Whoops. We haven’t had a good one like this in, oh, a few weeks. This NY pol was not only fornicating outside the marital bond, he was procreating with a sex partner other than his wife. He receives bonus points for being charged with driving while intoxicated! (NYT):
Representative Vito J. Fossella, a Staten Island Republican who was arrested on May 1 in Alexandria, Va., and charged with drunken driving, issued a statement on Thursday acknowledging that he had had an extramarital affair with Laura Fay, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, and that the two of them have a 3-year-old daughter together.You have to read Howie Klein’s take on this one.The prospect that Mr. Fossella could face a mandatory jail sentence if convicted had already threatened to bring to an end his decade-long career in the House, where Mr. Fossella is the only Republican representing New York City.
…Mr. Fossella, 43, was driving with a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit when he was pulled over. He faces a mandatory five days in jail if convicted.
…In the Democratic stronghold of St. George, the neighborhood nearest the ferry to Manhattan, patrons at the Cargo Cafe weighed in on the scandal.
“Vito Fossella’s behavior is a disgrace to himself, his family and to Staten Island,” said an anesthesiologist, Dr. John Ferguson, 44. “Given the fact that he votes along the Bush-Cheney line 90 percent of the time, which means he sees himself as a moral values candidate, I find his behavior completely, but not surprisingly, hypocritical. He should resign immediately.”
Hat tip, Linda.
28 Responses to “Another Republican protects the sanctity of marriage”
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I love the smell of Republican hypocrisies exposed in the morning.
Actually, it bothers me more that he was driving drunk than that he was screwing around. The latter hurts only his wife, who had the bad judgment to marry him in the first place; the former endangers any number of innocent people.
I wouldn’t give two whathaveyou’s about this guy’s geographically stratified polygamy - in fact, I think it is good that he acknowledges his daughter - had this same guy not consistently voted in lockstep with Bushco. Anybody know where this guy falls on the “defenders of marriage as one man and one woman” spectrum? If he has been spouting that crap while conducting a long-term relationship on the side, he deserves any drubbing he gets.
The drunk driving is not acceptable in any case. At 0.17, he will have a hard time bargaining down to wreckless driving, too.
Virginia has a mandatory 5 days in jail for that level of alcohol. Wonder if he’ll find a way to get out of it.
Why is it that other than Bill Clinton, every sex scandal involves a Republican?
Just checked… Fossella voted for the Marriage Protection Act. And he voted to impeach Clinton. NARAL gives him a 0% rating.
Why should polygamy be just for mormons?
This also makes you wonder about just what kind of bills the Air Force might have gotten Fossella’s vote for.
Um, Tom … Spitzer?
“bargaining down to wreckless driving, too.”
WRECKless driving is usually not so punishable.
…and State AG Dann in Ohio, and Mayor Kilpatrick in Detroit. Watch out for that confirmation bias, Tom.
Sorry about that - we need to leave W out of it, don’t we?
Here’s an example of wreckfull driving.
I am shocked, just shocked I tell you! *eyeroll* I didn’t even read the article after seeing the headline. Republican sex scandals have become old news.
“The latter hurts only his wife, who had the bad judgment to marry him in the first place” Sounds just a little too much like putting blame on her. Not for his affair, but for being in a bad marriage? Perhaps she forgot her crystal ball they day she walked down the aisle.
Not only does that put unfair blame on his wife who does not have the benefit of clairvoyance or hindsight, but also minimizes the rank hypocrisy and his grave violation of trust to his wife and family. His wife and family do not deserve the negative publicity when the acts which prompted such were due to his own negative behaviors.
The onus of blame lays 110% on this hypocrite’s shoulders and no one else. He is responsible for his behavior and the consequences arising from them, especially when he called for the same upon others as a politician.
OT, but the ol’ Clown Car(tm) ain’t empty yet:
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/sns-ap-18-kids,0,6943274.story
Well, at least he demonstrated patriotism and support for our nation’s veterans in his choice of partner.
