Randy Cassingham's Blog

Posted by Mike - IN on March 7, 2008:

The Liddy story is funny. Kind of weird is the fact that "Randy Cunningham" was a Viet Nam Navy Phantom Jet Ace who went on to politics and was elected to California's 44th, 50th, and 51st Districts in the House of Representatives. After almost 15 years as a rep. he was forced to resign as part of a plea agreement on tax evasion, bribery, mail fraud, & wire fraud charges.

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Maybe Liddy could relate to him. He seemed to go by "Randall" professionally, but he was "Randy" or "Duke" to his friends. Here's his Wikipedia entry. He is still in prison. -rc

Posted by Jim, Santa Barbara on March 8, 2008:

4 /12 years in prison wasn't nearly enough for the criminal G. Gordon Liddy, who continued his vile practices when he got out. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Gordon_Liddy#White_House_years for the foul details.

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That section relates what he did to get sentenced to prison, not what he did after he got out. As far as I can see he wasn't doing anything particularly vile after prison (related in the next section). I presume you're not speaking of his reversion to Catholicism. -rc

Posted by Dave, Salem NH on March 8, 2008:

It was the *BOGUS* Stella Awards that brought me to the "This Is True" website a couple of years ago. I Googled "Stella Awards" after receiving the same email from the same person two years in a row (she must have had a short memory!) and I was sure I had been sent the same email from different people several times in the preceding several years. After perusing the website for a while, I was convinced of its value, and signed up for the free newsletter. I upgraded to Premium about a year ago, but still keep my free subscription so I can forward it to my friends when they send me the BOGUS Awards. I hate to see my (otherwise intelligent) friends beguiled by false urban legends.

Posted by Tim, Fresno on March 8, 2008:

Since I know there is a well-deserved place in hell reserved for G. Gordon Liddy I hope you didn't give him a Get of Hell Free card.

Posted by Denise, NC on March 8, 2008:

People not knowing the difference between real and fake lawsuits does not surprise me. I have had very intense conversations with people who just insist that these bogus stories are true, and they don't want to hear about the truth behind the original Stella case. Even when I direct them to This is True they come back with "Yeah, well who is HE (Randy) to say what's really true?"

Sigh.

They would rather trust an anonymously written, indiscriminately forwarded email than someone who is willing to back up their statements with citations. It makes me embarrassed to call them family.

Posted by Tristram, Raymond ME on March 10, 2008:

"You know lawyers are expensive." That was a great moment...did you catch the double meaning there as you said it?

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You mean, did I know that he was himself a lawyer, and that he had had huge needs for lawyers in his past? You bet. :-) If you meant something else, let me know and I'll update this. -rc

Posted by Joseph, Richmond NH on March 10, 2008:

I'm a big fan of this is true and the stella awards. I just read this post, and remembered that my drivers ed instructor handed out the bogus stella awards during my class last year. Does anybody do research anymore?

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Some do, and I respect them for it. But it is astounding how few bother -- astounding because of how absurdly easy it is these days. -rc

Posted by Chris, East Anglia U.K. on March 11, 2008:

I have spent most of my career overseas, far from home. My family and I have corresponded frequently, particularly my mother and I. From the moment email essentially replaced letter writing, she has very often sent me stories she considers interesting, including those ubiquitous urges to "forward this to everyone in the world and all who have come and gone" messages.

Several years ago, I made it a habit to try to verify these "stories" by visiting sites such as www.snopes.com (and of course, www.stellaawards.com), among others. Frustratingly, even after explaining this to her and giving her the reference for it (carefully and with as much tact as I can muster), Mom still sends me these annoying messages. People seem to WANT to believe the worst, and will not attempt to verify. Odd when one considers there is more than enough real stupidity and downright badness in the world.

Posted by Randy in Seattle on March 11, 2008:

While I generally disagree with Liddy's politics, I don't see the point of attacking him here. If he can tour with Timothy Leary, and if he can be friendly with Al Franken (and defended him from being shouted down, we should just accept him for who his is - it's not as if he's pretending to be someone he's not - and have a little fun.

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I presume you're speaking of the comments by "Jim, Santa Barbara" and "Tim, Fresno". I knew Liddy toured with Leary, but didn't know he was friends with Franken. Still, obviously I knew who Liddy was when the call came in, and I indeed approached it the way you suggested. I am surprised by the anger some still hold for him. -rc

Posted by Scott, Killeen, TX on March 11, 2008:

Randy, you're right about it being absurdly easy to do research nowadays. I was thinking about it just yesterday, how vastly different it is now compared to before the mid-90's, and it's improving almost noticeably every day. Now I know why people live longer nowadays; they want to see what tomorrow brings. :)

One big problem, though, is that many people are poor at discrimination and critical thinking, and thus can't tell the difference between the real thing and the fakes which typically have glaring flaws. And then there are the, well, airheads (substitute with politically-correct term) who could care less if it's real or not. And, it's very easy to find crap on the Internet.

I've very pointedly (after "politely" and "pointedly" failed) told a couple of people that they were sending drivel, and not to send any more drivel, and I suspect that they are merely excluding me from the list now.