If you will entrust me with your hard-earned dollars and contribute them to my campaign, I will use that money to make my case to the voters of our district, to tell a story about the struggles of working families and to enlist a dubious also-ran in the annals of forensic science to exonerate me of any responsibility for the tragic murder of my bosomy young girlfriend ...

Okay, I grant you, that's not an exact quote from Gary Condit. But it seems close to the basic idea.

Frank Bruni's article on Condit in yesterday's New York Times Magazine reports that the soon-to-be-former congressman used $1000 from campaign funds to pay for the private polygraph test which allegedly cleared him of any connection to the disappearance of one-time paramour Chandra Levy.