In the January issue of Vanity Fair, Gail Sheehy and Judy Bachrach follow the oily trail of disgraced congressman—and very bad actor—Mark Foley. Among the revelations:

• Foley opened a diner at age 20 called the Lettuce Patch.

• He belonged to "a circle of idealistic progressive Democrats, all under 30, who became known as the Kiddie Car Gang."

• As a local politician in Palm Beach in the '80s, "He always wanted to be in the picture. And his picture was seldom missing from 'The Shiny Sheet' (as the Palm Beach Daily News calls itself), in which he cozied up to visiting celebrities, from Sly Stallone and Clint Eastwood to the Clintons and President George H. W. Bush."

• The earliest instance of Foley acting inappropriately came in "either 2000 or 2001, when a young man went to Arizona Republican congressman Jim Kolbe's office to describe an e-mail from Foley that had made him uncomfortable."

• Once at a fundraiser in Washington, D.C., openly gay colleague Kirk Fordham found Foley "hanging out" in the kitchen with two young men (one "clearly gay"), and recalled, "I gave the congressman that You-oughta-know-better kind of look. Lobbyists were already arriving. He gave me that sheepish grin—half See-what-I-found and half I-shouldn't-be-doing-this."

• Foley personally wrote the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, "which President Bush has said would 'make the Internet safer for our sons and daughters.'"

• In one IM chat with a page, Foley wrote, "is your little guy limp ? or growing... i am hard as a rock ? so tell me when your reaches rock ?"

PREVIOUSLY
• Mark Foley Caught on Tape!
• Foley's Phony Blogger Exposed
• Foley's Gay Agenda City's Worst Kept Secret
• Scientology Scrubs Foley From Its Site
• Horny Congressman's Hometown Squeeze