House Speaker John Boehner has a second alleged mistress. I think this deserves a closer look.
Yesterday, Mike Stark of StarkReports.com and DailyKos published a diary titled "Maybe it's time for the media to say what they know about Boehner", in which he told us of the alleged affair between John Boehner and Lisbeth Lyons, who is the Vice President for Government Affairs for the American Printers Association, as reported by The National Enquirer months ago.
I have tons of respect for Mike Stark, so he deserves a big hat tip here. Where Mike Stark told you yesterday about the allegations that John Boehner had an affair with Lisbeth Lyons yesterday, I am going to tell you about the allegations about the second woman in John Boehner's life who isn't John Boehner's wife.
. . . an ENQUIRER investigation has uncovered a bedroom encounter that Boehner - second in line of succession to the presidency - allegedly had with LEIGH LaMORA, a 46-year-old former press secretary to ex-Colorado Congressman JOEL HEFLEY.
The Ohio native, a congressman for 20 years, and his wife Deborah, 62, have been married for 37 years.
But she has shunned the capital's social scene, and he is often seen out on the town without her.
"Deborah normally stays back in Ohio while John spends most of his time in D.C.," said an insider. "It is not uncommon for Boehner to attend parties and events without his wife."
~snip~
But The ENQUIRER learned that Deborah was nowhere to be seen when the ruggedly handsome congressman attended a casino party at the home of a D.C. lobbyist in August 1997 - and reportedly hooked up with pretty congressional press secretary Leigh LaMora.
nationalenquirer.com
I would disregard this story entirely if it wasn't for the fact that The National Enquirer of all places broke the John Edwards' Scandal, and even The Washington Times ran a story recently citing the indictment of John Edwards as a vindication of The National Enquirer's original reporting. Apparently, if you want accurate stories about pro sports you should go to ESPN, and if you want accurate stories on sleazy sex shit you should go to The National Enquirer, so I am going to give The National Enquirer a smidgen of credibility here.
Of course, I am going to take The National Enquirer with a grain of salt, and I STRONGLY OBJECT to the notion that John Boehner is ruggedly handsome because John Boehner looks like Mr. Potatohead if Mr. Potatohead was a sun dried tomato in a business suit, but I digress.
In considering the zeal with which the media has pursued Democrats who are accused of philandering as opposed to the total laziness the media shows in pursuing Tom Coburn's role in the Ensign affair, or the asleep at the wheel role that the media had in NOT reporting on Senator Vitter's history with hookers while he was running for re-election, in considering the media's obsession with Monica Lewinsky's blue dress I became curious about why the media seems to ignore Republicans like Mark Sanford, David Vitter and John Ensign who get busted and then refuse to resign, but Democrats who get busted or even accused of similar transgressions get raked through the coals until they quit or their Presidency ends. This makes me want to put the allegations against John Boehner's mistresses into a different perspective.
Luckily enough, someone did that for us.
But The ENQUIRER learned that Deborah was nowhere to be seen when the ruggedly handsome congressman attended a casino party at the home of a D.C. lobbyist in August 1997 - and reportedly hooked up with pretty congressional press secretary Leigh LaMora.
What really interests me here is the person and timeframe. In 1997, John Boehner was chairman of the Republican Conference, meaning he held a leadership position in the House. Not only was Boehner a superior to LaMora in terms of being a congress person, but he also had the added bonus of being part of the leadership. This could really fall under sexual harassment.
Now let’s think back to that same timeframe and another case of sexual harassment that gained the nation attention. That would be Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Even though the actual impeachment of Clinton revolved around an issue of perjury, that perjury was committed in connection with sexual harassment.
So here is Boehner having an alleged affair at the same time that the Republican Party was impeaching President Bill Clinton for lying about having an affair.
The author of the piece cited above used the Mark Souder scandal of last year as another way to put things into perspective. You may remember Mark Souder as the Indiana Republican House Rep who was a strong advocate of abstinence only sex education that got busted having an affair with one of his staffers. When that happened, Boehner pushed Souder to resign immediately. The same thing happened when GOP House Rep. Christopher Lee of NY-26 infamy resigned after trying to cheat on his wife via Craigslist. Under John Boehner's leadership, any allegations or proof of affairs are not to be tolerated, unless your political career is Too Big To Fail, as is John Boehner's, apparently.
More perspective below the fold.
