Is someone over at Mediaite.com forgetting the fact that pretty boy Sanchez was fired over at CNN for alleged connections to a gay party boy ring? Just askin’.

Frances Martel write on www.mediaite.com – Let it be known that the first person to find a tie between Rep. Anthony Weiner and lewd material was former CNN anchor Rick Sanchez.

Sanchez tweeted out a Huffington Post article yesterday from April, in which he found that former pornography salesman Ben Suky had donated to Rep. Weiner’s Congressional campaign– as well as that of Rep. Eric Cantor, and called for both legislators to return the donations.

Titling his article “Politicians and Porn Don’t Mix” (tell that to the producers of Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?), Sanchez cites an article from The Forward which details the business dealings of Suky, primarily a real estate dealer who made a foray into opening up a bootleg pornography store.

“Suky is a pornographer who even deals in pirated porn. The Forward documents his support of several philanthropic organizations,” Sanchez notes in his piece. The truth is, The Forward’s article doesn’t describe him as a pornographer, only a salesman– and the “pirated part,” to which Sanchez’s “even” gives the impression that the material is forbidden for legal reasons regarding the content, either because the participants were too young or were engaging in illegal behavior, referred only to copyright violations:

In 2004, Suky bought thousands of adult DVDs from the Canadian supplier that was accused by producers and distributers [sic] of adult videos of bootlegging. A June 2004 invoice from the supplier filed as an exhibit in a case in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York gives a sense of what he was distributing: 71 copies of “Only the Best of Seymour Butt 8,” 250 copies of “Taboo 1,” 150 copies of “Natural Wonders 13,” among tens of thousands of other titles. The order totaled $14,308.

Suky now works as a real estate developer and is “the right-hand man to a powerful Sephardic kabbalist rabbi,” according to The Forward, but in his business dealings has contributed to campaigns on both sides of the aisle. Sanchez writes:

Researching public records, I found that Representatives Eric Cantor and Anthony Weiner have both accepted campaign contributions from Suky. Weiner accepted the campaign contribution in connection with his campaign for Mayor of New York.

Cantor accepted over $48,000 from Suky.

Both Cantor and Weiner are good public servants. For that reason, they should return Suky’s money. Period, end of story. The sources of political donations matter, and who our politicians are willing to associate with for the sake of campaign contributions is a serious issue and one on which we must focus more attention.

In the aftermath of “Weinergate,” the fact that Sanchez had the foresight to find the illicit connections certainly demands the most attention here, although accepting campaign donations from someone who sold dirty DVDs and sending dirty .JPGs to various women are entirely different behaviors.

If they weren’t, logic would lead to the conclusion that Rep. Cantor has similar skeletons in his closet, a completely absurd and unfair accusation to make. This does not discredit Sanchez’s consistency in calling for members of both parties to do what he deems the right thing. In cases such as these, it is fairly easy to turn the story into a left/right issue, and Sanchez– who discovered and assembled this data himself– fails to fall into that trap.

But far beyond calling Sanchez prescient, this article highlights the discrimination many in the legal sex industry face from many who participate in “legitimate” businesses.

Sanchez posits that pornography simply doesn’t belong in the political world, and that people in the industry should be universally shunned by elected officials.

Note: Sanchez doesn’t argue that Suky’s donations should be invalidated because of his illegal distribution of materials, but rather because he is a “pornographer.”

The broader dictum here that Sanchez proposes is that no one who has ever even so much as sold pornography should be allowed to have a political opinion that they can monetarily back up. If he truly means what he writes, then Jenna Jameson and Pamela Anderson shouldn’t be able to donate to campaigns, either, and it is still up for debate whether amateur porn stars like Kim Kardashian should have a say.

In a world where bankers, trial lawyers, lobbyists, and other assorted evildoers get to put their money where their ideologies are, signaling out individuals that participate in a perfectly legal and not particularly malicious occupation as unfit to have political opinions feels arbitrary. If corporations are people, too, porn stars surely must be.