Idiot lapse in judgment

When it comes to sex scandals, it's become so common amongst politicians that maybe we should re-categorize it. Rather than "adultery" or "fooling around" we should file it under "idiot lapse in judgment." The latest to be filed under that heading is Rep. Chris Lee, Republican of New York, who was outed with a bare-chested self-pic he sent a woman he met on craigslist. As pictures go it wasn't that bad; at least he wasn't exposing his private parts. The picture looks like a guy showing off his sleek physique. His more serious lapse came when he told the woman he was a divorced lobbyist.

Faces match. That's a problem.

"Lie-face! Lie-face!" as the kids would chant when we'd get caught in a lie. Within a couple of hours holier-than-thou House Leader John Boehner leaned on Lee to resign and he did. Lee is married with a small child. I guess we'll see how much longer he'll be married.

An editorial on Technorati.com about Lee aims at the hypocrisy angle: "Yet another case of 'family values' expert caught for naughtiness. When will the GOP stop the blatant hypocrisy?" I'm a Democrat, but think that's a disingenuous characterization, considering a lot of Democrats have been caught in the idiot lapse of judgment trap. I don't think sex recognizes one political party over another.

It's not that the public doesn't send risqué, even pornographic, images of themselves over the Internet or via their phones. It just takes a couple of clicks on the Internet to find hundreds or thousands of images of people who have taken naughty pics of themselves in the mirror. It's just that those everyday folks, lapses in judgment notwithstanding, aren't charged with writing the country's laws, as was Congressman Chris Lee.

If you're going to engage in this sort of thing, I have some advice for would-be self-picture takers: don't show your face.

See, now no problem!