Another "Family Values" Republican Bites the Dust in Sex Scandal

Well, here we go again: another "family values" Republican politician caught in a tawdry sex scandal. This time it's Congressman Christopher Lee of New York, now former Congressman Christopher Lee, who resigned Wednesday when some interesting pictures of him turned up on the Internet. This is not one of them:

Former Congressman Christopher Lee (R.-N.Y.)

We'll get to Mr. Lee in just a moment, but for the record, crankyjewishguy (CJG) wants to make it clear that he actually doesn't care about the sex lives of presidents and members of Congress, unless we're talking about Congresswoman Kristi Noem of South Dakota; then he's very interested. He thinks there have been, and are, some very fine leaders with less than perfect records of marital fidelity and sexual propriety. Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, and Millard Filmore come to mind. (Actually, CJG doesn't know anything about Millard Filmore's sex life, he just loves the name.) But, CJG does take exception to politicians who campaign on so-called "family values," which usually includes a rabid antipathy to gay rights and gay marriage, whose own family values leave much to be desired. Their sanctimony is repellent. There's Mr. Family Values, Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, who was caught up in a prostitution scandal that revealed the Senator's affinity for diapers, yet his campaign commercials use his wife and kids for props to show you what a great family man he is. (Despite the scandal he got re-elected by a wide margin last year.) There was Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, super conservative, arrested for soliciting gay sex in an airport men's room. There's Republican Senator John Ensign of Nevada, also a big family values guy, who was sleeping with the wife of one of his aides. And, of course, there's Newt Gingrich who was trying to impeach Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky matter as he himself was having an extramarital affair. There are frisky Democrats, too, of course, with John Edwards being Exhibit A, but he appears to be certifiably nuts and he didn't run around campaigning on a platform that tells other people how they ought to lead their sex lives. These GOP hypocrites take to the floor of the House or Senate and rail against gay marriage because, they argue, it will undermine the American family, then ravage their own American families because their egos and, excuse CJG for this, their dicks get in the way. Marriage is so special, they claim, heterosexuals have to fight to keep it for themselves or it won't be special anymore. How full of shit are these people?

So, back to Congressman Chris Lee. It seems he's one one of those self-respecting, cosmopolitan men CJG wrote about a few days ago who troll Craigslist for prey. And he made the mistake of sending one of the "women seeking men" on Craigslist a photo of himself which found it's way -- surprise, surprise -- into cyberspace. Here's the photo in question:

He rather fancies himself, don't you think? Notice the tightly curled right fist so he can flex a little political muscle, and the vapid, penetrating gaze that asks, "are you as into me as I am?" Maybe we should be grateful for small favors; at least he kept his pants on and had the decency to dispense with the American flag as a backdrop.