Rep. McCotter Calls It Quits After 'Nightmarish' Month

There are bad months, and then there are months like the one Rep. Thaddeus McCotter has had. The Michigan representative today announced he's resigning, and issued a statement that seems straight out of a soap opera. In it, he called the last month and a half "nightmarish" and wrote of "calumnies, indignities, and deceits [that] have weighed most heavily upon my family."

ABC News explains that bad things have come in threes for the five-term Republican: His bid for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination failed miserably, his staff didn't collect enough valid petition signatures to get him on the Aug. 7 primary ballot, and a "racy TV pilot" he wrote was handed to the press by an ex-staffer this week. And his statement sounds pretty glum: "I do not leave for an existing job and face diminishing prospects (and am both unwilling and ill-suited to lobby)." Still, he closes by saying this to Michigan’s 11th Congressional District: "Thank you for the privilege of having worked for you." Click to read more about the "tawdry" pilot, which featured a "drunk, perverted Black Santa." (More Thaddeus McCotter stories.)