Another day, another Republican sex scandal

[General Zod]

At least it was with a woman this time, I guess?

WASHINGTON — A New York congressman abruptly resigned his seat Wednesday, saying he was quitting because he regretted actions that have hurt his family and others.

The gossip website Gawker reported Wednesday that Rep. Christopher Lee, a married two-term Republican lawmaker, had sent a shirtless photo of himself to a woman he met on Craigslist.

Lee said in an e-mailed statement that his resignation was effective immediately. The statement offered no confirmation or details of a Craigslist posting.

"I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents," Lee said. "I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness."

Added Lee: "The challenges we face in Western New York and across the country are too serious for me to allow this distraction to continue, so I am announcing that I have resigned my seat in Congress effective immediately."

An anonymous woman described as a 34-year-old Maryland resident and government employee provided Gawker with e-mails she said were an exchange between her and Lee in response to an ad she placed in the "Women Seeking Men" section of Craigslist.

Gawker reported that Lee identified himself as a divorced lobbyist and sent a photo of himself posing shirtless. The woman eventually broke off the contact with Lee after becoming suspicious that he had misrepresented himself, according to Gawker.

Lee served on the House Ways and Means Committee and was active on economic revitalization issues.

He has a business background stemming from his family's manufacturing business.

Why is it anyone believes that Republicans are about family values again? Oh well, that's one less Republican controlled Congress seat.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Why is it anyone believes that Republicans are about family values again? Oh well, that's one less Republican controlled Congress seat.

I don't think citing examples of Republicans fucking up is evidence that they as a whole aren't about family values. If you were addressing a claim that Republicans are perfect then you could find plenty of examples.

[Lord of the Abyss]

I don't think citing examples of Republicans fucking up is evidence that they as a whole aren't about family values.

When they do so so often as to be notorious for it then yes, mentioning the past Republicans who have acted with anything but "family values" is indeed evidence that they aren't about anything of the kind. In fact, what other kind of evidence could there be?

[Kamakazie Sith]

When they do so so often as to be notorious for it then yes, mentioning the past Republicans who have acted with anything but "family values" is indeed evidence that they aren't about anything of the kind. In fact, what other kind of evidence could there be?

So often? Interesting. You have the figures available then?

The evidence would be examples that the entire republican party is actually not for family values. Individual examples aren't enough unless you can show an overwhelming majority are actually not for family values by their actions. Also, how do you account for those Republicans that are honorable? Do you slander them as well?

[Samuel]

Figures:
http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Republic ... ndals#2010
http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Examples ... ral_values

Individual examples aren't enough unless you can show an overwhelming majority are actually not for family values by their actions. Also, how do you account for those Republicans that are honorable? Do you slander them as well?

Yep. They are against programs that help people and in favor of moralizing. Given that it doesn't work for members of their own party they should realize it is bs.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Figures:
http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Republic ... ndals#2010
http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Examples ... ral_values

Individual examples aren't enough unless you can show an overwhelming majority are actually not for family values by their actions. Also, how do you account for those Republicans that are honorable? Do you slander them as well?

Yep. They are against programs that help people and in favor of moralizing. Given that it doesn't work for members of their own party they should realize it is bs.

Sure, if your argument was that their family values are bs. Unless I'm mistaken though this post was to show that republicans actually do not support their version of family values. I'm pointing out that just because there are republicans that fuck up doesn't mean they are all fuck ups.

Couldn't you point to any group of people with any set of values and find examples where their values "don't work" for some of their own members?

[General Zod]

Figures:
http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Republic ... ndals#2010
http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Examples ... ral_values

Individual examples aren't enough unless you can show an overwhelming majority are actually not for family values by their actions. Also, how do you account for those Republicans that are honorable? Do you slander them as well?

Yep. They are against programs that help people and in favor of moralizing. Given that it doesn't work for members of their own party they should realize it is bs.

Sure, if your argument was that their family values are bs. Unless I'm mistaken though this post was to show that republicans actually do not support their version of family values. I'm pointing out that just because there are republicans that fuck up doesn't mean they are all fuck ups.

Couldn't you point to any group of people with any set of values and find examples where their values "don't work" for some of their own members?

The point in my original post wasn't to claim that all republicans are fuckups. But to point out that it happens often enough that people should take a republican politician preaching family values with a very large helping of salt.

[SirNitram]

I actually agree with Sith. Of course, this does paint GOPers yet further with the big 'Hypocrit' brush for their fuss over Democratic sex scandals. If you want to prove they'll not actually following their warped family values, there are logical ways to do it.

