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."