Scott Fitzgerald once said “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” If so, Republican Rep. Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania is a certifiable genius. However, in this case, Murphy’s two opposing views have cost him his seat in Congress. Murphy, who has run on a pro-life platform in securing eight terms in Congress, has struggled to explain emails where he asked his mistress to get an abortion. He has now announced his retirement from Congress to “take personal time.” The story is credited to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Murphy drew the ire of his former mistress, Shannon Edwards, a forensic psychologist in Pittsburgh, when he posted his pro-life messages on his website. He posted the following statement:
“The United States is one of just seven countries worldwide that permits elective abortion more than halfway through pregnancy (beyond 20 weeks). It is a tragic shame that America is leading the world in discarding and disregarding the most vulnerable.”
Murphy told voters that he sponsored a bill prohibiting the use of federal funds to pay for abortions and that he hoped that “we will once again be a nation committed to honoring life from the moment of conception and ensuring American taxpayer dollars are never spent to end a life before it even begins.”
Edwards was livid and sent him a January text that read:
“And you have zero issue posting your pro-life stance all over the place when you had no issue asking me to abort our unborn child just last week when we thought that was one of the options.”
Murphy responded with a text that made it sound like his pro-life position through the years was just so much political posturing by his staff: “I get what you say about my March for Life messages. I’ve never written them. Staff does them. I read them and winced. I told staff don’t write any more. I will.”
These communications were first disclosed in a divorce proceeding by the husband of Murphy’s mistress. Dr. Jesse Sally, a sports medicine physician, demanded to depose Murphy as part of the divorce.
Dr. Sally filed for divorce from Ms. Edwards in July 2016. Then, this past summer, his attorney filed a request with the courts to depose Mr. Murphy as part of that court action.
The statements from Murphy are in sharp contrast to his past pro-life statements that made him a favorite of the Family Research Council and secured the endorsement of LifePAC, which opposes abortion rights. He is also a member of the House Pro-Life Caucus.
In addition, the newspaper found a six-page memo to Mr. Murphy reportedly from his his chief of staff, Susan Mosychuk, who criticized Murphy for repeatedly trashing employees and maintaining a state of “terror”. If the allegations are true, Murphy is not only a hypocrite but a truly, truly horrible boss and person.
The memo was titled “Office Conduct and Behavior: Harassment/Legal Compliance,” and alleged an “ongoing and ever more pronounced pattern of sustained inappropriate behavior” by Murphy leading to “abysmal office morale.” It also detailed the difficulty in hiring or retaining people due to Murphy’s “hostile, erratic, unstable, angry, aggressive and abusive behavior.”
What is astonishing is that the memo says that Murphy had a 100 percent turnover of staff in just one year as Murphy burned through over 100 employees. The memo describes truly tyrannical behavior by Murphy and even discusses his “dangerous and erratic” behavior while reading his iPad and watching YouTube videos.
The tantrums associated with Murphy are ironic given his publications as a psychologist and an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh. He co-wrote The Angry Child: Regaining Control When Your Child Is Out of Control (2002) as well as Overcoming Passive-Aggression: How to Stop Hidden Anger from Spoiling Your Relationships, Career, and Happiness (2005).
Tom Nash, when a republican gets caught up in a scandal they often shamefully resign and leave office. A democrat wears a scandal as a badge of honor. There is no shame in their culture.
Examples, please?
Tom Nash I do call em as I see em. I was challenged to come up with a list of republicans who had issues with infidelity, and that’s what I did. Would you like me to come up with a list of democrats? That would be easier!
Independent Bob,..
Thanks….I didn’t see where you were challenged to come up with a list of Republicans, but the comments are often out of sequence, so I may have missed it.
PS…I did see that your list of Republicans caught up in scandals was addressed to StepsonToads, but I must have missed where he challenged you to produce the list.
It is ironic when scandals topple the holy who preach to the rest of us.
Another example is the fall of Harvey Weinstein:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html
Mr Weinstein is a powerful movie studio heads Miramar and the Weinstein Company. He is an outspoken Liberal, prominent fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, and he even employed Malia Obama as an intern.
He also stands accused of sexual harassment going back 30 years, and has settled no less than 8 times with women who claimed he harassed and abused them, and used his power to manipulate and use vulnerable women. So why he’s hammered on Trump’s private boasting with a guy about groupies, he was running quite a casting couch out of hotels. He used his female assistants to arrange meetings with women hoping to break into show business in his hotel room. And those woman, likely also Liberals in that industry, went along with setting these women up for the full court press from a powerful man in a bathrobe in his hotel room.
There are an awful lot of people who have publicly condemned conservatives who were complicit in a very poorly kept dirty secret.
How did Weinstein respond to his skeleton dancing out of the closet? By claiming he would channel his anger at the NRA, and bragging about making a Trump bashing movie. Is he banking on a Pavlovian response? Redirect the Liberal anger against abusing women with reassurance that he’s still one of them. After all, if history is to be believed, Liberals are not held to the same standard.
So it is quite amusing when ladies like Meryl Streep lecture conservatives and Trump voters, all while dripping in borrowed couture and jewels. She stands on movies created on the backs of FX workers who have no work life balance or job security, and work hours so long they fall asleep on their feet. She makes movies in the dirty casting couch industry. Who is she to lecture anyone on ethics? She could afford her own gowns and jewels, and yet designers gift her with dresses worth over $100,000. She also gets swag bags for free that she could perfectly well afford to buy on her own. She didn’t build her movies – the underpaid and overworked FX artists do…the very ones who often work on contract in an industry where staff positions are rare jewels of unbelievable good fortune.
