corrente

Don't worry about that "vetting" stuff Boss--this guy is a real go-getter, just the sort of young fella who likes you, which is the kind of young fella you like. Yeah, he's had a couple of hard knocks in his past that the damn press likes to pick on people for, that'll blow over in a couple of weeks.

(via Philly InkWire)

By Mark Fazlollah
Inquirer Staff Writer

John "Digger" Dolan, a former president of the Main Line Young Republicans, likes to drive a Mercedes and hobnob with politicians.

Dolan, 44, now of Wilmington, considers himself a soldier in the war on terror. He designs telephone software for that war, and he's offered it to Uncle Sam - with help from a friend.

U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (R., Delaware County) has twice asked House committees to allot $5 million for Dolan's software company. In June, Weldon asked the CIA's chief of clandestine services to meet with Dolan.

There's another side to Dolan, though: He drinks and drives. When he's caught, he sometimes drops names: Weldon, Tom Ridge, the Department of Defense.

Dolan faces sentencing today in Delaware County, where in 2002 he drove drunk into a crowd of July 4 revelers in Radnor. Between 1988 and 2003, he had five drunken-driving convictions, resulting in jail terms ranging up to six months.

When Philadelphia police stopped him in March, they say he reeked of alcohol and couldn't recite the alphabet, but managed to tell them to "call Tom Ridge."

Dolan has also used another man's identity. Last month, as an Inquirer reporter looked on, Dolan answered in a Philadelphia courtroom to another man's name. That man says he has tried to get his old ex-friend Dolan to stop using his name.

Dolan, interviewed in jail on Dec. 4 after an arrest in Maryland, said any news article about his driving record would hurt the war on terror. "You're helping the enemy if you write about it," Dolan said at the Cecil County jail, where he was serving 10 days for disorderly conduct.

I suppose it would be hard to prove that every slick-talking scam artist with a taste for drunk driving, name-dropping and sucking at both the public and venture-capitalist teat is a Republican...but let's just go way out on a limb in this case. Go read the rest if you need a laugh.