Cunningham Friends Baffled By His Blunder Into Bribery

But according to "Fall From Glory," a book about the naval Tailhook Association's bacchanalias, Cunningham's superiors questioned his leadership abilities and resisted giving him a permanent commission. (He eventually got one.) The book, by Gregory L. Vistica, reports that Cunningham once broke into a superior's office to read his own fitness report but was spared discipline because the Navy did not want to generate bad publicity.

After briefly working in business after the military, Cunningham was courted in 1990 by the GOP to run in an affluent Republican district. His high name recognition and gung-ho conservative credentials carried him to a narrow victory over the Democratic incumbent. He has been reelected handily ever since.

From his arrival in Congress in 1991, Cunningham was branded as volatile and a flamethrower who challenged members to fistfights -- and not someone slated for leadership.

Packard, who sat with Cunningham on the Appropriations Committee, said he had a short fuse. Early on, Packard recalled, Cunningham became angry and emotional at a California delegation meeting when it became clear he did not have the support for a committee assignment he sought. "He was extremely upset and threatened to quit Congress. That was the first indication that he didn't have control of his emotions," Packard said.

Then there were the biting attacks on colleagues -- mainly partisan -- for which he usually apologized.

In 1992, Cunningham suggested that the Democratic House leadership should be "lined up and shot." A few years later, a House debate over water pollution turned ugly when Cunningham said lawmakers backing a particular amendment were the same people who support "homos in the military."

During remarks in his district in 1998 to a gathering of prostate cancer patients, Cunningham commiserated by describing a rectal procedure he had undergone as "just not natural, unless maybe you're Barney Frank."

"He was a blustery fool," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is openly gay. He said Cunningham apologized to him for the remark and noted that he thought Cunningham had "calmed down" in recent years.

On his first trip back to Vietnam, Cunningham sat down with Vietnamese officials for a formal dinner, and his first words of the evening were: "You gooks shot me down."

"It's not exactly the way to start a diplomatic dinner," said Moran, who was on the trip with Cunningham. "I told him quietly that he had bombed them, too."

Those close to Cunningham say the gaffes coupled with the charges create a caricature, and not the man they know -- the kind individual who sent an aide home the minute her grandfather died and a softie who fretted over his dog's health when the animal was injured. One Navy friend, George Nesby, said that as an African American, he will forever be loyal to Cunningham for giving him support and promotions as a young pilot.

Cunningham's legal troubles were triggered when the San Diego Union-Tribune reported in June on his 2003 lucrative house deal. He sold his Del Mar, Calif., house for the inflated price of $1.675 million to "Conspirator No. 2," -- identified through other sources as defense contractor Mitchell Wade of MZM Inc. -- who then sold it at a $700,000 loss nine months later. Cunningham was charged with using his influence to award federal contracts to MZM in return for payoffs.

The housing transactions did not go unnoticed by neighbors. "We all knew it was a shady deal as soon as we saw it," next-door neighbor Kent Greene said. "The market stated very clearly it [$1.675 million] was not an appropriate price." Victoria Konopacke, who bought a house across the street three months before the Cunningham sale, said, "We bought ours for $915,000, and I hate to say it, but ours is a lot nicer than theirs."

Congressional ethics laws prohibit members from accepting any largess over $100 per year from any one source, and only $50 at one time. While the rules are sometime subtly skirted, rarely so in such a blatant fashion.

"I think the only defense he could possibly have is stupidity," said Samuel L. Popkin, a professor of political science at University of California at San Diego, who has followed Cunningham's career. "But he's smart enough to know the rules -- which he thinks don't apply to him."

A friend had another explanation: "I know what happened, and I know how it happened," Nesby said. "It's really very simple. In the political arena, what at first seems abnormal becomes normal. . . . It's very easy in this environment for one to lose their moral compass."