Democrat Who Won Mark Foley's Congressional Seat Has His Own Sex Scandal

Only this time, there WAS sex involved.

Remember when Nancy Pelosi rode into the Speaker's Chair on her broom promising to clean up the House? The House under her leadership would be "the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history." That was right after she promised it would "restore stability and bipartisanship" and a "new direction" in Iraq.

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that after touting the Mark Foley email (no sex) scandal, the Mr. Clean Dems picked to fill Foley's seat should be involved in a REAL sex scandal and one involving payoffs and nasty audio tapes!

John Lillpop at the Canada Free Press summed it up brilliantly:

Tim Mahoney, sexual tryst, $120,000 payoff
Culture of Corruption Snares Another Democrat While Pelosi Snoozes!
By John Lillpop
Canada Free Press
Monday, October 13, 2008

In 2006, Republican Mark Foley did the honorable thing when news of his sex scandal was disclosed: He immediately resigned his seat in the House of Representatives.

At the time, Nancy Pelosi chalked up the Foley scalp as another ringing example of the “Culture of Corruption” run by and for Republicans.

Unfortunately for Pelosi and the Democrats, Tim Mahoney, the Democrat who captured Foley’s seat, has apparently entangled himself in not only a sexual tryst, but what appears to be a $120,000 payoff as well.

Unlike House Republicans who demanded that Foley leave, Democrats have circled the wagon around Mahoney in order to avoid losing that House seat.

Politics before principle, or so it appears.

From ABC News, this report:

“Senior Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the chair of the Democratic Caucus, have been working with Mahoney to keep the matter from hurting his re-election campaign, the Mahoney staffers said.”

What about the integrity of the House and doing the business of the people, Rep. Emanuel? Is that just too much to expect from a Democrat?

Speaker Pelosi issued the following public statement:

“I just learned today about the serious allegations concerning Congressman Tim Mahoney. These charges must be immediately and thoroughly investigated by the House Ethics Committee.”

Just learned about the scandal, Speaker Pelosi? Is that because you were too busy looking for non-existent corruption among Republicans to smell the stench on your own doorstep?

By the way, didn’t Pelosi advertise herself as the woman who would “clean up the House” ?

Judging from the likes of Tim Mahoney and Charles Rangel, that woman is just not up to the task!

Let's not forget that in the wake of the Mark Foley resignation, the media went on a field day breathlessly reporting every scintillating detail of the inappropriate emails Mark Foley sent to a former page. There were demands for a special investigation to see what House GOP leadership did, or did not do, when they learned of the affair.

ABC News did break the story and included the audio from this nasty phone call but do will we see anything like the media frenzy which helped sink the GOP in the key weeks before the 2006 elections? We all know the answer to that.

Meanwhile, Congressman Mahoney has called for an investigation on himself! Compare that to how House Republicans forced Foley to resign. A nice, neat Pelosi controlled investigation which wouldn't be completed until well after election day is what House Dems have in mind.

So much for cleaning the House. Dems just leave the garbage to pile up on the Floor!

This episode reminds us of other recent Dem stinkeroos:

• Former Presidential candidate John Edwards had his own mistress and payoffs scandal that was also ignored for as long as the media could get away with it.
• Senator Chris Dodd, (D-CT) received a mortgage on the most favorable terms even though he was the head of the Senate Banking Committee and charged with overseeing the failing mortgage business. Senator Dodd remains the chairman of that committee.
• Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY) failed to pay income taxes on income from his rental property in the Dominican Republican even though he is the chairman of the House committee which writes the tax laws you and I must follow. He claims he didn't know what he was doing was wrong and still sits as chairman today.
• Barney Frank's lover was an executive at Fannie Mae at the same time Frank was doing everything he could to prevent accounting rules from being adopted that would have limited executive compensation and might have forestalled the financial crisis. Frank still sits as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Yep, when it comes to cleaning up the House (or Senate) a broom is needed. And it isn't the one Pelosi flew in on!