A Senator’s Moral High Ground Gets a Little Shaky
Former madam says Vitter was a client at Canal Street brothel
Google search for “David Vitter sanctity of marriage”
NEW ORLEANS, July 10 ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ From the beginning of his political career 16 years ago, Senator David Vitter has been known for efforts to plant himself on the moral high ground, challenging the ethics of other Louisiana politicians, decrying same-sex marriage and depicting himself as a clean-as-a-whistle champion of family values…. “I’m a conservative who opposes radically redefining marriage, the most important social institution in human history,” Mr. Vitter, a 46-year-old Republican, wrote in a letter last year to The Times-Picayune, the New Orleans daily. That self-created image, a political winner here since 1991, when Mr. Vitter joined the Louisiana House, took a tumble Monday with the disclosure that his phone number was among those on a list of client numbers kept by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the so-called D.C. Madam, who is accused of running a prostitution ring in Washington.
Let me begin by saying that I could care less whether or not a Senator buggers goats in their spare time. However, when you stake your claim to power on a holier-than-thou position as a “family values” Conservative Republican, your private peccadilloes become fair game when it turns out that you’ve been preaching one standard of conduct and living by a decidedly different one.
Sen. Vitter has owned up to his hypocrisy, but then in the same breath managed to reconfirm his hypocrisy by claiming that he’d been forgiven by his family and by God. Sounds like someone has a direct line to the Almighty…which makes sense, I suppose, if you assume that God votes Republican.
Vitter’s sexual trysts are his own business. If he wants to frequent prostitutes, that’s his prerogative. What he is NOT free to do, however, is to run on a holier-than-thou, traditional values platform that flies in the face of how he actually lives his life. Now that he’s been outed, Vitter is being held up to some well-deserved ridicule and derision. David Vitter is the worst sort of hypocrite…and just another corrupt, self-righteous Republican DUMB@$$.
Hey, it could be worse for Vitter. He could be living in Iran.
Mr. Vitter admitted Monday night to a “very serious sin in my past,” and talk radio and coffee shops here buzzed all day Tuesday with the front-page news, even as the senator remained out of sight. But the fallout was far bigger than local: his admission is also a blow to the presidential campaign of Rudolph W. Giuliani, for whom he is Southern campaign chairman.
Mr. Vitter, an uncompromising foe of abortion, same-sex marriage and the immigration compromise that died in the Senate in June, was supposed to be Mr. Giuliani’s ambassador to a region with large numbers of social conservatives suspicious of the candidate’s moderate views. His viability in that role is now in doubt with his acknowledgment that his number was already in the phone records of Pamela Martin & Associates before he ran for the Senate in 2004….
In New Orleans, meanwhile, the madam of a high-priced brothel that was shut down by federal authorities in 2002 told a local television station, WDSU, that Mr. Vitter was one of her clients in the 1990s. The woman, Jeanette Maier, called him “one of the nicest and most honorable men I’ve ever met.” Mr. Vitter’s office did not immediately return a call for comment Tuesday night.
It will be interesting to see whether or not Vitter will be able to weather the political storm that will be certain to follow the revelation of his hypocrisy. Being that this is Louisiana we’re talking about here, Vitter’s hypocrisy might not be the issue it would be in another state. Then again, “nice and honorable men” don’t profess to live by one moral code while in reality violating every rule that claim to believe in. Suddenly, Vitter’s statement on the sanctity of marriage seems rather comical…and more than a wee bit hypocritical.
Here’s to hoping that Sen. Vitter roasts slowly and metaphorically over an open flame fueled by his own self-righteousness and hypocrisy. Man, this ought to be a good time, eh?