[Steven Snyder]

Now I could be wrong about this, but I did a bit of the google on this guy.

It seems, and I admit I could be wrong, that this individual is one of the co-sponsors of the bill that would redefine 'foricible rape'. Let me provide a link to the relevant article.
Linkage

POLITICS: Lee, Buerkle support funding restrictions for abortions
By Jeremy Moule on February 9, 2011


Upstate Representatives Chris Lee and Ann Marie Buerkle are among the House Republicans co-sponsoring a controversial bill that would permanently restrict federal funding for abortions. They're the only members of the local House delegation to sign on to the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.

If passed, the bill, H.R. 3, would restrict the use of federal money for abortions, except in certain cases: rape victims, minors who are incest victims, or women whose pregnancies endanger their lives. Federal funding for abortions is already subject to restrictions; Congress passes them each year alongside its appropriations. The new bill, however, would place those restrictions into permanent law, ending the need to renew the provisions each year.

As the bill is currently written, it provides an exception for "forcible rape," though it offers no definition of the term. Abortion-rights groups were alarmed by the wording worrying that the language would exclude federal funding for victims of certain forms of rape, such as date rape or a woman who is drugged and assaulted. Media reports say the sponsor, New Jersey Representative Christopher Smith, will remove "forcible" from the text of the bill.

So let me understand this.
This congressman goes on Craigslist to start an adult relationship with a woman under false pretenses, then turns around and works on a bill that would limit that woman's options on birth control? So on one hand he is trying to enforce his religious values on her and on the other hand he is lying through his teeth to commit adultry with her?

Nice.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I actually agree with Sith. Of course, this does paint GOPers yet further with the big 'Hypocrit' brush for their fuss over Democratic sex scandals. If you want to prove they'll not actually following their warped family values, there are logical ways to do it.

They have a higher number of hypocrits because their family values are unreasonable and in some cases defy human nature...like abstinence.

[houser2112]

Oh well, that's one less Republican controlled Congress seat.

NY Governor Cuomo is going to hold a special election to fill the seat. I live in this district, and this area is overwhelmingly Republican/conservative, so I wouldn't count on the seat flipping to the Democrats.

[FSTargetDrone]

Moron:

Lee, scandalized, fell in a Washington flash

By LAURIE KELLMAN and ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press

Thu Feb 10, 8:15 pm ET



WASHINGTON – He was a rising star in Congress at lunchtime — and out of office by dinner.

Rep. Christopher Lee fell from power this week with a velocity seldom seen in the annals of Washington sex scandals, a blinking red caution sign for those who need one that the speed and reach of the Internet can crash a political career in the time it takes to push a button.

The now-famous photo of a shirtless Lee, R-N.Y., moved across cyberspace at 2:33 p.m. EST Wednesday, for just about anyone who wanted to see it. Three hours later, Lee resigned.

What happened in between on Capitol Hill remains unclear. But Republicans, still scrambling for their footing less than two months after assuming control of the House, insisted that Lee, who is married and has a young son, didn't need to be pushed.

"Congressman Lee made his own decision that he thought was in his own best interest and the interest of his family," said House Speaker John Boehner. He refused to discuss any contact he might have had with Lee, saying only that he became aware of the issue after the photo appeared online Wednesday and then learned of Lee's resignation after 6 p.m. "I think he made the right decision for himself and for his family."

Boehner's 5-week-old Republican majority, of course, benefited from Lee's exit and the distraction that largely departed with him. Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, reported last summer that the Ohio Republican had warned Lee and other newer members of Congress to knock off their unseemly partying with female lobbyists.

Lee, 46, was moving quickly up the House Republican ranks after winning the seat in 2008 despite a Democratic wave nationwide. A successful businessman, just last month he won a coveted seat on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee after only one term in office. Lee's net worth is estimated between $8.5 million and $30.7 million and ranks 19th among House members, according to a tally of 2009 House financial disclosure reports by the Center for Responsive Politics.

His immolation was swift by any measure, but it began last week, according to Remy Stern, editor-in-chief of the website Gawker.com.

In a phone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, Stern said Gawker first became aware of the story late last week when the woman who had the exchange with Lee sent the website an e-mail tip about the encounter — including an attachment photo of a bare-chested Lee flexing an arm muscle. Through data embedded in the photo file, Gawker determined the photo was taken in Washington, D.C.

Gawker was then able to link Lee's g-mail address to his Facebook account. Stern said Gawker also checked to make sure the woman had no political agenda or grudge against Lee. He also said that the website did not pay the woman and that her only condition was anonymity.

On Tuesday, Gawker e-mailed Lee's press secretary to inform him the story they were pursuing. Minutes later, Lee's Facebook account vanished.

