Nancy Pelosi wants Rep. Alcee Hastings to head the House intelligence committee. Critics bring up Hastings' 1981 bribery scandal. We just thing it's really cute and kind of quaint that alleged bribery is now a reason someone isn't fit to head a House committee.

Anyway, Hastings wrote a five-page letter to all House Democrats, giving his side of the story. Perhaps a little too much of his side of the story.

It was whistleblower Frederic Whitehurst of the FBI who came forward with the revelation that Fred Malone in the FBI laboratory cut the strap of a man-purse of mine (they were popular in the '70s) and then testified that the lab determined that I had cut the strap to provide myself an alibi.

Sure, Alcee. Very popular in the '70s. That this story takes place in 1981 is the least of our concerns. Still, man-purses and minor bribery -- in our day the House intelligence committee heads were blowing rails with Duke Cunningham and some trannie hookers at Wategate poker parties.

Hastings to Dems: I'm Innocent [TPMMuckraker]