Barkley bares it all

There's a thin line between politicking and prostituting, and it turns out that line is a string... a g-string. Although critics accuse governor-hopeful Charles Barkley of "whoring" himself out to special interest groups, Sir Charles maintains that his appearance at Babes Cabaret in Scottsdale Tuesday night was just for a good time.

You see, Scottsdale's Prop 401 has been a hot topic in the Phoenix area lately. The proposition could have banned lapdancing and put strip clubs out of business. But residents went to the polls Tuesday (no, not those poles, the voting polls) and the results were decisively pro-titty. The lapdance ban will not be imposed.

Not only was Barkley on hand for the victory celebrations at Babes, he also recently made comments about strip clubs during his Hall of Fame inductee speech. As a result, some speculate that Sir Charles is accepting campaign money from strip joints. Well, there's no doubt that the strip club industry is a powerful lobby, but judging from these surveillance pictures from Babes Tuesday night, we'd say Barkley is just having some good old-fashioned non-partisan fun.