DC Trawler

Politician you’ve never heard of resigns in sex scandal with no sex

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The Washington Examiner reports:

A New York Republican congressman resigned abruptly on Wednesday after a scandalous photo and e-mails surfaced that suggest the married father of one was seeking women outside his marriage. Rep. Christopher Lee, 46, left the Capitol on Wednesday after releasing a statement that said he felt he could no longer effectively represent his Western New York district…

The photo and e-mails were first reported by the Web site Gawker. The site revealed a photo Lee sent to a woman he met on Craigslist, which showed him standing shirtless and flexing one of his biceps in front of a mirror. In mid-January, Lee had sent e-mails and a photo to a 34-year-old woman who listed herself in the Craigslist personals, the “Women for Men” section.

Here’s the pic:

“Helloooooo, ladies!” It’s no crime to take care of yourself, of course. But then sending the pic to a woman who isn’t your wife and figuring nobody will find out? And you’re in Congress? Dumb.

Congratulations to Gawker’s Maureen O’Connor, who has finally gotten a GOP scalp. (And abs!) You may remember O’Connor as the keen legal mind who taunted Sarah Palin last November, after Gawker published excerpts from Palin’s book before it hit stores and Palin complained. O’Connor sneered:

[Sarah: If you’re reading this—and if you are, welcome!—you may want to take a moment to familiarize yourself with the law. Try starting here or here. Or skip the totally boring reading and call one of your lawyers. They’ll walk you through it.]

Apparently Palin did just that, because within days a Manhattan judge ordered Gawker to take it down. Whoops. He must have skipped the totally boring reading!

So congrats to O’Connor for finally taking down a Republican, any Republican. Although she did give an odd justification for running the Chris Lee story:

Yesterday, we reached out to Rep. Lee, whose support for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and vote to reject federal abortion funding suggests a certain comfort with publicly scrutinizing others’ sex lives.

Okay wait what? Yeah, Lee is a big dope for thinking he could get away with this, but how is supporting DADT “publicly scrutinizing others’ sex lives”? It’s called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, not Do Ask, Do Tell. And I’m not sure how federal funding for abortion equals not scrutinizing people’s sex lives. You’d think the fact that Lee was in the process of cheating on his wife — and was stupid enough to use his own name, his own phone, etc. — would be a sufficient basis for criticism. But I guess that’s why I don’t work at Gawker!

This is a tough time for Chris Lee, but maybe he’ll bounce back. Eliot Spitzer did, and he actually cheated on his wife. With hookers. Maybe Lee will get his own show on CNN too! Just kidding, he’s a Republican.

P.S. My close personal friend StarlessTwit tweets: “I’m still waiting for the self-righteous counterattack from Lee’s ideological brethren. Oh, that’s right, he’s not a Democrat.”

P.P.S. Elsewhere on Twitter, the mighty Iowahawk notes: “Congressional ethics: texting shirtless pictures=reason to resign in disgrace. Spending $1.5 trillion you don’t have = Wednesday.”

P.P.P.S. Mark your calendars, folks: Somebody at Salon.com agrees with me!