Considering that “partner” served as a Congressional Air Force Liaison, a corruption investigation into whether any unmerited bills were passed on behalf of the Air Force as a result of this affair may be in order.
Though I understand the arguments of those who feel the affair is none of our business, the fact he is a politician in a position of great power in Congress means that it does become out business as having an affair imo betray not only a lack of trustworthiness in the person committing them, but like other secretive private relationships, goes against the very transparency needed to safeguard our government from more insidious corruption.
Not to go too far afield, but I just love this snippet from the article Matt linked to.
Duggar is so transparent, in as much as his goal for his children to be best friends and “serve each other” is so the older ones will play surrogate parents to the younger ones, relieving him and his wife of the consequences (yes, I said consequences, like a Repugnican) of their sexual irresponsibility.
The Duggar children are being abused (reminds of the FLDS kids in Texas), but I don’t see anybody coming to get them out of the hellish existence of never being able to go to school, socialize with other kids their age, or fully integrate into their community.
Instead, TV producers from the Discovery channel (or whatever) come every year to record Michelle Duggar’s latest whelping just like she was livestock, pay a big license fee to Jim Bob, and he’s able to feed his family for another year without having the kiddies taken to protective custody.
Sounds just a little too much like putting blame on her.
Oh, I’m not blaming her at all; if anything, I feel sorry for her for having married such a schmuck. Anyone can exercise bad judgment in their choice of spouse (I certainly did). I’m just saying I’d feel more sorry for a third party who was maimed or killed by his drunken driving.
Bitter Scribe: I agree, the drunk driving is awful, and puts more people at risk.
High fives to the anesthesiologist for such a straight up comment.
he was so busy protecting other marriages, he forgot about his own! oops!
http://www.queersunited.blogspot.com
he was so busy protecting other marriages, he forgot about his own!
http://www.queersunited.blogspot.com
I predict a round of “what about Chappaquiddick?” from the right over this. I urge my fellow liberals to respond with “Kennedy should have gotten jail time.” He didn’t get off because he’s a Democrat, he got off because he’s and Aristocrat, just the same as Dubya got special treatment for his DWI, and Cheney got special treatment for his shooting of wossname.
Exercising bad judgment in choosing her spouse implies that his wife or other similarly situated spouses in question had the information and clues available that could have prevented such bad judgment before marriage.
That is not always the case as many divorced individuals and unhappily married couples would tell you. Life is not so simple and cut and dry as your statement implies.
*sigh* I’ve actually been waiting for this. Fossella supposedly “represents” me in Congress. I voted against him every chance I had!
I feel very sorry for his wife and kids–much less sorry for him. He pushes the good family man reputation a lot around here, and it sadly seems to have stuck more than his party line votes. He cares so much about families that he votes for torture and war!
The only time he went against the Bush/Cheney party line, if I recall correctly, was for SChip, low cost health insurance for children.
Clearly, we do not use the same dictionary at the Republicans. Touting “family values” does not mean a Republican values family. It means he values families.
Life is not so simple and cut and dry as your statement implies.
Life may not be simple and cut and dried, but logic is. If you judge someone to be a person with whom you can live the rest of your life, and that turns out not to be the case, your judgment was mistaken.
There’s no shame in it. It happened to me, as I said earlier, and to many other people. And the reasons why your judgment was mistaken can be complex and subtle. To say that you shouldn’t have married someone is simply to acknowledge that you made a mistake, not that you were bad or stupid, or that you should have seen your misfortune coming. If you had seen it coming, you would have avoided it.
At the risk of continuing to pedantify and sidetrack the thread, making a mistake != bad judgment.
His affair likely is more concerning because it appears to have been kept secret with the use of public funds, e.g., claiming cover of “official business” for what were apparently little more than lovers’ jaunts to neat sounding places, like France. The right is not going to raise Chappaquiddick. The right wants this guy gone, like yesterday, and is apparently smoothing the way for an investigation into his possible misuse of government funds as stated above.