>>>>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_congressman_twitter_photo
>>>>
>>>>"'This was me doing a dumb thing, and doing it repeatedly, and lying about it', he said."
>>>>
>>>>My prediction: resignation by end of business tomorrow.
>>>
>>>What is a "seven-term married Democrat"? Is there really such a thing?
>>
>>I don't see why things like this are a resigning issue. The US and Uk seem obsessed with the private lives of the legislators > We'd all be better off concentrating on their legilative record. I'd rather have an effective crook than an ineffective saint.
>
>I'd read it from a different angle. Just check the record of the guys who had to resign for such reasons - mostly they were a nuisance to some powerful group, like that NY governor who seems to have disturbed some wasp's nest. They all have such stories to them - if it's not paying for sexual entertainment, it's some fraud, or keeping someone with shady past on the staff, or cooking the books during the campaign... there's always something. But only the guys who disturb the wrong waters get the media attention, and then have to pay that attention.

"There is always something" is a line from "All the King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren, which is on any short list of the best American novels. The narrator, Jack Burden, is told to dig up some dirt on Judge Irwin. There is nothing to dig, he says. There is always something, he is told. And as it turns out there is. The book is set in the American south -- Willie Stark is a fictionalized version of Huey Long, "every man a king" -- but the cynicism is eastern European.

One of my best memories of Baton Rouge is touring the capitol building. You can't imagine the size until you see it. Huey Long got it built and was assassinated there only a few years later. What I didn't know is that he was buried on the grounds.

http://www.crt.state.la.us/tourism/capitol/

It requires a bit of a detective to find your way to the observation deck on the top floor. The elevator ends a couple of floors short. I was muddling around with a family from Kansas who were there on vacation.. A boy asked me, "Where do we go now?" I said don't ask me, I'm from Illinois. We tried this and that and finally figured out you have to take a stairwell two floors up and then walk through a concession area. The view was worth it. You have a peerless view of the Mississippi River and southern Louisiana.

"Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and passes from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud" also comes from that book.

There are many worse ways to spend a couple of hot summer evenings than reading ATKM. It was also made into a pretty good movie, twice, the first time starring Broderick Crawford as Willie and the second time starring Sean Penn. The 1948 version won the Best Picture Oscar.