Curt Weldon: The Troublemaker

Final Round
Off the deep end. Sinking low. "Loony" about 5-year-old cancer patients and mad mullahs and 9/11 and the CIA. The whispering campaign has crescendoed and is now a shout in some quarters. Weldon, some say, is running scared. His answer: Keep running.

Weldon has gone farther out on a limb than ever. Maybe too far. He has hung many of his hopes on paper: letters from Ali, the pages of his book, that chart in the closet, which maybe, maybe not, contained Mohamed Atta's face.

"I don't do things because people like them. I do them because they're the right things," Weldon said. And it has cost him. Last year, he vied for the Homeland Security Committee chair. It was a natural fit. Weldon, a former firefighter, is the founder of the Fire and Emergency Services Caucus, the largest caucus in Congress. "Everyone knows I'm the first-responder guy," he said. But House leaders picked Peter King of New York, who has first-responder credentials of his own, and is an unabashed supporter of the White House. Weldon doesn't blame his colleagues. "The leadership, I think, was probably talked to by the White House, who said, 'No. Please.' "

If Weldon loses in November, his penchant for controversy will likely play a deciding role. Voters in the Pennsylvania 7th might agree, as Sestak suggests, that he has gone around the bend. Or they might not give a damn that the Army had a picture of a terrorist before 9/11; if it distracts Weldon from his primary obligations, that's a problem. Sestak has had a hard time painting Weldon as a man who has abandoned his district. But Weldon admits that his international endeavors don't necessarily pay dividends at home. "People don't always see what it does for them," he said.

If Weldon loses, it will obviate the need to answer more difficult questions. Why is he listening to questionable intelligence sources? Why is he fuming about 9/11 cover-ups? Is he crazy? Or is his passion the outgrowth of a natural instinct to question everything, to never take a fact at face value? And isn't that what we want elected officials to do? Isn't there a certain, almost quaint nobility to professional skepticism, especially these days?

Curt Weldon could be right, of course. There may be an Iranian terror network about to strike the United States. The 9/11 commission may be concealing a terrible secret. If he's right, regardless of what happens on November 7, he'll be the first in line to say, "I told you so."

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