The Wrong Stuff: The Extraordinary Saga of Randy Cunningham, the Most Corrupt Congressman Ever Caught - Tapa dura

The Pulitzer Prize-winning team that uncovered the biggest bribery scandal in US history tells the colourfully sordid story of a corruption in the highest levels of the CIA, the Pentagon and the Congress. Duke Cunningham was an all-American success story. The Midwestern boy who went off to war, became a hero and rode his fame into Congress, he even bragged that Tom Cruise played him in a popular movie. But the fall of this "Top Gun" was almost as epic and just as cinematic. Today, he sits in prison, branded as the most corrupt member of Congress in US history. To the public, Cunningham was a heroic family man. In reality, he was a hard-drinking, partisan bully with a lavish sense of entitlement and a feckless moral compass. In the end, he fed rogues like Brent Wilkes and Mitch Weade millions of dollars in vital post-9/11 contracts in exchange for millions in bribes. Now, the journalists who won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for sending Cunningham to prison uncover new details in a story still unfolding in Washington. "The Wrong Stuff" chronicles Cunningham's rise and his ignominious fall. It is the saga of a man strong enough to brave enemy fire, but too weak to resist the corrupt contractors and lobbyists in the nation's capitol. It is also the story of the dark side of Washington today.

The authors were on the team that won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. Jerry Kammer has been a correspondent for Copley News Service since 2002. Marcus Stern has been in Copley's Washington Bureau for twenty-two years. Dean Calbreath has been a reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune for more than eight years. George E Condon Jr has been Washington bureau chief for Copley since 1984. Stern, Calbreath and Kammer all received the George Polk award. Stern and Kammer also share the Edgar Poe award.