Exhibit #41894 demonstrating the slow, painful death of the Republican Party

[stevedeshazer]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/nyregion/10fossella.html?em&ex=1210651200&en=a69218a650f54fb6&ei=5087%0A


Bob Dole, the former senator from Kansas, and George H. W. Bush attended an Oct. 30, 1997, campaign event for Vito J. Fossella Jr. in his first race for Congress.

When Vito J. Fossella Jr., the soon-to-be boy congressman, stood beside the young girls of a cheerleading squad at the Excelsior Grand catering hall in 1997, it seemed a particularly vivid version of Staten Island pageantry. Mr. Fossella — 32 and with Al Pacino looks — was on his way to becoming the sole Republican in New York City’s Congressional delegation at a spirited party billed as an evening of “pasta and politics.”

George H. W. Bush and Senator Bob Dole were there that night, strolling past the steaming trays of ziti and charging donors $1,000 each to pose for pictures. Sonny Bono was on his way from California to stump with them the next day. Mr. Fossella, the man of the hour, raised his hands, quieted the crowd, then launched into a rousing speech on cutting taxes and championing school choice.

The spectacle that evening — Reaganism as seen through the Italianate lens of Richmond County — was a dizzying distance from Mr. Fossella’s latest public appearance, at his Staten Island Congressional office last week. The high school marching bands were gone, replaced by the granite visage of his wife. There were apologies this time, not promises of victory. The questions in the air did not revolve around impending election results, but whether or not there might be a five-day jail term resulting from his drunken-driving charge.

In the nine days since the 43-year-old Mr. Fossella, who has served five terms in Congress, was arrested and charged after running a red light in Alexandria, Va., things have gone from not-so-good to pretty bad, with only a slender thread still staving off the worst.

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I really love Republican mug shots: