Duncan Hunter was once a telegenic rising star in the Republican party. Today, he is a felon and his Congressional seat is vacant. He is scheduled to report to a Federal Prison on May 29, 2020 for an eleven month sentence. There are some lessons here that we could learn. We must stop nepotism and uniform worship.

Duncan Hunter resigned from Congress in January, 2020, nearly 11 years to the day after he first assumed his father’s seat in Congress. As the San Diego Union Tribune reported:

Duncan Hunter squandered one of the rarest opportunities in America: to serve in Congress.

Out of more than 200 million people living in the United States who are at least 25 years old — the minimum age required for Congress — only 435 are members of the House of Representatives.

Gaining a congressional seat, typically, is no easy task. But Hunter pretty much had his handed to him by his congressman father. Given the family name, the conservative positions he shared with most of his constituents and his widely-lauded military service, the younger Hunter likely could have served in Congress as long as he wanted.

Inherited seats are a very bad thing. Widows inheriting their husband’s seat and children grabbing a parent’s seat because of name recognition are two of these inherited seat issues. The other is a top aide getting the seat after the Representative retires.

What the media seemed to know, but didn’t widely disseminate to the public was that Hunter, the son, had some character issues. Again, from the Union Tribune article:

In Congress, Hunter gained attention for partying and unorthodox behavior well before the details of his personal life surfaced during the campaign-finance scandal. He was the marquee member of the so-called congressional “Bro Caucus,” an unofficial group of members known for wayward behavior and, reportedly, day drinking. A video of Hunter vaping during a congressional hearing in 2016 to demonstrate his opposition to regulations on e-cigarettes ricocheted around the Internet.

And, here it is, Duncan Hunter vaping during a Congressional hearing:

Justice Department investigating "Vaping" California Rep. Duncan Hunter https://t.co/FQxkqkRwgS pic.twitter.com/fLgVjyTBJo

— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) March 23, 2017

That’s unprofessional, juvenile and smacks of hubris.

Speaking of hubris, I found an article by Matt Farwell of The New Republic. Farwell, another veteran, spent two days with Hunter in 2015. This column, written in December, 2019 recalled those two days:

Congressman Duncan Hunter seemed in no hurry to get back inside to the Christmas party at a Capitol Hill Mexican restaurant thrown by a Norwegian weapons company, so we each lit up another cigarette, and he called me a bitch for smoking Marlboro Lights. Hunter preferred unfiltereds, but that night, the Republican firebrand wasn’t above bumming one of mine. I took a small bag of medical weed from my pocket, packed some into a bowl, and lit it up. The world is hard for me to deal with on a good day, but a solid sativa makes every day a good day. That day—the first I’d really spent with Hunter—I’d learned he’d read all the books in the Dragonlance Chronicles series and had been smoking since he was a teen. I also learned that if I offered pot to him, a former Marine and member of the House Armed Services Committee, he’d express a connoisseur’s interest in it. I was more innocent then and less jaded, so this genuinely surprised me. The simpatico seemed real: two combat veterans, who long ago short-circuited their self-destruct buttons, ’bout to burn it down.

An aide saved Hunter from further toking with the media, but this shows a lack of self-restraint and self-censorship.

Even worse than that, when Duncan Hunter was first indicted, he blamed his then wife. What kind of weaselley, puling douche blames his wife? The Duncan Hunter kind. Margaret Hunter cooperated with prosecutors and will be sentenced later this Spring. I am quite sure Margaret flipped to keep herself from serving a long jail term but knew about her husband’s dalliances the whole time. Dalliances, you ask? Read this Vanity Fair article from June 2019. No, romance writer could make this stuff up.

This video, from a year ago, has not aged well. Duncan Hunter stands there and lies to the media. Who did he think was going to save him from the lies he tells about it being a witch hunt and throws his wife/campaign manager under the bus. He wasn’t politics, Duncan.

And, that leads me to my last issue with Duncan Hunter. Uniform worship. I am guilty. But, I always give a member of the United States military the benefit of the doubt. Democrats only give them the benefit of the doubt when the members say what the Democrats want them to say. We learned that during the Impeachment Hearings. I heard that Duncan Hunter was a Marine, so I assumed that he was a good guy. We all have to wean ourselves from this habit.

Hopefully, Duncan Hunter has learned his lesson, doubtful. The rest of us must do due diligence on our Representatives. It’s all on us.

Featured Image:

“Duncan Hunter” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0