Wide World of Mary- I want you to imagine the squeals of outrage we would have heard if, back in the 1990s, President Clinton spoke to a Democratic congressional fund-raising dinner attended by a porn star and a pornographer.

But the “family values” Republicans are mute about just such an event scheduled for next week – involving not Clinton, but President Bush.

Last week, Carl Forti, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, explained to WND that self-described pornographer Mark Kulkis and his date, porn star Mary Carey, will be attending the two-day event, “The 2005 President’s Dinner and Salute to Freedom,” next Monday and Tuesday because their money is just as good as anyone else’s.

“They’ve paid their money,” he said. “No matter what they do, the money is going to go to help elect Republicans to the House.”

For $5,000, Cary and Kulkis will be in the same room as the president one day and presidential confidant Karl Rove another.

And the pair make no secret about why they want to be there – to buy influence with top political leaders, the Republican Party and credibility for themselves and their “profession.”

Carey is something of a publicity-monger, having run for California governor against Arnold Schwarzenegger on a platform of making lap dances tax deductible, recruiting porn stars as “ambassadors of good will and putting webcams in every room of the governor’s mansion.”

“I’m especially looking forward to meeting Karl Rove,” she said. “Smart men like him are so sexy. I know that he’s against gay marriage, but I think I can convince him that a little girl-on-girl action now and then isn’t so bad.”

Last month, she was arrested with four others at a new strip club in Tacoma, Wash., for getting too close to customers and touching themselves in a sexual manner.

Kulkis, meanwhile, also serves as honorary chairman of the NRCC’s Business Advisery Council, apparently advising the GOP on behalf of the porn industry.

“I’m honored to be invited to this event,” he says. “Republicans bill themselves as the pro-business party. Well, you won’t find a group of people more pro-business than pornographers. We contributed over $10 billion to the national economy last year.”

Is there anyone Republicans won’t take money from? Would they take money directly from the mob, which backs most porn? Would they take money from white slave traders? Would they take money from kiddie-porn producers? What would be their price for access and influence in the White House and Republican Congress – or have they already paid it?

When asked by WND’s White House correspondent Les Kinsolving about the attendance of this pair at the Republican event, White House spokesman Scott McClellan played dumb, claiming he had not yet looked that far ahead on the president’s schedule.

It’s time for the Republicans to give this matter some serious thought, rather than brushing it off or laughing it off.

Do Bush and the Republicans justify accepting money from pornographers for their campaigns?

Do Bush and the Republicans understand that appearing with a porn star and a pornographer gives them and their criminal industry credibility?

Do Bush and the Republicans think they are setting a good example for the moral climate of our nation by meeting with these people?

Maybe you don’t think this is an important issue. I do. I think presidents are defined by the kind of people with whom they meet.

Clinton got away with murder as president, but he probably would not knowingly have met publicly with pornographers. Instead, if I know Clinton, he would have accepted the money and arranged a quiet, private meeting with the porn star. He was politically astute enough to know his political opponents would take him to task.

But who is going to take Bush to task?

Why am I the only one who seems to care?

Where are all those “family-values” allies of Bush now?

Why isn’t anyone else speaking up?

Mark my words: If Bush and the Republicans go through with this meeting, it will come back to bite them. Their hypocrisy is about to be demonstrated to the entire world.