"Pro-life" Congressman pressured mistress to get abortion

[Progressive Realist]

WASHINGTON -- A pro-life, family-values congressman who worked as a doctor before winning election as a Tea Party-backed Republican had an affair with a patient and later pressured her to get an abortion, according to a phone call transcript obtained by The Huffington Post.

The congressman, Rep. Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee, was trying to save his marriage at the time, according to his remarks on the call, made in September of 2000. And, according to three independent sources familiar with the call and the recording, he made the tape himself.

DesJarlais, who was provided a copy of the transcript by HuffPost, did not deny its contents, but in a statement released through his campaign characterized it as just another sordid detail dredged up by the opposition. "Desperate personal attacks do not solve our nation's problems, yet it appears my opponents are choosing to once again engage in the same gutter politics that CBS news called the dirtiest in the nation just 2 years ago."

That race featured charges culled from DesJarlais' divorce from Susan DesJarlais, which was finalized in 2001. The filing included allegations that he held a gun in his own mouth for hours in one instance and that he "dry fired" a gun outside his wife's bedroom in another.

more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/10/scott-desjarlais-abortion-pro-life_n_1953136.html?1349878415

.....

[Lief]

D +1.

[angus]

he "dry fired" a gun outside his wife's bedroom in another.

what's that?  shooting blanks?

I guess he wasn't shooting blanks when he cocked his big gun and fired it into his whore. 

Think there's any truth to this story?  It is from Huffington Post, after all.  If it's true, it sucks to be Scott DesJarlais.  Ethics problems on many levels here.  Check out some of the comments at the bottom of the page (yeah, I know people who publicly share comment on news articles are wankers, but they're also voters):

"Perfect fit into today's Republican outlook. Abortion = bad

Fine Print ---- except when I might be the father of an illigimate child!" 

ouch.

[Grumps]

D +1.

LOL, a different R, perhaps but not D+1.  His CD is Blue as blue gets.

[Senator Snowstalker]

D +1.

LOL, a different R, perhaps but not D+1.  His CD is Blue as blue gets.

Isn't it the kind of district that likes voting for DINO's at a state/local level sometimes?

[Grumps]

D +1.

LOL, a different R, perhaps but not D+1.  His CD is Blue as blue gets.

Isn't it the kind of district that likes voting for DINO's at a state/local level sometimes?

Perhaps....but I saw national only.

[Lief]

I don't think there's time for a different R to get on the ballot. Of course the D that won this year would lose in a landslide in 2014.

[Emperor SJoyce]

D +1.

LOL, a different R, perhaps but not D+1.  His CD is Blue as blue gets.

Isn't it the kind of district that likes voting for DINO's at a state/local level sometimes?

It was D for the last 8 years, so yes. Gore's CD for a time.

[IDS Legislator Alfred F. Jones]

So this man openly admits to being fine with murdering children?

[Progressive Realist]

So this man openly admits to being fine with murdering children?

Hey, so is Charles Fuqua.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/08/charlie-fuqua-arkansas-candidate-death-penalty-rebellious-children_n_1948490.html

[Insula Dei]

That's pretty low.

[Communists For McCain]

So, a "pro-life" Congressman pressures a mistress to get an abortion a decade before he ran for Congress two years ago?

Yeah, seems like a legit point.  Makes perfect sense!  I'm sure the GOP is itching to run him out of the race and replace him with somebody who's biggest mistake was not paying a parking meter in 1975!


EDIT: Just in case somebody gets the impression that I think this guy is an upstanding individual I am not.  What he did was really bastardly and not that nice.  I think he might've even had mental issues that he needed to discuss with (and hopefully did) a therapist.  However, I don't think using something from a time period of 12 years ago is effective, given that last time the opposing candidate's campaign used something more recent and more serious than this and ended up losing against this guy in the first place.  That, and twelve years is more than enough time to have a change of heart (hell, looked at this guy's wikipedia and it says he had since been remarried and has three more kids).  Really, I don't see the attempt at painting a picture of a hypocrite is fitting in this situation, given the amount of time between the affair and this guy's congressional career.
Just saying.

