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The “Tinder Swindler” has some competition in the “romantic entanglement gone wrong” department this week.
Congressman Van Taylor, Republican from Texas, has just announced he’s ending his re-election campaign, which the Texas Tribune reports he had in the bag with 49 percent of the primary vote. The reason? According to Breitbart, Taylor had an affair with Tania Joya, a so-called “ISIS bride.”
Cockburn notes that the details are sordid. Joya had been married to the late John Georgelas, an American who had converted to Islam, embraced jihad, joined ISIS and was reported to have been killed in Syria in 2017. Joya says Taylor paid her $5,000 to keep the affair quiet and provided Breitbart with bank records that appear to prove that Taylor did, indeed, make such a deposit.
Cockburn gives Taylor some credit for owning up to the scandal. None of this “it depends on what the meaning of ISIS is” pussyfooting. Taylor came right out and told supporters (after he was caught): “I made a horrible mistake.”
That mistake lasted nine months. But hey, we’ve all been there, right? One moment, you’re brooding over your gin; the next, a captivating pair of eyes catches yours from across the bar. Suddenly, “the rose-colored glasses of life” turn an ISIS bride into a real catch for a forty-nine-year-old, married, father-of-three public servant.
For the record, Joya said she “had met the congressman through her work as an ex-jihadist helping to reprogram extremists,” according to NPR. Cockburn can’t decide whether that’s better or worse than Tinder, and he also can’t confirm whether alcohol was involved in any of this.
Nevertheless, in such a morally barren landscape, where even Republicans play fast and loose with scruples, Cockburn commends Taylor for recognizing his adultery was wrong (or at least that it would be distasteful to his constituents). Kudos to him for bowing out without endeavoring to pain us with excuses and justifications.
