Political Aftershocks of Tailhook Hit Arizona’s Senatorial Campaign

Today’s daily dose of Tailhook comes from that well-known Navy town, Phoenix.

U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is catching hell for his attendance at the raunchy Tailhook convention.

Not the raunchy 1991 convention, but the raunchy 1987 convention. In the current political climate, there is no statute of limitations on raunchiness.

McCain’s woes started with a reference in a recent Newsweek magazine to a 1987 issue of Hook, the house organ of the San Diego-based Tailhook Assn.

Hook reported that McCain, a former Navy fighter pilot, was “no stranger to Tailhook reunions” and had “participated in the camaraderie of the third deck” at the 1987 convention in Las Vegas, where supposedly much friskiness took place.

Two Democrats who want McCain’s job have reacted with shock and alarm. (Politicians, especially those challenging incumbents, often express shock and alarm.) They accused McCain of lying and being a hypocrite.

The hypocrite stuff is because McCain has gotten much mileage out of being the first member of Congress to call for an investigation of Tailhook ’91 (which he did not attend).

One of McCain’s opponents demanded, “What did he know and when did he know it?” (Are those Arizona candidates phrasemakers or what?)

On a Phoenix radio talk show, McCain attempted an answer. He said he never went to the third-floor hospitality suites at the ’87 Tailhook, but conceded:

“I heard there was drinking going on, furniture sometimes broken and occasional vomiting.”

Now, there’s a political slogan for you: “Puking Maybe, Sexual Harassment Never.”

McCain is exasperated by the whole business. He says his rivals have “set a new political low mark for our state, which is hard to do in Arizona.”

On that point, the senator may have spoken too soon.

Now that McCain is tied (however tenuously) to the Tailhook scandal, former Gov. Evan Mecham (booted from office in disgrace after a 1988 impeachment trial) has been emboldened to attempt a re-entry into politics.

He’s thinking of running as a write-in against McCain on a kind of latter-day feminist platform. No kidding.

City Hall Pugilist

Gee, the way the press is carrying on about the “kick your ass” incident, you’d think nothing like that ever happened before at City Hall.

Oh, ye of little historical memory.

It wasn’t that many years ago that an aide to a county supervisor came to City Hall to talk to a city councilman about patching up a political turf dispute.

The two talked outside the 12th-floor council chamber. The talk went badly.

The aide to the supervisor got angry at the councilman. An aide to the councilman tried to intervene on behalf of his boss.

This made the aide to the supervisor even angrier.

“Shut up! Shut up! Don’t provoke me!” he shouted.

He threw a fist. It narrowly missed landing smack on the head of the councilman’s aide.

The Evening Tribune the next day had a front-page story: “Good-Will Mission Winds Up in Punch.”

And who was this loud-talking, punch-throwing aide to a county supervisor?

A bantam-weight Baptist minister named George Stevens. Yes, the very same.

Judge Gives It Thumbs Down

It says here.

* Life, art and the court system.

The judge in a murder trial has denied a defense motion to order jurors to see the movie “Cape Fear.”

The attorney for a sailor accused of killing a school counselor in Balboa Park (a sailor co-defendant has pleaded guilty) wanted jurors to see the movie’s portrayal of peace-loving people stalked by a homicidal and rape-minded maniac (played by Robert DeNiro).

The defense says the counselor was an aggressive, thrill-seeking homosexual who forced the sailor to stab him in self-defense.

The two sailors had just seen “Cape Fear” the night of the killing.

The judge prefers facts, not fiction, from attorneys.

* K-BEST morning disc jockey Ken Copper hears that President Bush is making a bold bid for the beer drinkers’ vote by promising “a thousand pints of Lite.”

* Press releases I released immediately:

“Let’s talk about hair . . .”