A Train Wreck on Staten Island

It is apparently a sad day on Staten Island.

Congressman Vito Fossella, the Republican who inherited the seat previously held by my cousins Guy and Susan, was arrested for drunk driving in northern Virginia one week ago.  According to another report I had seen, it started with some festivities.  He was celebrating with some fellow Staten Islanders on a night the Super Bowl champion New York Giants were being feted at the White House. 

He reportedly will have to do some jail time because of the DUI.

Fossella told the northern Virginia police when he was arrested that he was on the way to see his daughter.  It turns out he had fathered this daughter during the course of a prolonged extramarital affair.  He also has a wife and children on Staten Island. 

A news report describes him being trailed by the media as he attended his son's confirmation yesterday morning.

I did not know Fossella because he emerged politically long after I moved south.  When I was a teen, his father, also named Vito, was the New York City ferry commissioner-- under Mayor Beame and Mayor Koch, by my recollection.  I knew Fossella's older sister, who was in my high school class.

This is an enormous personal tragedy for Fossella's wife and children.  They were apparently let down in a number of serious ways.

This episode also may result in the loss of another Republican seat in the House of Representatives.  The congressman's political future appears, at best, uncertain.

(Sigh.)