[Keystone Phil]

Disgusting

[Link]

Disgusting

Please let the other blue Avatars know it is okay to post in this thread.

So this man openly admits to being fine with murdering children?

Only in conjunction with adultery and violating the Hippocratic oath.  Knock it off with the partisan hyperbole.

What he did was really bastardly and not that nice.  I think he might've even had mental issues that he needed to discuss with (and hopefully did) a therapist.  However, I don't think using something from a time period of 12 years ago is effective, given that last time the opposing candidate's campaign used something more recent and more serious than this and ended up losing against this guy in the first place.

Lol.  I love how someone wanting to take the high road in this thread uses the word "bastard."  Ain't irony delicious?

[Communists For McCain]

Disgusting

Please let the other blue Avatars know it is okay to post in this thread.

So this man openly admits to being fine with murdering children?

Only in conjunction with adultery and violating the Hippocratic oath.  Knock it off with the partisan hyperbole.

What he did was really bastardly and not that nice.  I think he might've even had mental issues that he needed to discuss with (and hopefully did) a therapist.  However, I don't think using something from a time period of 12 years ago is effective, given that last time the opposing candidate's campaign used something more recent and more serious than this and ended up losing against this guy in the first place.

Lol.  I love how someone wanting to take the high road in this thread uses the word "bastard."  Ain't irony delicious?

I like my irony cold and with extra lime juice Link

I'm sorry if I've given anyone the impression of taking a "high road" on this news story.  No matter how you slice it the guy did act like a bastard.  He did.  Cheating on your wife and then casting off your cheating other like they are Undesirables in an Indian Caste system is a bit bastardly.  And I don't say that as a holy roller man either.  I'm not sure about you, Link, but I tend to lean on the side of calling a spade a spade.

However, at the same time it seems a number of people here have ignored the details of what occurred.  Sure, it was a typical Republican story of marital infidelity and unwanted children.  And the man in this situation is a huge ass hypocrite for wanting the woman he was getting the uhlala with an abortion so he could kill off their relationship.  Well, he would be that huge ass hypocrite if we knew he stayed consistent in his thoughts, actions, and beliefs in the 12 years since it happened.  Me?  I don't know how he lived his life after that event, after his first divorce so I won't just go ahead and call him evil based on differences between the past and present.

Normally, given that this is a Teabaggerurrrruhrrrrrrhurrrdurrrdurr I would probably throw in some lame joke or one-liner about tea-bagging.  However, it also counts to pay attention to details.  This isn't about moral authority or being on a higher road than anyone (I'm in no position, given my posting history, to act in higher moral authority), this is about considering the background of the news story.  And given that, I feel this isn't very effective for this man's opponents to paint him as a hypocrite, given time lag.

Now excuse me while I go back to eating my Irony Soup.  Tis getting cold.

[Californian Tony]

Why am I not surprised that a champion of "moral value" is the most likely to be an absolutely immoral individual?

[I left.]

Why am I not surprised that a champion of "moral value" is the most likely to be an absolutely immoral individual?

Because you're familiar with conservative American "family values" politicians?

[Link]

Disgusting

Please let the other blue Avatars know it is okay to post in this thread.

So this man openly admits to being fine with murdering children?

Only in conjunction with adultery and violating the Hippocratic oath.  Knock it off with the partisan hyperbole.

What he did was really bastardly and not that nice.  I think he might've even had mental issues that he needed to discuss with (and hopefully did) a therapist.  However, I don't think using something from a time period of 12 years ago is effective, given that last time the opposing candidate's campaign used something more recent and more serious than this and ended up losing against this guy in the first place.

Lol.  I love how someone wanting to take the high road in this thread uses the word "bastard."  Ain't irony delicious?

