Bush Campaigns for Adulterer and Woman-Beater

It's "National Character Month," and George W. Bush marks it by stumping for the reelection of Don Sherwood, a Pennsylvania congressman who beat and tried to strangle the woman with whom he had a five-year adulterous affair.

So it has come to this: Nineteen days before the midterm elections, President Bush flew here to champion the reelection of a congressman who last year settled a $5.5 million lawsuit alleging that he beat his mistress during a five-year affair.

"I'm pleased to be here with Don Sherwood," a smiling president told the congressman's loyal but dispirited supporters at a luncheon fundraiser Thursday. "He has got a record of accomplishment."

Quite a record. While representing the good people of the 10th District, the married congressman shacked up in Washington with a Peruvian immigrant more than three decades his junior. During one assignation in 2004, the woman, who says Sherwood was striking her and trying to strangle her, locked herself in a bathroom and called 911; Sherwood told police he was giving her a back rub.

It must be a real thrill for Don Sherwood to stand next to the man who three years ago proclaimed October 12-18 "Marriage Protection Week"-- so that Sherwood's wife, Carol, and daughter, Maria, might have their healthy and strong family safeguarded from the millions of monogamous, faithful gay and lesbian couples trying to destroy it.