CONGRESS: Indecent Exposure on Capitol Hill

It was exciting. I thought politicians were gods. They did no wrong. You have to understand—me, a little girl from the South talking to a Congressman.

—Elizabeth Ray

The sin may not have been all that original in the U.S. Congress, but the public confession certainly was. After two days of lying about it, Ohio Democrat Wayne Hays stood in an unusually hushed House chamber and admitted that he had carried on an affair with Elizabeth Ray, 33, whom he employed as a $14,000-a-year committee clerk although she claims that she can neither...