The local Staten Island Advance finally called for Rep. Vito Fossella (Rep. Staten Island/Bay Ridge NY) to resign yesterday. The bizarre and innapropriate thing is that they were more bothered by the extramarital affair revealed by Fossella's DWI arrest than the actual DWI arrest.

Serious as drunk driving is, we, like many people, were prepared earlier this week to say he should accept his legal punishment, including mandatory jail time, and warranted public scorn for the DWI charge, and then return to the House of Representatives a chastened man.

We thought he could come back from this severe setback as a strong, visible advocate against drinking and driving.

It's true, as many have said, that he could have seriously injured or killed someone as a result of this irresponsible act; fortunately, he didn't. The actual result of a reckless act must be weighed in assessing its consequences, we believe. A person who has had such a close call is often a far more ardent and persuasive proponent of avoiding the risks of DWI.

You can tell the influence of the conservative Catholicism on Staten Island, where doing something that endangers peoples' lives is less of a problem than a personal sexual matter.

Anyway, even if their reasoning bites, they are finally calling for Fossella to go.

Here we have yet another sanctimonious, pro-war, heterosexist, anti-choice Republican getting in trouble on "morals" critiques. I suppose there is some irony in it all.