And Lisa Bloom is another hypocrite. She’s been on air bashing Trump, and yet she called this predator Weinstein an “old dinosaur trying to learn new tricks.” Well, doesn’t that sound adorable. She’s lost all credibility.
The closer a person gets to the Clintons, the dirtier they become.
Hollywood liberals are among the biggest hypocrites in the nation for reasons exactly as you describe, Karen. The top tier A-Listers make millions of dollars for a few month’s work while the ordinary person gets a pittance for unbelievably long hours, only to be disposed of then they are no longer wanted.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of these men who believes that people should be shamed because they earn a good living, but to flash wealth around when others are struggling is un-Christian and dishonorable.
There really is more to Life than moving decimal places to the right on spreadsheets and filling ones garage and living rooms with endless amounts of objects.
Attn. StepOnToads, Mark Souder(R-In), Chris Lee (R-NY), Scott DesJarlais(R-In), Herman Cain(R), Vance McAllister(R-La), and last but certainly not least Denny Hastert(R-Il). Please forgive me for being lazy, but the list I had was 3 or 4 times this size. Oh and one more thing, anybody who reads my postings knows I am no liberal lefty. I just like to call em as I see em.
Independent Bob,..
You must not be aware of Anthony Weiner, John Edwards, former Seattle mayor Murray, etc.,etc.
Since you “call em as you see em”, it has to be an oversight that you were only able to list GOP politicians caught up in scandals.
Does Machiavelli’s claim that the moral vice of hypocrisy is inescapable in politics and, thus, constitutes a real issue for democratic politics?
Are democratic societies implicated in creating the impetus to hypocritical behavior?
Is the popular, prevalent conviction that a liberal democratic polity should be premised on transparency and candour, not on hypocritical manipulation – a conviction which is paradoxically shared by the dirty hands thesis, which purportedly takes Machiavelli’s insights on the moral messiness of politics seriously?
Do attempts to deny the necessity of political hypocrisy misconstrue the realities of democratic politics – the messy context in which politicians operate and what is distinctive of political friendships?
D[d] emocratic politicians operate in a context ridden with conflict and dependence which renders hypocrisy a necessary political virtue and one of the strings that hold together a virtuous political life.
Political order exists, and can only exist, through use, or threatened use of lethal force.
dennis hanna
Murphy? Pro-life? That is a laugh. there is no such thing as a pro-life conservative or most any person for that matter.
If you support the death penalty – for any reason whatsoever, including cop killers – then you are not pro-life
If you are gun supporter – then you are not pro-life
If you are against universal health care – then you are not pro-life
Understand repuglicans, liebertarians, etc…….. have somehow managed to convince the MSM and themselves that being fringe pro-fetus that makes one pro-life. What a load of garbage. They do not even support health care for expected mothers…..except if tied to their pedophile religion.
Murphy is lying sack of buffalo chips who will likely find a lucrative career lobbying congress to pass laws to kill more Americans. That is what fake pro-life conservatives do.
Please do not insult buffalo chips.
If you support the death penalty – for any reason whatsoever, including cop killers – then you are not pro-life
If you are gun supporter – then you are not pro-life
If you are against universal health care – then you are not pro-life
Tanks for the slogans. We all benefit from seeing how partisan Democrats ‘think’.
Murphy’s career is OVER!
I don’t think you could cram in anything more salacious than if this had been a Mexican telenovela. And they compress 20 years of plot devices into about 6 weeks!
So, Tim Murphy may have impregnated his married mistress. Maybe her cuckholded husband was the father of the child Murphy plotted to get rid of? And while Mr Murphy is stumping Pro Life he asks his married mistress to have an abortion? If he blamed his staff for writing his Pro Life copy, how would he have phrased it? “Because we should be a nation that’s pro-life unless we are danger of getting caught having an affair? Then by all means cover up the evidence!”
Murphy is an example of double speaking, twisty, untrustworthy politicians. I understand Edwards’ ire at his double standard, but isn’t she, too, guilty of lying and double dealing with her own husband? Glass house. Neither one of them was honest, apparently.
The only aspect that remains unclear is if he was also married at the time.
Politics is either a dirty business, or it attracts lying rats.
He was married at the time. So was the paramour. They deserve each other.
This guy is almost, almost, as disgusting and immoral, oh and criminal, as Bill Clinton. How many women did “Slick Willy” rape, molest, abuse, and have illicit sexual relations with? Is it even conceivable that Hillary Clinton’s husband did NOT cause an abortion to take place at some point WITH Hillary’s full knowledge and implied consent?
Hillary, it’s ten o’clock, do you know where your husband is?
George – Bill and Hillary have an arranged marriage. She could care less where he is, he could care less where she is. Neither cares who the other is with.
Turley, the headline is wrong. He ain’t resigning.
D.B. Benson,.
His RESIGNATION is effective as of Oct. 21.
I’d sure love to know how many abortions have been paid for since Roe v Wade by politicians who claim to be pro-life.
Why?
Because it’s always good to get even more data that the GOP is full of craven, lying hypocrites on “moral” issues.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/04/tim-murphy-abortion-mistress-243456
“The story also highlighted a toxic work environment in Murphy’s office, citing a June 8 memo in which his chief of staff, Susan Mosychuk, warned Murphy about mistreating staff. The document, titled “Office Conduct and Behavior: Harassment/Legal Compliance,” suggests there was a “pattern of sustained inappropriate behavior.”
“Mosychuk wrote that the office has experienced 100 percent staff turnover over the past several years and attributed it to the congressman’s behavior. She said he often worked staff through the weekends, only to berate them for failing to meet expectations.”