Arriving in Alaska, I was surprised to be landing at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.
Surprised because Ted Stevens is a laughing stock amongst internet technorati.
Why did the Alaska Legislature rename the airport in 2000 for a living Senator?
Did they not realize that was risky? Why not wait until Ted was safely 6-feet-under?
Now it seems both father and son are crooks.
From the NY Times:
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 — Ben Stevens is often said by Alaskans to be the spitting image of his father, Senator Ted Stevens. They have the same broad forehead, wide-set eyes and compact physique. They share the same rough-hewn personality, seemingly always spoiling for a fight.
Now, father and son share a new, unwelcome distinction. Both are under investigation by the Justice Department over their ties to an Alaska businessman who has confessed to bribing public officials.
The Alaska home of Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, was raided last week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His son’s offices in the Alaska Legislature — he was a state senator until this year — were raided last summer.
Neither Ted Stevens, who is 83, nor Ben Stevens, 48, a fisherman turned politician and lobbyist who is the youngest of the senator’s three sons, has been charged with a crime. …
… The story of the Stevens family is central to the rough-and-tumble history of Alaska politics — the elder Stevens entered the Senate in 1968, a decade after Alaska was granted statehood — and the latest chapter has its elements of tortured family drama.
Many Alaskans have been left wondering whether it was a doting, fiercely ambitious father who brought the son under the suspicion of criminal investigators, or an intemperate, boastful son who entangled his aging father in the Justice Department’s fast-growing investigation. …
Rick McCharles 