Fit, Fun, Classless

Chris Lee and Eric Massa could get an apartment together. I smell a sitcom! We may as well get some canned laughs out of the area’s latest politician-generated shame, as Western New York must cope with being known as the home of immoderately randy congressmen. It takes three examples to make a trend, and we’re two too close.

Lee misplaced his career along with his shirt. That said, Lee has quite a core! Um, moving on, it’s sad that a representative couldn’t even figure out how to cheat properly.

Aside from the fact that fooling around being a spouse’s back is so obviously, utterly, repulsively wrong, Lee was stupid enough to put his face in a Craigslist ad photo. Even unelected regular scumbags know to crop photos at the neck.

In his defense, he can use his incompetence as evidence that he’s a novice at disregarding his vows.  That’s unless he has actually been this repulsive, dumb, and sloppy for awhile. Either way, he can now head back to his favorite site and look for his career in Missed Connections.

On the other hand, voters shouldn’t place ads looking for him. We should bid good riddance to bad husbands. There’s no use for a politician who holds the right political positions while looking for to get himself into illicit personal ones.

He has shown that he’s not trustworthy.  Lee can’t justify his worthwhile votes without simultaneously behaving faithfully. He can figure out where he went wrong by spending time with Mark Sanford so they can compare notes and strategies.

Now, what should he do? The first thing is nothing. Lee should disappear for awhile, both for his own good and on account of how nobody wants to deal with him right now.

Ideally, he should pull a John Profumo, with the bright side being that cleaning bathrooms can’t be much worse than being a congressman. What’s important is that he gets modest and acts contritely, if for no other reason than he shouldn’t be heard from him for awhile. He shouldn’t make another public appearance until he can display a genuinely sheepish expression.

By comparison, the attempted cheater doesn’t want to turn into someone even scuzzier, namely a publicity whore. A certain New York ex-governor comes to mind, although sinking to Spitzeresque levels is impossible for most humans. That said, if CNN wants to retool its moribund 8 p.m. hour, Christopher Spitzer could become the most appealingly unctuous program since Jersey Shore.

But give Lee credit for acting in the best possible way after acting like the worst husband. Lee at least had the decency to resign when his scandalous behavior came to light. His acceptance of responsibility is far better than dragging the area through a local Clinton-style ordeal where he kept his job at the expense of losing what’s left of his dignity.

Of course, it would have been infinitely better not to have done something appalling in the shadows where he had to fear being caught in the first place. But it’s better to have standards and fall short than to shamelessly wallow in filth.

Lee is gross, but he at least realizes it. Now, we’d be in much better shape if only some Democrats would resign for carelessly exposing our checkbooks.

In the meantime, Lee has plenty of time to think about whether looking for tail online was worth it. He may conclude that giving up Congress for the pursuit of the most lecherous of matrimonial-belittling indulgences might not be as appealing of a trade-off as it first sounds. Even accepting one of Massa’s invitations to tickle fight won’t help Lee clear his head, although it will make for a wacky episode.