I am curious as to why Senator David Vitter and his well documented dalliances with Hookers while wearing diapers was totally ignored by the national media even though Vitter ran for re-election last year, and largely continues to be ignored to this day.
When the story broke about John Boehners' affairs in The National Enquirer, the media quickly got bored with it and the story went away.
When the story broke about John Edwards' affair in The National Enquirer, well, that story didn't quite go away, did it?
If a Democrat is accused of a scandal, the media will demand that they resign immediately and pursue the story to the ends of the earth. If a Republicans is accused of a scandal, the media will report it for a few days and then forget, because Fox News, AM Radio and the rest of the right wing noise machine will simply NOT REPORT IT. The right wing noise machine will not drive the narrative about a Republican scandal, so it slowly dies in the media, but a Democratic scandal will always get more exposure because the Drudge/Rush/Fox drumbeat will demand it, and the other insipid media outlets will follow suit out of fear of being accused of being "The Liberal Media", but Mark Sanford can hike the Appalachian Trail and then apologize and serve out the rest of his term, no problem. Senator David Vitter can serve out the rest of his term AND run for re-election and the media will NEVER mention his diaper hooker stories, no problem. If a Democrat has a scandal the Foxaganda complex will beat it into the ground and the leadership of the Democratic party will swiftly throw the accused Dem under the bus and demand investigations. If a Republican has a scandal the Foxaganda complex will ignore it and the leadership of the Democratic party will not demand investigations. Anybody else starting to notice a disturbing pattern?
So where is the media follow up stories to the allegations of John Boehner's reported affairs? I know we can hardly expect John Boehner to launch a ethics inquiry against himself, but it sure would be nice to have an independent investigative media in this country that could do that kind of thing, wouldn't it? Is there a compelling tweet, or a blue stained dress, or even a wide stance that could act as proof of the claims against House Speaker John Boehner? No. But there wasn't proof against John Edwards until the National Enquirer reported about his affairs, and the media did some research. Would it kill the media to apply the same journalistic effort into the claims made against John Boehner in the same publication that brought down John Edwards? Would it kill them to remind the public over and over of David Vitter's history, or the role Tom Coburn played in the Ensign Affair, which is still under investigation? I will tell you one thing that this story of John Boehner's alleged affairs has put into perspective for me, when it comes to hounding politicians over alleged or truthful sex scandals the GOP is Too Big To Fail in the eyes of the media. There is one set of rules for the media when handling Dem sex scandals and another set of rules for handling GOP sex scandals, and since Fox and the Right Wing Noise Machine drives the national media narrative, guess how those two sets of rules usually work out. It's the same reason David Vitter does not still have an ongoing scandal and John Edwards does.
With all that being said, I would like to say that if anything I have written about Leigh LaMora or Lisbeth Lyons turns out to be false I will gladly apologize. I am not saying that there is definitive proof of any affairs involving Leigh LaMora or Lisbeth Lyons and House Speaker John Boehner, I would just like to know why the media gave up on that story and other stories pertaining to Republicans embroiled in sex scandals who refuse to resign like David Vitter and Tom Coburn. After living through the Clinton Impeachment and the swift resignations of Democratic officials like Governors Elliot Spitzer and Jim McGreevey, I think that puts the right wing media bias and other things in politics in a new perspective, doesn't it? The media has one set of rules for Democrats and another set of rules for Republicans. Republicans are allowed to lie about WMD's, torture, Death Panels, the cause of the deficit, anything and everything, including their sex scandals until the moment they get busted, and then the media gets bored and moves on, but Democrats aren't allowed to lie about their sex scandals, and the Democrats who do get caught are never EVER allowed to forget about it. Republicans are allowed to lie and Democrats can't push their own ideas because the media has framed the debate around whether facts like Climate Science is even really a science while the guy who swore to heaven that Armageddon is coming if Health Care reform passes into law is allowed to be like the pastor who predicts the end of the world, and then when it doesn't happen the media pretends he ever said that and just invites him on Sunday Morning talk shows next week where he will make outrageously alarmist claims and spout misinformation over and over. This is the recipe for the one sided national conversation where the far right meets the center right and decides what is best for everyone, this is the recipe for the funny memory hole the media has towards the long history of failed GOP policies over the last decade.The media has one set of rules for Democrats and another set of rules for Republicans. That can not be any more clear than when we witness the media's unwillingness to pursue the allegations made in the past year that John Boehner is having multiple affairs.
How appropriate. I've been crying since I met you, now I'm dying to forget you.
Peace and love to all
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