Crooks and Nannies

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???

It happens with disturbing frequency these days that we learn that a champion of social conservatives leads a life straight out of a Snoop Dogg video.

It is now reported that before Senator David Vitter went to Washington, he frequented a brothel closer to home, in New Orleans .  The madam of that brothel referred to him as one of her “nicest and most honorable” johns.  No word yet on whether the Senator’s wife shares that opinion.  The Senator’s career has been built primarily on his image as a family values social conservative, who has spent his entire career campaigning for office claiming he led a squeaky-clean personal life, and regularly attacking the moral lapses of his political opponents.

The Senator said that he had used the Washington madam’s call-girl service before he ran for the Senate.  Since evidence is mounting that Senator Vitter goes from one prostitution ring to another, that begs the question:  What madam has he been using lately? 

And, to paraphrase Presidential spokesman Tony Snow, "I don't know the Louisianaian for chutzpah, but David Vitter had a giant case of it."

Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter first came to office in 1999 by winning the House seat of Rep. Bob Livingstone, who resigned in disgrace because of--you guessed it--adultery.  Back them Vitter won election by emphasizing his solid marriage and his opposition to gays and abortion.  Now that inescapable evidence has emerged in the form of the Washington madam's phone records, Senator Vitter has admitted his past involvement with prostitutes, claiming it all came before his 2004 Senate campaign, during which he emphatically denied charges of infidelity.

I don't much care about officeholders' personal lives, but I am not a fan of hypocrisy.  Senator Vitter is on record as opposing gay marriage, because that would cause harm to traditional marriage, which, evidently, is his job.

In Louisiana, however, the home state of Huey Long and Eddie Edwards, it's hard to know how much soliciting the occasional prostitute will hurt a guy.

UPDATE:  Senator David Vitter, the prostitute's friend, is of course one of Giuliani's leading supporters; indeed, he's coordinating Giuliani's campaign throughout the entire South.  It makes you wonder:  Is there anyone who supports Rudy Giuliani who isn't a criminal?