Sex scandals certainly aren't anything new. Politicians and public figures have been canoodling since the beginning of time. The frequency and potency of sex scandals, however, seems to be on the rise.

No surprise, then, that it only took Joseph Minton Amann and Tom Breuer about six months to write The Brotherhood of the Disappearing Pants: A Field Guide To Conservative Sex Scandals. Why just conservative sex scandals? Says Amann, "Liberal scandals aren't as fun. And, honestly, it doesn't look like there are as many."

In Disappearing Pants, Amann and Breuer – who previously wrote Fair and Balanced My Ass, about Fox News – skewer the most repugnant, disgraceful and ultimately hilarious of the conservative sex scandals. As the publication date rapidly approaches, we'd like to share a conversation between our editor and Amann.

Lap it up, after the jump…

Andrew Belonsky: So, you've compiled these sixty scandals – everyone from Jack Ryan to John Paulk – do you have a favorite of those sixty?

Joseph Minton Amann: I have some favorite excuses. It's hard to approach some these sex scandals in a humor book. Someone like Ted Haggard is pretty easy. When a pastor is doing crystal meth with a male hooker, that's ideal. You couldn't hope for better. But, you get into some of these child molestation things and it's really hard to find a humorous approach. You'll often find humors in those excuses: "That girl said I attacked her, but I actually tripped and fell on her". My whole mentality is if you're going to trip and fall on a young girl, you should probably pull your pants and underwear up first. Just as a general rule of thumb.

AB: Did you hear about the Reverend Gary Aldridge?

JMA: Yep.

AB: That's crazy. I'm sorry it didn't make the book.

JMA: We're launching a website: conservativesexscandals.com. It will be up next week. It'll promote the book, but it will also be a way for us to deal with the scandals that we weren't able to get in.. When we were doing this, we were looking for someone to write the forward and the first person who came to mind was Larry Flynt, because he has really taken a "let's weed these people out" approach before they take office. When we asked him to write the forward, he said "Yes" right away. One of the notes he made when he was talking to us about it was "This isn't a finite subject". It's not going to be over when we stop writing and it's not going to be over when it publishes, so we decided to have a website to continually have updates.

AB: We have seen a surprising amount of political outings or sex scandals. Do you think it's people like Larry Flynt and Mike Rogers who are asking for tips or do you think these people want to get caught? They're just getting sloppy.

JMA: I think there is a little bit of that finger in dyke – which is a really horrible sounding metaphor. The concept that when repression builds – any kind of repression – when you really repress that, it comes out in a really unhealthy way. I think these people – what's sad is that this is what they're teaching their kids: "Don't want that, don't do that and everything will be okay". Well, it's not okay and it ends up coming out either people get hurt in the process or your family, your constituency… There are certain ones where it's kind of fun to see the mighty fall. Ted Haggard was so pompous and talking about his "healthy" sexuality. When you have that pomposity about it and you look down on other people, I think a lot of people want to see you fall. I also think a lot of these people are – I don't know if it's that they want to get caught, but I think that they're obviously getting caught up in self-destructive behavior, which catches up with them.