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Hitting the self-destruct button in Washington

The “Sex Scandal” club is only one subcaucus in the big tent of Washington infamy and shame. There is also the “Blatant Financial Improprieties” subcaucus (with the guest star Duke Cunningham), the “Ill-Advised Nazi Comparison” subcaucus (Howdy, Senator Dick Durbin) and the “Racially Insensitive Remark Directly Into a Video Camera” (“You’re an animal, George Allen”).

But the sex subcaucus is easily the biggest.

“You always seem to have politicians doing bizarrely self-destructive things, especially involving sex,” says Lawrence Kestenbaum, creator of “Political Graveyard,” a history Web site that includes an exhaustive cataloging of transgressions by politicians.

Under the heading “Politicians Who Were Ever in Trouble or Disgrace,” the section contains 420 entries, in chronological order, many of them involving present and former members of Congress.
Read entire article at NYT