In today's 24/7 news cycle, every politician is under a microscope: An accidental yawn during the "Star Spangled Banner," a picture capturing a glance at a passing woman's cleavage, a summer in college spent performing panda abortions; the public is willing to hamstring you for even the slightest, most well-intentioned violations. So when it's revealed that a politician has a legitimately reprehensible history--the kind of past that no one, regardless of political affiliation, could defend--surely their career is over. Unless, you know, the voting public just straight doesn't give a shit.

5 Wilbur Mills

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Arkansas Congressman Wilbur Mills, 65, savored his reputation as the most powerful man in Congress. He also savored a nice cold drink and some pipin' hot stripper-crotch:

On October 7, 1974, Washington D.C. police stopped a car for driving with no headlights. Mills emerged from the vehicle, bleeding and intoxicated--standard fare for a politician these days. Hell, we'd be concerned if there was a politician who didn't periodically emerge from vehicles drunk and wounded. It's the same reason why Disneyland is creepy: if the facade is that squeaky clean, they must be really good at hiding the seriously dark shit.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

But things jumped to Andy Dick-levels when a local stripper booted open the passenger side door, sprinted out of the car and leapt into the nearby waters of the Tidal Basin and began fucking swimming away in an attempt to escape.

The woman, who performed under the stage name "Fanne Foxe, the Argentine Firecracker" was arrested and taken to the hospital for the two black eyes that she had received from Mills in a prior escape attempt. That's right, the epically panicked suicide-fleeing wasn't from the cops, it was from the politician!

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Obviously, she later admitted to a sexual relationship with the married, 65-year-old congressman. That's par for the course for a politician, but the beatings and implied whore-napping are what really set Mills apart from the pack.

Voters' (Ill-Advised) Response:

Mills was reelected to Congress with nearly 60 percent of the vote. Less than a month after reelection, Mills rewarded the voters' trust by drunkenly joining Foxe (yes, they got back together; you just can't keep star-crossed lovers apart, even if those stars are from the repeated punches to the face she gets for trying to exit his Corvette) onstage at The Pilgrim Theatre in Boston, a burlesque house where Foxe was performing. He then held a press conference from Foxe's dressing room.