The Distinguished Senator from Louisiana
Tucker Carlson, ridiculously to my mind, has been attacking people disturbed by Senator David Vitter’s sexual misconduct as hypocrites; his attacks made all the more absurd by all the time he's devoted to the subject on his show. It’s easy to see why people think Vitter is a hypocrite: He poses as a defender of traditional marriage, and opposes gay marriage for that reason.
Which do you think does more damage to a traditional marriage: The husband having sex with hookers, or two gay people who live down the street being married? If you honestly think the latter, then Senator Vitter has every right to champion his own rather bizarre take on family values; if not, then you must conclude the voters had every right to know about his behavior, and that Senator Vitter really had a sort of obligation to tell the voters himself. Politically, that failing is even less forgivable than his serial adulteries.
Why are people who condemn Senator Vitter hypocrites? I still haven’t heard an explanation of that which makes any sense. That politicians should not advocate others meet a standard they cannot meet themselves seems like common sense. If you cannot lead by example on an issue, never speak of it again.
And Senator Vitter's apology last night was a thing of astonishing cynicism. He first accepted all blame, and then blamed everything on the press. An entire career spent bashing others for moral failings real and imagined loses all credibility under the weight of the Senator's own lack of integrity, and then he spends a week sulking, and then he blames the press for his sins? Really???