I like my irony cold and with extra lime juice Link

I'm sorry if I've given anyone the impression of taking a "high road" on this news story.  No matter how you slice it the guy did act like a bastard.  He did.  Cheating on your wife and then casting off your cheating other like they are Undesirables in an Indian Caste system is a bit bastardly.  And I don't say that as a holy roller man either.  I'm not sure about you, Link, but I tend to lean on the side of calling a spade a spade.

You misunderstood.  It's just in responding to a story about someone aborting an illegitimate child you tossed the word bastard in the mix.  I'm not defending the guy or criticizing you.  Just making a funny (or not funny) observation.

However, at the same time it seems a number of people here have ignored the details of what occurred.  Sure, it was a typical Republican story of marital infidelity and unwanted children.  And the man in this situation is a huge ass hypocrite for wanting the woman he was getting the uhlala with an abortion so he could kill off their relationship.  Well, he would be that huge ass hypocrite if we knew he stayed consistent in his thoughts, actions, and beliefs in the 12 years since it happened.

Well I haven't gotten divorced or pressured anyone into having an abortion.  I just think people who have should get out of the telling people how to live their lives business.  Am I some kind of freak of nature?  Is there no one else who hasn't cheated on their spouse, gotten a divorced, and then demanded someone undergo an abortion?  Am I the only one who is free of those vices?

[Simfan34]

Throw him to the wolves! Hypocrisy should not be tolerated.

[Lloyd Bentsen's Ghost]

So, a "pro-life" Congressman pressures a mistress to get an abortion a decade before he ran for Congress two years ago?

Yeah, seems like a legit point.  Makes perfect sense!  I'm sure the GOP is itching to run him out of the race and replace him with somebody who's biggest mistake was not paying a parking meter in 1975!


EDIT: Just in case somebody gets the impression that I think this guy is an upstanding individual I am not.  What he did was really bastardly and not that nice.  I think he might've even had mental issues that he needed to discuss with (and hopefully did) a therapist.  However, I don't think using something from a time period of 12 years ago is effective, given that last time the opposing candidate's campaign used something more recent and more serious than this and ended up losing against this guy in the first place.  That, and twelve years is more than enough time to have a change of heart (hell, looked at this guy's wikipedia and it says he had since been remarried and has three more kids).  Really, I don't see the attempt at painting a picture of a hypocrite is fitting in this situation, given the amount of time between the affair and this guy's congressional career.
Just saying.

If you or your sexual partner has had an abortion, it's one thing to later be personally opposed to it, but a person who's had an abortion has no right to publicly advocate denying everyone else a choice they themselves had. If Scott Desjarlais and his ladyfriend lived in Tea Party Utopia, they wouldn't have that choice. Instead, they'd have a kid together and in all likelihood he would never have become a congressman.

[CathKhan]

Disgusting.

[Chareth Cutestory]

Of course he did, social positions aren't real. They're specifically designed to distract people, not actual issues politicians care about. They'll do or say whatever we'd like as long as it doesn't personally damage them...which isn't news.

[Sibboleth]

Surely the word 'pressured' (combined with certain other details) makes this a wee bit worse than this man being a hypocrite.

[angus]

Surely the word 'pressured' (combined with certain other details) makes this a wee bit worse than this man being a hypocrite.

To be fair, the good doctor impregnated his patient and then pressured her to fix the problem long before he became a Tea Party congressman. 

[InsaneTrollLogic]

Throw him to the wolves! Hypocrisy should not be tolerated.

....or to the weasels.

But seriously...this is why the anti abortion thing is retarded.  It appears more based on everyone getting together and saying "you ought not to do this" than actully sending the cops in  to shoot the locks off of homes and clinics and scooping up hordes of women and doctors and cramming them in a bunch of prisons that are already crammed as it is. ..and nobody disagrees with that...well almost nobody.

In other words, the most popular situations where abortion should be tolerated are "rape, mortal maternal danger and me".