How Do We Still Not Know Which Senator Liked to Get His Dick Wet (In the Senate Pool)?

Three years ago, Gawker blogger Andy Cush posed a simple question to his readers: “Which Male Senators Liked to Swim Naked in the Senate Pool?”

His query was prompted by an aside in a Politico feature on the women of the United States Senate in which North Carolina Democrat Kay Hagan had been told in 2008 that the Senate swimming pool—yes, they have a pool—was strictly a boy’s club. Why? Because two un-named male senators preferred to do their laps in the pool sans swimsuit. (The Senate member’s members have since been ordered back in their trunks.)

In addition to being a perfect encapsulation of the pervasive misogyny on display at the highest levels of power in this country, the anecdote—which Cush noted Hagan had actually been telling since 2009—leaves plenty of questions unanswered: Were the unnamed senators skinny-dipping together? Were other senators in the pool as well, pretending not to notice the legislative dongs on display? What other places have the country’s top lawmakers inappropriately whipped out their senatorial schmeckles?

The big question, though, remains the same: who was showing his dick in the federal goverment’s pool?

I bring this up now because Hagan’s story is once again in the news—this time in the New York Times (which noted on Monday that “When Ms. Hagan lost her race in 2014, the women of the Senate threw her a goodbye party — at the pool.” Isn’t that nice?). This means that’s its been nearly a decade since Hagan first started circulating this anecdote and we still don’t know who it’s about.

This, dear reader, is nothing less than a total journalistic failure. It’s a failure on the part of the media for not sleuthing out the senatorial scrotums in question. And it’s a failure on the part of you, dear reader, as well. Because in a city as leaky as Washington, someone knows who was swimming in their birthday suit, and still hasn’t come forward.

Here, for reference, are all the male senators who were in office in 2008/2009:

Robert Byrd (D–WV)

Ted Kennedy (D–MA)

Daniel Inouye (D–HI)

Ted Stevens (R–AK)

Pete Domenici (R–NM)

Joe Biden (D–DE)

Patrick Leahy (D–VT)

Richard Lugar (R–IN)

Orrin Hatch (R–UT)

Max Baucus (D–MT)

Thad Cochran (R–MS)

John Warner (R–VA)

Carl Levin (D–MI)

Chris Dodd (D–CT)

Chuck Grassley (R–IA)

Arlen Specter (R–PA)

Jeff Bingaman (D–NM)

John Kerry (D–MA)

Tom Harkin (D–IA)

Mitch McConnell (R–KY)

Jay Rockefeller (D–WV)

Richard Shelby (R–AL)

John McCain (R–AZ)

Harry Reid (D–NV)

Kit Bond (R–MO)

Kent Conrad (D–ND)

Trent Lott (R–MS)

Herb Kohl (D–WI)

Joe Lieberman (ID–CT)

Daniel Akaka (D–HI)

Larry Craig (R–ND)

Byron Dorgan (D–ND)

Judd Gregg (R–NH)

Russ Feingold (D–WI)

Bob Bennett (R–UT)

Jim Inhofe (R–OK)

Jon Kyl (R–AZ)

Craig Thomas (R–WY)

Ron Wyden (D–OR)

Sam Brownback (R–KS)

Pat Roberts (R–KS)

Richard Durbin (D–IL)

Tim Johnson (D–SD)

Wayne Allard (R–CO)

Jack Reed (D–RI)

Jeff Sessions (R–AL)

Gordon Smith (R–OR)

Chuck Hagel (R–NE)

Mike Enzi (R–WY)

Chuck Schumer (D–NY)

Jim Bunning (R–KY)

Mike Crapo (R–ID)

George Voinovich (R–OH)

Evan Bayh (D–IN)

Bill Nelson (D–FL)

Tom Carper (D–DE)

John Ensign (R–NV)

Ben Nelson (D–NE)

John Cornyn (R–TX)

Frank Lautenberg (D–NJ)

Saxby Chambliss (R–GA)

Lindsey Graham (R–SC)

John Sununu (R–NH)

Lamar Alexander (R–TN)

Norm Coleman (R–MN)

Mark Pryor (D–AR)

Richard Burr (R–NC)

Jim DeMint (R–SC)

Tom Coburn (R–OK)

John Thune (R–SD)

Johnny Isakson (R–GA)

David Vitter (R–LA)

Mel Martinez (R–FL)

Barack Obama (D–IL)

Ken Salazar (D–CO)

Bob Menendez (D–NJ)

Ben Cardin (D–MD)

Bernie Sanders (I–VT)

Sherrod Brown (D–OH)

Bob Casey, Jr. (D–PA)

Jim Webb (D–VA)

Bob Corker (R–TN)

Sheldon Whitehouse (D–RI)

Jon Tester (D–MT)

Take a good long look at this list and—if you dare—try to determine which of these largely old, largely white men were most likely to have splish-splashed with their asses out in the Senate swimming pool.

And if you worked on Capitol Hill a decade ago, know which senator enjoyed laps in the buff, and have kept this information to yourself… it’s been 10 years. That’s well past the statute of limitations when it comes to which lawmaker showed what genitals while soaking in a taxpayer-funded swimming pool. It’s time to share what you know. My inbox is open.