John LeBoutillier is No Longer a Congressman, Which is Probably Why We Like Him So Much

Former United States Congressman John LeBoutillier assured Imus that New York Republicans were not kidding yesterday when they nominated Rick Lazio to run for Governor against the Democrat, and current Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo.

“All Republicans know, unfortunately, that he is not going to win,” said LeBoutillier, himself a Republican. “The Tea Party fervor that’s sweeping the country hasn’t caught hold, I don’t think, here in New York.”

Engaging in some Imus-approved name-calling, LeBoutillier called Lazio, who ran for U.S. Senate in 2000 against Hillary Clinton, “a has-been,” and assured his defeat by the “arrogant,” “cocky” Cuomo.

In the I-Man’s view, the only way to describe Cuomo was to say that he “doesn’t seem like his dad,” former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who Imus liked a lot. “I think I still like him,” Imus said, and hoped the elder Cuomo was still alive. (He is.)

When prosecutors like Cuomo run for office, LeBoutillier gets nervous. “You wonder if they aren’t getting headlines to help their campaigns, and in the process mowing over innocent people,” he said, pointing out that Rudy Giuliani often engaged in that sort of behavior when he was a U.S. Attorney. “He indicted a lot of people, got headlines, had big arrests, dragged them out of their houses, and then the charges were dropped.”

He was critical of Obama’s “aloof” and “distant” reaction to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but took a tougher stance on overall energy policy in this country. “We need oil,” he said. “Either we buy it from the Saudis, the Nigerians, the Venezuelans, or the Russians, all of which are not friends of the United States, and we put our money in their products. Or, we produce more oil here at home.”

But producing more oil at home is difficult, because the environmental lobby forbids drilling for oil off the shores of New Jersey, Florida, California, or Alaska. “Instead, companies are forced to do this most risky and difficult deep-sea drilling,” said LeBoutillier, adding, “And now we’re seeing the downside of these risks.”

Obama, he thinks, should bring the entire fleet of the U.S. Navy down to the Gulf of Mexico, and live on a naval ship while commanding the clean up operation, “It’s the United States versus the oil slick, to prevent it from reaching the shore of five states down there,” said LeBoutillier.

When Imus commented that Israel’s raid of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Hamas-controlled Gaza seemed “poorly-planned,” LeBoutillier highlighted the quiet but definite softening of the Israeli military over the last 20 years.

“We saw it three years ago, when rocket-launching started from Southern Lebanon by Hezbollah, and the Israeli military’s response was very poor,” he said. On top of that, a recent investigation found that weapons caches around the country were old and rotting, leading LeBoutillier to conclude that while Israel has prospered economically in the last two decades, they’ve diminished militarily.

Now, a little LeBoutillier trivia: What world leader was a high school classmate of Reggie Jackson?

Hint: He and the I-Man are “very close.”

-Julie Kanfer