Jon Stewart on EPA con man John Beale: ‘The Secret Life of Walter Sh*tty’

[Playinghardball]

Even Daily Show host Jon Stewart had to admit to being impressed on Wednesday night — not just by John Beale’s ability to scam his way through a job with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for nine years, but by Beale using his ill-gotten free time to ride his bike and read books.

“This is what’s so wonderful about this story: this man is a liar, and boring as f*ck,” Stewart said. “It is an amazing fraud perpetrated by a guy so he could do things we only do when we’ve run out of other things to do. Brazen criminal, ordinary life. He’s the Secret Life of Walter Sh*tty.”

As Politico reported on Wednesday, Beale was sentenced on Wednesday for his Ferris Bueller-like stint at the agency, during which he got away with skipping work with pay for two-and-a-half years after convincing his superiors, his wife, and his friends that he was an undercover CIA agent. Beale also scored a preferred parking spot at his office by falsely claiming he contracted malaria while serving in the Vietnam War.

“He has told people he has malaria, so that he may park closer to the job he does not show up at,” Stewart said.

But on top of that, Stewart said, Beale’s ability to get away with such an over-the-top ruse had House Oversight Committee members Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Elijah Cummings (D-MD) at a loss for words, particularly after finding out that the former EPA official who recruited him to join the agency was letting him stay in his house.

“Suddenly, for just that one brief, miraculous shining moment, Democrat, Republican, white, Black, all believed in Santa again,” Stewart said excitedly.

Not even correspondent John Oliver was able to catch on to Beale’s act, as he proudly showed Stewart a “tribal heirloom” he said Beale gave him — after calling himself Sitting Bull’s great-great-

more and see the video at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/19/jon-stewart-on-epa-con-man-john-beale-the-secret-life-of-walter-shtty/

[bullwinkle428]

1. The story also amused/frustrated me in the sense that I've seen people like that

(albeit, to a much smaller scale) get away with that kind of behavior in my own workplace over the course of my many years of being part of this organization.

In some cases, their behavior eventually caught up with them; in other cases, they've been so cozy with their boss that they've been willing to overlook all kinds of shit.