Gimp of the perverse: The loves of Jack Burkman, Part I

The Beltway--Where does one even begin with someone like this? At least he's complicated, and if you think not, read on. I've established contact with several former (what would the word even be? lovers? victims?) women who have endured the unfortunate attentions of lobbyist and GOP media pundit, Jack Burkman, Jr. The deeper you dig into the lives and behaviors of people like this, the more you begin to realize how damaged they are and that behind all of the bluster is a very sad individual who needs help. Where do the problems begin? Where else but in the home, during child-rearing.

Not that it's some kind of immutable law, but the "Jr." part of his name itself suggests a patriarchal family culture, and indeed, my suspicions were confirmed by one woman who dated Burkman nine years ago when he was just becoming known as a media figure, thanks-in-part to people like Bill Maher (thanks for nothing, Bill) for putting him on their programs for the sake of "fairness" and "balance." Had they really meant it, they wouldn't have bothered in the first place. It should be noted that Maher himself is well known for his own womanizing and has illustrated some arch-conservative tendencies over the years that don't speak well for him. Burkman represents all kinds of institutions and individuals as a lobbyist as well as in his role as a conservative (I use the term very loosely here since he's assisting selfish interests in gorging at the public trough) pundit. If only this was all he did.

Burkman's past support and shilling for the Rev. James Dobson's "Focus on the Family/The Family Research Council" is consistent with a patriarchal demeanor. But there are some indications that he's bored with it all and yearns for a modern woman with intellect, wit, and some kind of a sense of self somewhere in the mix, and he wasn't alone in this with the other privileged former clients of the DC Madam's prostitution ring, Pamela Martin & Associates which catered to men wanting "intelligent and educated" escorts. Some of the women he's dated are impressive, smart, witty (not merely attractive), and he warms to this to some extent. You could say that the dirty politicians and lobbyists are intellectually-sexually starved and find their fiefdoms in hell boring and confining, like anyone with a meaningless career or job.

A very recent date of Burkman's conveyed this to me:

He also acted genuinely surprised to find out that I wasn't a whore, and that I did not want his money. It makes me feel sorry for the man, but he dug his own grave with that one. He started talking to me about marriage (on the second date!) and told me repeatedly, "Honey you should get married. I can't believe you're not married, a girl like you.I can't believe a guy hasn't married you yet." So weird. Then he asked me if I wanted children. It scared me.

He told me honestly that I wasn't a whore, and that so many girls he met were whores (well if they're prostitutes ...) and I said something about having a nihilistic view on life and he jumped as if surprised to learn I knew the meaning, or as he said, "the correct meaning of that word," and that it had been so long since he had been with a girl who knew the word, at least the correct meaning.

But it depends on who's he "dating" at the time, and old habits die hard. The cynicism seems to rear its ugly head first. Does this sound like someone who's torn? But he was impressed with this woman's intellect and warmed to it. This speaks well for him in a general sense and raises the question of whether he feels trapped in the life he's been drawn into as a conservative media pundit and an advocate for things that he probably doesn't believe in, maybe just marginally and out of convenience rather than actual conviction. As the lady stated, "he dug his own grave with that one." The bars may be gold, but a cage is still a cage, and he has the intellect to appreciate this.

Yes, Burkman has a dark side as well, as strange as this is going to read to people aware of his general demeanor since for many that's the only side they ever see. One recent (this year) "paramour" put it like this:

I don't think in his mind, he thinks that there is anything wrong with what he does. His morals are screwed up. He treats women like whores but he promotes family values, he even did work for the FRC. After I called him a wolf, he looked a little mad and disappointed and said, "You looked me up." That is when he got really defensive and told me he did proposition those girls, but so what, anyone would have, but that he never payed [sic] for prostitutes [sic] in his life, that he would never pay for sex. [a patent lie on his part] I didn't say anything after that because he obviously did not see the connection between the two.

Burkman apparently also walks with a limp, like some perverse character out of Gothic literature, rather than a middle-class man with an Ivy League education. However, Burkman's not a physically unattractive man by any means and suffers from a foreshortened leg and soul, which is why you would associate him with someone as nefarious as the ectomorph Rev. James Dobson and the lamentable Bush-Cheney campaign of unfortunate years past. The list of his righist hack credentials is substantial as even a brief visit to his website will illustrate, and he was even intimately involved in the attempt to impeach former President Bill Clinton for the very behavior he and his peers on the right engage in regularly.

In 2000:

I first met Jack in the bar at the Capital Grille (a popular lobbying/political hang out). I didn't notice the limp then, but when I picked him up for our dinner date I saw that it appeared like he was dragging one foot behind. I asked if he had recently hurt himself and he said he was born with one foot shorter than the other (why he doesn't wear a corrective shoe is beyond me). So he has a very distinct gait.

This is just my amateur armchair analysis, but I'm guessing he has a lot of anger and desire to prove himself (last kid picked for sports, teased about it, etc.). I can't prove any of that but he has this angry drive about him flavored with a lot of sarcasm & cynicism. [this indicates unhappiness with the state of things] I also made a comment about how women look to see how their boyfriends treat their mother as an indication of how they'll be treated and he absolutely howled at that, telling me "[H]oney, you're barking up the wrong tree then."Not a fan of Mom.

But his father must have called him 25 times one night when I was over. He let it go to the answering machine every time. His father was watching political talk shows and calling Jack every few minutes with a comment or opinion.Very close to his father.

I'm not a member of the psychiatric community either, but some things are simply obvious here, and I should add that Burkman's not a very good liar when he's occasionally exposed to genuine scrutiny, spouting half-truths when he's cornered as most scoundrels tend to do. But that's how liars and criminals behave, and he's represented more-than-a-few in the last decade. I believe these women and what they have had to say. Incredible resources and effort are constantly being marshaled to protect these men from scrutiny, something one would associate with the apparatchiki of the Soviet system.

Indeed, it's good to have friends in the corporate-owned mainstream media to cover for you and your misbehavior, and political appointees in the federal bureaucracy to pressure law enforcement to stand down. By admitting in his public denials of being in the DC Madam's phone records and admitting that he spoke to mainstream media-outlets who then took him at his word, he has basically lied on multiple occasions. The first lie is certain: He was in the DC Madam's phone records, and it's even money that mainstream journalists really did talk to him and were told to stand down either by their editors or the owners of those publications and/or wire services. Why? To keep the game going, to keep money coming from the public trough to dirty corporations and government contractors, and even towards rightist religious institutions. To preserve the unaccountable power of criminals.

What a waste of a man. What a waste of an education. What a waste of this, the final democratic experiment in the history of the human race, a species assuredly headed for oblivion thanks to people like Jack Burkman, Jr. and the people pulling his strings. How can someone like this live with themselves? Therein is part of the reason behind the sexual addiction. Sad. Pathetic. True.

The End?