According to the Elias Photographic Bureau which monitors such records, Mary Carey broke Wankus’ record for consecutive camera muggings.

WASHINGTON – Pornographer Mark Kulkis said it was an evening that would “make pop-culture history” – the intersection of the most powerful man in the world and the hard-core world of celebrity sex performer Mary Carey.

If the goal was raising money, the Republicans succeeded – bringing in some $23 million at two big fund-raisers, last night’s headlined by President Bush.

Yet, much of the attention at the dinner was diverted from Bush toward Mary Carey, a XXX-rated porn star who came to the National Republican Congressional Committee affair as the guest of her boss, Kulkis, president of Kick A– Pictures, which boasts of making only authentic hard-core action movies where actors don’t wear condoms and don’t fake sex.

For his part, Bush drew applause from some 5,000 at the Washington Convention Center by calling for an overhaul of the tax code, a national energy bill and permanent tax relief – accusing the Democrats of blocking them all.

“They stand for nothing except obstruction, and this is not leadership,” Bush said. “It is the philosophy of the stop sign, the agenda of the road block, and the country and our children deserve better.”

But some of the president’s most ardent supporters were wondering if America’s children deserved better than the example he set by accepting money from the hard-core porn industry and providing a giant photo opportunity for one of its premier harlots, er, starlets.

The decor for the evening was red, white and blue – colors familiar to the porn star, who often wraps herself in the flag, literally. But Carey, a buxom blonde who plans to run for lieutenant governor of California next year as an independent, wore a conservative, floor-length, black evening gown.

Hours before the dinner, she met with with reporters to show off her dress and talk about a Republican lunch she and her boss attended where presidential adviser Karl Rove spoke.

“I met a lot of nice people,” Carey said of the lunch, where presidential adviser Karl Rove spoke. “I met some people who talked about helping me with donating money to my next campaign.”

Asked By WND about the propriety of the Republican Party accepting $5,000 from a pornographer and the example such an appearance set for the moral climate of the nation, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said: “I think you need to direct those questions to the committee itself.”

Kulkis, who says he was personally invited to the dinner, has been using the opportunity to promote his company and the pornography industry in general.

The presence of two high-profile pornographers at an event to honor the president hasn’t concerned the organization hosting the event.

“They’ve paid their money,” explained Carl Forti, communications director of the NRCC. “No matter what they do, the money is going to go to help elect Republicans to the House.”

Carey, 24, ran for California governor against Arnold Schwarzenegger on a platform that included taxing breast enhancements, making lap dances tax deductible, recruiting porn stars as “ambassadors of good will” and putting Web cams up in every room of the governor’s mansion.

Last month, Carey was among five people arrested at a new strip club in a suburb of Tacoma, Wash. All were accused of violating the local adult-cabaret ordinance, some by getting too close to customers and others – including Carey – by touching themselves in a sexual manner, according to the Associated Press.

Kulkis, 40, said he’d be representing the $10 billion porn industry as well as his own company at the fund-raiser. A native of Michigan, the English literature major turned pornographer also serves as honorary chairman of the NRCC’s Business Advisory Council, a group which describes itself as a “small, prestigious group of conservative businessmen and women.”