Anti-choice Tea Party Congressman: My mistress wasn't pregnant when I insisted she have an abortion

Anti-choice Representative Scott DesJarlais, who made a tape recording of himself insisting that his mistress get an abortion, has an explanation that should clear the whole matter up. She wasn't really pregnant.

"I don't mind telling people that there was no pregnancy, and no abortion," said Representative Scott DesJarlais, who is running for reelection, in his first comments on the scandal. "But I also don't mind telling people that this was a protracted two-year divorce back in 1999 and 2000. There was some difficult times, for sure." DesJarlais, as reported by the Huffington Post this week, taped himself pushing a woman — a patient he'd been sleeping with while working as a physician — to have an abortion, in hopes of showing the recording to his wife and saving his marriage. Needless to say, it did not work out, although apparently he got all worked up and outed himself as a huge hypocritical sleaze for nothing.

Pro-Life Congressman: Mistress Wasn’t Actually Pregnant When I Insisted on Abortion

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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awjt

LOLWUT?
Mister44

Hypocrisy – it’s what politicians do best.
- http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm
  
  Yeah, but this guy may actually be overqualified on that score.
PhosPhorious

This is EXACTLY what that Akins guy was talking about!

Damn liberals. . . .
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  Eat Mor Bacon? Oh wait sorry that was the Atkins guy
- elix
  
  Todd Akin was trying to warn us!
  
  Mother of God…
  
  /s
TWX

I don’t really care that she wasn’t actually pregnant, if he thought she was pregnant and pressed her for the procedure.

Come to think of it, even if he knew she wasn’t pregnant, he can’t object to abortion on moral grounds when his immoral acts caused him to advocate for what he would consider an immoral procedure in order to attempt to appease judgement of those immoral acts.
- fuzzyfuzzyfungus
  
  Ah, you are ignoring the important part. Since she was being coerced, this doesn’t count as ‘pro choice’, and moral order is upheld!
http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

What a Hypocritic Oaf!
- voiceinthedistance
  
  It’s the: I’m not a rapist, I’m a murder defense . . . with a twist.
acerplatanoides

Family Values.
- fuzzyfuzzyfungus
  
  An abortion is a pretty reliable way of keeping a fetus from turning all gay on you…
  - http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm
    
    But how will we know to abort only the gay liberal fetuses? No, the ethical thing to do is to wait until they grow up gay or liberal, and then kill them. That’s what the Bible says, or if it doesn’t, it should.
    - http://profiles.google.com/carboncow robert feller
      
      Actually I”m pretty sure that jesus guy said something about stoning stupid people…I read it in a really thick book…
      - acerplatanoides
        
        Jesus never said that, but lots of people claim it. Read the red parts.
corydodt

Ohh!! He wasn’t actually proposing abortion to his mistress. He was PRETENDING to be proposing abortion to his mistress so his wife would think.. wait, what exactly? “Thank god my husband is aborting his illegitimate fetus, now I know he really loves me?”

What the actual fuck.
- mccrum
  
  I know, right? It’s quite probably the most fail-safe plan ever crafted. I’ll never figure out where it went wrong.
  - mappo
    
    It’s a Scooby Doo ending: “…and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for you meddling journalists.”
- http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino
  
  As if proving that he can treat TWO women like garbage is supposed to impress his wife?? How can such consummate assholes maneuver in life I don’t even.
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  “HoneyPot c’mon now, c’mon now, you know I love you and only you. I only ever gave you children and when I gave that whore a child by accident I took it back, and I can prove it! Just listen”
Chuck

This gives me a great idea for a reality show focused on a very specific kind of practical joke. We recruit the mistresses of anti-abortion types, outfit them with hidden cameras, and have them tell their arch-conservative lovers that they’re pregnant. Then we’ll watch what happens.

