While this isn't on the same par as an alleged John Boehner affair, which would be rich indeed, we'll have to settle for a substitute. Parsley's Pics is not becoming a sleaze blog by design; it's just that these Family Values types make such good exhibits for, A: Hypocrisy and B: Stupidity. They just don't get it that publishing on the Internet gives them far more exposure than they could ever hope for and not always for their good works.
Congressman Chris Lee, R-NY, is in his second term, is married and has a child. But these minor details didn't stop him from sending "flirtatious emails, including one with a bare-chested photo of himself, to a woman he met on Craigslist."
Of course he's apologized profusely and of course he promised to work as hard as he could to seek forgiveness - and of course he resigned.
On Wednesday, gossip website Gawker posted a story that included the emails allegedly exchanged between Lee and the unnamed woman. According to the story, a single 34-year old woman from Maryland posted an ad on Craigslist's "Women for Men" section on January 14. Soon afterwards a man named Christopher Lee replied, identifying himself as a 39-year-old divorced lobbyist.
In the ensuing exchange, Lee purportedly sent the woman an email including a photo of him with his shirt off, flexing his arms and chest. The woman later broke off her correspondence with Lee when she did an online search for him and determined that he had lied about his age and his job, the Gawker story reported.According to Gawker, the exchange was relatively banal by today's standards (standards?). "No prostitutes, escorts, or madams were involved. Just good old fashioned lying and an apparent willingness to cheat on one's wife."
Rep. Lee, whose support for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and ending federal abortion funding suggests a certain comfort with publicly scrutinizing others' sex lives.
A: Hypocrisy. B: Stupidity.
