In the midst of a national presidential campaign, let us pause briefly to turn to more parochial issues. This being Florida, they tend to morph into national ones, anyway.

There must be something in the water up there in Florida's Sixteenth Congressional District. The man who replaced serial online congressional page groomer Mark Foley, and who managed to turn a Republican district Democratic, now appears to be caught in his own web of deceit.

Tim Mahoney gave a news conference today in which he hewed to the strict guidelines of what has now become an American political ritual, the fallen public figure accompanied by his stricken spouse (Why is it that they always have to humiliate their wives a second time by forcing them to endure the probing lenses of the media while they deliver their mea culpas? It seems so barbaric).

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Europeans don't care about this stuff. Why bother to go to all the trouble to become a politician, they reason, if you don't partake of the goodies? If you don't like a cheating spouse, then don't marry a pol.

Politics aren't nearly as interesting over there.