"It was very telling," Stern said.

Lee's press secretary then sent Gawker a copy of an e-mail that it said the congressman had sent to his staff on Jan. 23 alerting them that his e-mail had been hacked. Stern noted that Jan. 23 was well over a week after the woman and Lee had begun corresponding.

Gawker informed Lee on Tuesday night that they were planning to post the story the next day. Gawker got no response from Lee, Stern said.

Gawker posted the item on Lee at 2:33 p.m. EST Wednesday. It told the story of a 34-year-old Maryland woman and government employee who had an online encounter with Lee in response to an ad she placed last month in the "Women Seeking Men" section of Craigslist.

Gawker reported that Lee identified himself as a divorced lobbyist and sent the photo of him posing shirtless in front of a mirror. It said the woman eventually broke off the contact with Lee after becoming suspicious that he had misrepresented himself.

Just over three hours later, AP received an e-mail statement from Lee making a vague reference to the incident and announcing his resignation.

"It was stunning," Stern said.

By Thursday night, politicos from Washington to Buffalo, N.Y., were bandying names of possible candidates in the yet-to-be announced special election for Lee's seat. They included White House spokesman Bill Burton, a Buffalo native who had been approached about making a run, according to a knowledgeable official who asked not to be identified revealing private discussions. The official and several other Democrats said Burton is unlikely to seek the seat in the Republican-leaning district. Possible Republican candidates included former state Assemblyman Jack Quinn III, the son of former Rep. Jack Quinn.

Extramarital scandal and the fall of its casualties are Washington rituals as old as Congress itself. But searching for love in lawless cyberspace defies the illicit nature of prospective liaisons and carries the risk of leaving damning evidence that can be beamed around the globe in moments.

Still, Lee wasn't the first congressmen sunk by the lure of love over the Internet. And Boehner knows well the challenge such transgressions pose to party leaders.

In 2006, Florida GOP Rep. Mark Foley resigned one day after e-mails he had written three years earlier to a former congressional page surfaced. The scandal quickly focused on GOP leaders.

Boehner, at the time House majority leader, and former New York Rep. Tom Reynolds, who headed the GOP's re-election campaign, said they had spoken with then-Speaker Denny Hastert about some details of the matter months earlier. Hastert indicated that it had been "taken care of," Boehner told radio station WLW in Cincinnati. "My position is it's in his corner, it's his responsibility."

On Thursday, as Lee's staff tried to carry on until the winner of a special election takes over the seat, Boehner refused to describe any role he may have played in Congress's latest scandal.

He has set standards with the group of lawmakers before.

Last March, Boehner, then head of his party as minority leader, dealt quickly with Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., when he learned during a weekend that Souder was having an affair with a part-time aide who was married. That Monday, Boehner spoke by phone with Souder and then reported his conversation to the House ethics committee. By Tuesday, Souder had resigned.

Later that summer, Roll Call reported that Boehner had warned Lee and some other colleagues about inappropriately hanging out with female lobbyists.

"I've had members in here where I thought they had crossed the line," Roll Call quoted Boehner as saying at the time. "I have had others I thought were approaching the line."

So why then, Boehner was asked Thursday, do there still seem to be so many scandals in Congress?

"I wouldn't know," Boehner said.

[Patroklos]

Now I could be wrong about this, but I did a bit of the google on this guy.

It seems, and I admit I could be wrong, that this individual is one of the co-sponsors of the bill that would redefine 'foricible rape'. Let me provide a link to the relevant article.
Linkage

So let me understand this.
This congressman goes on Craigslist to start an adult relationship with a woman under false pretenses, then turns around and works on a bill that would limit that woman's options on birth control?

I am not going to knock the guy for not telling some random women he was trying to pick up his exact occupation.

And it was abortion, not birth control.

Very stupid. The internet has been around for awhile now, you would think people would understand things they do on it when in high profile positions are going to get discovered.

[Terralthra]

I am not going to knock the guy for not telling some random women he was trying to pick up his exact occupation.

On the other hand, telling the woman on Craigslist he was divorced, when he's actually married, cohabiting, and raising a son...?

And it was abortion, not birth control.

Abortion is a form of birth control.

[Steven Snyder]

I was going to respond to this, but Terralthra pretty much hit the nail on the head.

[Mr. Coffee]

Wait a second,here. So the guy just sent a picture over the interwebs. Not a picture of his hairy oldman balls or a close-up of his gray furred taint, just a picture of himself infront of a mirror pretending he's totally not an IRL version of Ned Flanders? He wasn't lurking a public bathrooms trolling for anonymous sex or anything, just him sending a MySpace pose to some chick he met off Craigslist? And this is a "sex scandal"? Really?

For fuck's sake, people, we used to have some standards. I mean, Wild Bill was sticking cigars up an intern's vag while get a BJ, then there was that one Senator guy a couple years back got nailed trying to play footsies for sex in an airport bathroom. For fuck's sake, JFK and his brother were tag-teaming Marilyn Monroe in the oval office and now the best we can do is this wanker making tough guy poses in front of a mirrow?

Seriously, America, we can do better than this.

[Phantasee]

I think the shocker is just how quickly he resigned once the photos came out.

[D.Turtle]

Well, maybe he has done this before where it went further than just a picture and thats why he doesn't want people to look more deeply into it. This speculation (the previous sentence) is completely without any basis in facts, etc - just to be clear. There could be numerous possibilities leading to his quick resignation.

I'll be kind and assume that he was showing some principles and resigned because of that.

[SCRawl]

When I heard about this, I didn't think that a resignation was called for, but obviously the former gentleman from New York thought otherwise. Either that, or the leadership gave him a strong push in the direction of the door, and given the size of the Republicans' majority, he's completely expendable. I might have said that the Speaker of the House was worried about these antics distracting us from their agenda, but frankly their agenda so far has been either pointless or negative, so that theory won't go anywhere.

[Mr Bean]

Wait a second,here. So the guy just sent a picture over the interwebs. Not a picture of his hairy oldman balls or a close-up of his gray furred taint, just a picture of himself infront of a mirror pretending he's totally not an IRL version of Ned Flanders? He wasn't lurking a public bathrooms trolling for anonymous sex or anything, just him sending a MySpace pose to some chick he met off Craigslist? And this is a "sex scandal"? Really?

For fuck's sake, people, we used to have some standards. I mean, Wild Bill was sticking cigars up an intern's vag while get a BJ, then there was that one Senator guy a couple years back got nailed trying to play footsies for sex in an airport bathroom. For fuck's sake, JFK and his brother were tag-teaming Marilyn Monroe in the oval office and now the best we can do is this wanker making tough guy poses in front of a mirrow?

Seriously, America, we can do better than this.

Your looking at this the wrong way Coffee
This is pretty mild and totally forgettable, but if he tried to just breeze past it don't you think the sleaz journalists would have dug up his entire life history? And who knows what's in that history that he would like not found out if a dozen journalists went out there and started backtracking his day to day affairs.

Kind of like pleading guilty to disturbing the peace so the cops don't visit you at your house and find that basement full of dead hookers.
Yes nothing can't be made more classy that using a dead hooker analogy.

Would you prefer a Michael Vick one?

Like pleading guilty to walking your dog without a lease in a public so the cops don't find your full on basement animal fighting arena.

Or he's Ned Flanders and even the mildest of curse words will give him a month's worth of shame if it should pass his lips. But I much prefer my story about a Republican sex scandal where the guy got out of the public eye before we found out about the heavy duty S&M gear and the trio of Mongolian midgets he rents the upstairs to in exchange for some help on the weekends.

[Mr. Coffee]

Your looking at this the wrong way Coffee
This is pretty mild and totally forgettable, but if he tried to just breeze past it don't you think the sleaz journalists would have dug up his entire life history? And who knows what's in that history that he would like not found out if a dozen journalists went out there and started backtracking his day to day affairs.

Kind of like pleading guilty to disturbing the peace so the cops don't visit you at your house and find that basement full of dead hookers.
Yes nothing can't be made more classy that using a dead hooker analogy.

Would you prefer a Michael Vick one?

Like pleading guilty to walking your dog without a lease in a public so the cops don't find your full on basement animal fighting arena.

Or he's Ned Flanders and even the mildest of curse words will give him a month's worth of shame if it should pass his lips. But I much prefer my story about a Republican sex scandal where the guy got out of the public eye before we found out about the heavy duty S&M gear and the trio of Mongolian midgets he rents the upstairs to in exchange for some help on the weekends.

Honestly I think he probably got pressured by the party to resign over it. let's face it, the chances of this hatfucker being an upstanding guy are slim to none and it makes more sense that his resignation is do more to GOP ass-covering than this guy actually having integrity. If he had that he wouldn't have tried this shit in the first place. It's not really about what I'd prefer, I just think calling something like this where no actual sex happened a "sex scandal" is fucking retarded is all. Then again, we are dealing with modern journalists who think any rifle with a magazine and pistol grip is ann AK-47, so maybe it was just a slow week at the news desk.