We haven't had a good sex scandal in a while. So (former) Rep Christopher Lee (R-NY) - one of those abundant Northeast Republicans - decided to fix that, by lookin' for some love on Craigslist.
It's barely worth commenting on the complete idiocy of a married father doing this...or the fact that Republicans desperately need to stay away from such scandals...or wondering why the lesson is so difficult to learn, that when someone embarks on such foolhardy behavior they will ALWAYS be discovered.
However-and this is NOT to be construed as a defense of the former Congressman-unlike the torturous press conferences Mark Sanford put us through, or the embarrassing tales that spilled out of Eric Massa's mouth every day for a week or two, this story broke around lunchtime yesterday. By dinner, he'd resigned. Either there's more to the story that he was trying to contain, or the House leadership put the hammer down (I hope it was the latter).
And today, barely a mention of the guy. Don't know if he was an effective Congressman, but he knew how to handle an embarrassing sex scandal. If he stays in Washington, he may have a future in consulting on such matters...
Well, at least we had a straight sex scandal, and we are not discussing having a wide stance in a Minneapolis Airport bathroom stall.
ReplyDeleteIt's like Coulter said, with Republican sex scandals nobody actually has sex and resignations are imminent. In Democratic sex scandals there are more orgasms than a 42nd. St. peek show and nobody resigns. In fact the perpetrators are usually depicted in the press as brave martyrs fighting oppression, even when they're are caught hitting on a 16 year old page.
ReplyDeleteImminent indeed. Ensign and Vitter were gone so quickly....oh wait, that's right. They're still in.
ReplyDeleteSally - I liked Iowahawk's tweet on this topic:
ReplyDelete"Congressional ethics: texting shirtless pictures=reason to resign in disgrace. Spending $1.5 trillion you don't have = Wednesday."
Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteVitter went to prostitutes and Ensign was banging a married woman, all true. Reprehensible behavior not to be condoned, but there is the question of magnitude.
For example, Gerry Stubbs had sex with a house page...that's right, had gay sex with a 16 year old. He was censured by the House but stayed in office. If there were any justice he would have pulled serious time.
Barney Frank had a convicted felon (and asshole buddy) living in his house running a male prostitution ring, again out of Barney's house. Barney was reprimanded by Congress (though not indicted for anything) and later was powerful enough to play politics with Fanny & Freddie to the tune of trillions of dollars lost and a World wide recession resulting in violent revolutions overseas.
Just recently Jesse Jackson Jr. was accused of funneling money to some blonde lobbyist he was rodding out. Was it reported in the press. Yeah...ONCE! Apparently having an affair is only newsworthy if you're a conservative.
The point being if you want to equate affairs between consenting adults to child molestation or prostitution rings then off you go. I would expect no less from a liberal.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-30/which-party-has-more-sex-scandals/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsC3
ReplyDelete• The number of sex scandals has increased dramatically over the past few decades, thanks to technology, new press standards and a post-Clinton belief that everything is fair game.
• Republicans have more scandals (34 to 27), but Democrats have bigger ones, based on our methodology (13 out of the top 20).
• Democrats tend to have more problems with harassment, staffers and underage girls; Republicans tend to have more problems with prostitutes, hypocrisy and underage boys.