When I heard Interior Secretary Gale Norton’s replacement would be Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne, I kept thinking how much his name sounded like the sort of phony names male actors use when they enter the porn biz. I mean, no one is actually named Dirk Kempthorne.
But it turns out Kempthorne has an interesting personal history. For one thing, he’s a member of the GOP Papa Club. He’s a conservative, antigay, married man with a mistress he fathered a son by.
Before he was Governor of Idaho, Kempthorne was a senator. While in Washington DC, he quickly became known as the Kennedy of the Republican Party — and not for his stance on civil rights. He was forced to end his senatorial career after his wife, Patricia Kempthorne, insisted that he stop the affair and/or the philandering. In spite of her ultimatum, the mistress followed Dirk Kempthorne back to Idaho and currently lives either in Boise or McCall.
President Bush certainly has a talent for picking the very best for his cabinet.
From the Left 