Congressman considering resignation

Usually the subjects of obituaries never have the opportunity to read the recounting of their lives.

Not so with Rep. Vito Fossella. The New York Times published what could amount to be the obituary of the Fort Hamilton Republican's political career on Page 1 of today's Metro Section.

Alan Feuer's piece chronicles Fossella's rise from a city councilman for Staten Island (which encompasses most of his congressional district) to a five-term backbencher whose career is on the rocks after his arrest for driving while intoxicated and subsequent revelation that he fathered a child from an extramarital affair.

WNBC New York published a report Friday that Fossella will resign "very soon," which an unidentified representative for the congressman denied. The Staten Island Advance says "GOP leaders have given Fossella until Monday to make a decision about resignation."

The Advance continues with details that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, tapped Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan Jr. to run in the special election to fill Fossella's seat if he resigns. Donovan confirmed to the Advance the GOP leaders contacted him, but he doesn't have plans to run for anything because the seat isn't open.

Whether Fossella resigns this weekend or not, one of his supporters canceled a fund-raiser while the congressman considered his options in his home on Staten Island. (A recent poll showed Fossella's constituents don't want him to resign.)

NY13 Blog, which was launched specifically to push Fossella out of office, has been tracking all of the news coming out of the congressman's DWI arrest May 1 including:

• his recorded 0.17 blood-alcohol level at the time of his arrest after allegedly running a red light in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Alexandria, Va.
  
• his release to the female Air Force colonel he was going to visit
• his admission of fathering a 3-year-old daughter with the colonel and
• that Fossella's politically connected father and uncle funded his secret family
  

After the recent resignation of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, headlines such as this pretty much sums up the growing impression of male NY pols in the blogosphere.

Finally, here's an image you're not likely to see on any GOP literature for campaign contributions this fall.

You guessed it. That's Fossella with then-Rep. Mark Foley in 2006.

Top: Photo of Rep. Vito Fossella provided by the Alexandria (Va.) Sheriff's Office to the Associated Press.

Bottom: Photo of Rep. Vito Fossella, left, and then-Rep. Mark Foley taken Feb. 21, 2006, by J. Pat Carter, Associated Press.