the enemy or whether it would simply ignite a chain reaction of mutually assured destruction that took all of us down, I had no idea.<\/p>\n The next day my in box was flooded with email, so much that the NOW website crashed sometime after noon.\u00a0 The volume alone was enough to shock me; I had no illusions that my little blogs reached more than a small niche readership.\u00a0 But here were hundreds of responses.\u00a0 The real shock, though, was in the violent, scathing, obscenity-laden tone of about 95% of the messages, and that was just in the subject line.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t dare actually read so much disturbing garbage.\u00a0 The office let me know the phone calls were just as bad.<\/p>\n I deleted every last message, a task that took a lot of time and dragged my spirits into the depths.<\/p>\n What had I done?\u00a0 What had I gotten myself involved in?<\/p>\n I knew I\u2019d gone too far, crossed some line.\u00a0 I\u2019d tried to do something noble and now I was drowning in ugliness.<\/p>\n I was done.\u00a0 I\u2019d ended up somewhere I knew I had to get out of, out of this business, out of this a stupid hopeless crusade against an evil that was obviously so much bigger than I.<\/p>\n I paced the living room for a few minutes, seriously considering leaving Washington, now, today, forever; determined, at the least, to quit my job, put as much psychic and geographic distance as money could buy between me and everything I\u2019d worked for.<\/p>\n The rational side of me – what was left of it\u2013 suggested that before I burned all my bridges, maybe I needed to take a breather.<\/p>\n I tossed my laptop on the sofa, threw on my sneakers, and left the apartment for a walk, fleeing toward fresh air like a bat out of hell.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n < previous<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 next ><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" < previous\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 next > It wasn\u2019t much, but in the middle of the senate hearings, I got a call, with a lead. I was watching the debacle on CSPAN \u2013 the senate hearings, with that … Continue reading ![\"coffee](\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo10-150x200.jpg\")
<\/a>It wasn\u2019t much, but in the middle of the senate hearings, I got a call, with a lead.<\/p>\n