Suddenly retiring GOP Rep. Tim Murphy

Buh-bye! GOP Rep. Tim Murphy, whom we learned on Tuesday had urged his mistress to have an abortion—despite having voted for new abortion restrictions that very same day—announced on Wednesday that he would not seek re-election next year. Murphy says he'll serve out the remainder of his term, his ninth in Congress, but it wouldn't be surprising to see him resign early.

The full details are really something, though. Last month, Murphy, who's represented a conservative seat in southwestern Pennsylvania since 2003, admitted to having an affair with a woman named Shannon Edwards. The story certainly didn’t make Murphy look good, but given how many Republicans have stepped out on their wives and lived to tell the tale, it also didn't look like a potential career-ending scandal.

That is, until this week, when Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Paula Reed Ward reported that in January of this year, Edwards took Murphy to task for posting an anti-abortion message on Facebook, texting him, "[Y]ou have zero issue posting your pro-life stance all over the place when you had no issue asking me to abort our unborn child just last week when we thought that was one of the options."

Edwards' pregnancy scare turned out to be a false alarm, but Murphy has a long history of anti-abortion zealotry, like trying to extend 14th Amendment protections to embryos. But most amazingly, Murphy was the co-sponsor of a bill to ban abortion after 20 weeks that he literally voted in favor of on the House floor the day this story broke.

So how did Murphy react to Edwards telling him to stop posting anti-abortion statements on social media? Murphy replied, "I get what you say about my March for life messages. I've never written them. Staff does them. I read them and winced. I told staff don't write any more. I will."

It’s really something that a supposedly “pro-life” congressman is disgusted by his own statements about reproductive rights, but it really shows what a sham the entire GOP coalition is. It’s also fitting that he’d dump on his own staff, since at the same time Edwards’ texts came to light, the Post-Gazette also published a terrifying memo from a Murphy aide detailing what she called the congressman’s “hostile, erratic, unstable, angry, aggressive, and abusive behavior.” It's a blessing he’ll soon be gone.

Unfortunately for Democrats, picking up this seat would be an enormous stretch: Donald Trump carried Pennsylvania’s 18th District 58-39 last year. But given the way things have been going for Republicans in special elections in dark red districts this year, who’s to say? Certainly not Tim Murphy, that’s for sure.