I’m sure everyone will have a laugh over it.
- http://www.nothinginside.net mindysan33
  
  You need a kickstarter to make this happen. Please?
- http://twitter.com/deathsmiled Wendy Kitten
  
  I would pay money to watch that show.
crnk

Well, now we know who is getting the Surrealist votes!
- Justin J. Snelgrove
  
  The kumquat?
- Quiche de Resistance
  
  Did you hear about the surrealist godfather? He made them an offer they couldn’t understand.
http://ae4rv.com/ royaltrux

It’s baby batter, not baby mustard.
Snig

This reminds me of the definition of chutzpah: The guy who kills both his parents, then asks for mercy during his trial, since he’s an orphan.
gracchus

Ah, so he wanted her to go to one of those doctors Todd Akin was talking about, who do abortion procedures on the non-pregnant just for fun. It all makes sense now.

If the DNC is smart (never a sure thing), right now they’re throwing a lot of money toward the opponent of this … well, “hypocritical sleaze” says it all.
- EH
  
  Just throw in a illegitimate rape or two!
  - gracchus
    
    Judging by this flailing dope’s performance so far, I wouldn’t be shocked to see him bring that into it as well.
http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland

Case: Closed.
http://profile.yahoo.com/QQATRQQXOJDKT4XVO4TTY4BYOE mike

…
Preston Sturges

He looks just like the pimp on the unwatchable HBO show “Cathouse.”
- http://ae4rv.com/ royaltrux
  
  He looks like he’s finally figured out who “W. W.” is.
Snig

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKGjOE_7bYI
Boundegar

IOKIYAR.
Mitchell Glaser

I guess he feels that floating this obvious lie is an improvement on actually having tried to get her to have an abortion. Just goes to show you how these people think.
moioci

State medical boards are not fond of the whole sex with patients thing. Even sex with former patients can be problematic. This admission could lead to an investigation that adversely affects his licensure.
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  … she came into his practice and disrobed…
  
  WHAT did you expect him to do? Keep it in his pants?
  
  WHY was he supposed to know she would get pregnant? Since he was in a position of trust, it should’ve been rape, and thus HOW could she get pregnant?
  
  It’s like everything they taught him at teh Jim Bakker School of Medicine went horribly, horribly wrong. Poor guy, ya gotta pity him
Ipo

So, he threatened his victim/ex-wife with a gun and once held a firearm in his own mouth for hours and he goaded (“pretended to”) his victim/patient/paramour to an abortion.
See the pattern?
He has a thing for playing life and death scenes.
Heavy handed manipulator, violent drama queen.

He shouldn’t be a physician. Or congresscritter.
Who the hell trusts this man?
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

They should elect the mustard.
http://voidstar.com/ jbond

It’s… Dum-Dum, Hollow-Point, Bullet-Head Man!
Brainspore

If you subscribe to the notion that “abortion is murder” then this defense basically boils down to “I just told my wife that I hired a hitman to help my marriage.”
elix

I have a horrifying feeling that this dumb fucker is who Todd Akin was talking about in 2008, about abortion doctors performing abortions on women who weren’t even pregnant.

Oooooor he’s just a hypocritical dishonest adulterer. Heeeeeey, there seem to be a lot of those running on family values campaigns. Strange…
http://www.facebook.com/people/Ray-Perkins/1314630060 Ray Perkins

What level of cretin would it take to look at that ad and think “By golly, I’m gonna vote for him, he’s one kinda smart doctor.” Because, you know, somebody did.
acerplatanoides

I think he aimed for Boston Tea Party, and wound up down the rabbit hole tea party.
Bob Webb

It must be the easiest thing EVER to get into the House of Representatives.
jhertzli

There’s a third one?

It’s quite common for defenders of traditional values to be caught in extramarital affairs or popping pills of dubious legality. For some reason, such scandals appear to be much rarer for abortions. (There were only two instances here and I’m sure they were thorough.) Maybe we uptight reactionaries really do take abortion more seriously than mere vices.

A corollary to the above: You can’t blame the pro-life movement on hatred of pleasure.