Allow Me To Be Bipartisan

Tim Mahoney can go ahead and pack up his things at this point.

The Tim Mahoney story just keeps getting worse and worse.

First it was a settlement over an alleged affair; then it was a second alleged affair; then it was admitting to multiple affairs and now it's seedy details behind the settlement with Mahoney's former mistress [...]

The settlement was reached after Allen hired a lawyer who sent the Congressman a "demand" letter, listing specific examples of Mahoney's alleged "gross misconduct" and "stalking" including:
a) Calling Allen late in the evenings and demanding "phone sex;"
b) Demanding that Allen answer his calls or face termination;
c) Demanding that Allen attend fundraisers and "tease c-ck" to bring in more donations from the male members of the public;
d) Demanding that Allen engage in sexual conduct with another woman for his enjoyment.

Current and former staffers told ABC News the allegations contained in the "demand letter" sent to Mahoney were backed up by tape recordings of phone calls between the Congressman and Allen.

Although, I have to say, I'm not being TOTALLY bipartisan. Mahoney was a Republican right up until 2006. He was one of Rahm Emanuel's golden boys, brought in to nudge out an actual Democrat named Dave Lutrin. He was a scumbag then and he's a scumbag now. Rahm always has the best interest of the Democratic Party at heart.

P.S. I like that it took until now for the wife to file for divorce.

Who Wasn't This Guy Having Sex With?

Now there's a second affair in Tim Mahoney's recent past. And this one has hints of fraud and kickbacks involved as well:

On Tuesday night, a person close to the Mahoney campaign told the AP that Mahoney also was having a relationship with a high-ranking official in Martin County in his Florida district around the same time of the purported affair with Allen.

. . .The person said Mahoney was having the relationship with the official in 2007 while he also was lobbying the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a $3.4 million reimbursement for Martin County for damage caused by hurricanes in 2004. FEMA approved the money late last year.

Mahoney's congressional staff declined to comment on this alleged tryst, but noted Mahoney lobbies for FEMA funding throughout his district, and that Martin County has received $43 million from FEMA since 2004. Mahoney didn't take office until 2006.

The Hill is reporting that the Democratic Party is pulling all of its resources out of FL-16 in the wake of these scandals. And they very well should. I would remind everyone that Tim Mahoney was a Republican until July 2006, and that he has refused to endorse Sen. Obama for President, nor did he show up to the convention in Denver. The travesty is that they gave him any money in the first place.

Next Time, Find A Democrat

Tim Mahoney has been caught paying off a mistress. The upgrade here over Mark Foley, the guy Mahoney replaced, is that the mistress is of legal age.

Mahoney was a Republican pretty much until 2006, when Rahm Emanuel recruited him to run against Foley, pushing aside an actual Democrat who was running for the seat. Emanuel now is working overtime to limit the political damage of this scandal:

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.

A spokesperson for Emanuel denies that account, but said Emanuel did confront Mahoney "upon hearing a rumor" about an affair in 2007 and "told him he was in public life and had a responsibility to act accordingly." The spokesperson added that it was a "private conversation" that had nothing to do with Mahoney's re-election prospects.

Mahoney is probably toast and may have been anyway in a Republican district. All of which goes to show that leaders should be locally grown and locally discovered instead of plucked from the top by the likes of Rahm Emanuel. His judgment is officially suspect.