Tom Reynolds (R-NY) chose to keep Don Sherwood (R-PA) in key GOP leadership job after Sherwood allegedly beat and tried to strangle his mistress

Seriously, what do you have to do to lose a leadership position in the Republican party?

We know that preying on children for sexual favors isn't enough.

Not only did Mark Foley remain in the House GOP leadership throughout the 5+ years he was known to be stalking kids, but Foley was permitted to remain the co-chair of the House committee dealing with the issue of missing and exploited children. A position in which he would attend media events in the proximity of scores of abused children. And then we learned yesterday that Foley was thinking of not running again this year, but rather retiring, until Congressman Tom Reynolds (R-NY) begged him to stay earlier this year.

And now the other shoe drops.

I was looking through the AMERICAblog archives for information on Republican Congressman Don "The Choker" Sherwood. You'll recall that he's the 64-year-old very-married gentleman whose 29-year-old mistress frantically called 911 two years ago saying he was trying to strangle her. She also alleged in a lawsuit, that Sherwood settled with her, that Sherwood beat her throughout their five-year affair. The police officer who arrived on the scene after her frantic 911 call took photos of the victim and said that Sherwood should have been arrested on the spot.

Well what do you think I found in our archives? An article dated 2005 from Sherwood's local paper informing us that the National Republican Congressional Committee decided to keep Sherwood in a leadership position even after they learned of Sherwood's alleged attempt to strangle his not-at-all-alleged mistress, a woman he allegedly beat for five years.

And who do you think heads the National Republican Congressional Committee - the committee that gave such a big vote of a confidence to an adulterer who recently had to settle a lawsuit over whether he tried to kill his mistress? None other than Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY). The same man intimately involved in the Mark Foley child sex predator scandal. The same man who practically begged Mark Foley to run again this year, after Foley had sexually preyed on countless underage children.

I think Mr. Reynolds has a few more questions to answer.