Senator's Link to 'D.C. Madam' Exposed

Another hypocrite bites the dust!

In addition to being a hypocrite, an adulterer, and a law-breaker, Vitter is perhaps the most virulently anti-gay Senator. Hmm, let's see, what more of a threat to the "sanctity of marriage": the happy gay couple down the street having equal rights or you cheating on your wife with a hooker!!?

He's only "sorry" because he got caught. Now that his moral authority is blown, maybe he'll shut the hell up about gay people and secure some funding for the goddamn levees.

Jerry Springer was funnier, when he was mayor of Cincinnati he paid a hooker with a personal check.

"Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there — with God and them.

You gotta love religion. It's okay to do whatever you want, so long as you "confess" your sins when you get caught. Then it's like you have a clean record!

Life is not a @!$%#ing game of monopoly (WIKI).

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

Silas Lee, a political analyst and pollster in New Orleans, spoke Monday about the possible political impact on Vitter.

"In the short term, I think the issue will dominate the discourse for a few days and weeks, and though he's up for re-election in 2010, it should dissipate by then," Lee told WWL-TV in New Orleans.

"But for some of his very conservative constituents, it might not be as easy. In their mind and eyes, they may not be able to forgive."

That's a load of manure. Vitter fathered a kid by a woman other than his wife while he was married and in Congress, and those "very conservative" constituents elected him anyway.

This is Louisiana, people. He'll WIN votes, not lose votes because of this.

ABC's statement that no prominent politicians appeared on the list is interesting now. They went so far as to blow their sweeps week over it. Bad investigation? or were they playing party politics? Hmmm....

That said, I agree that this will have absolutely no role during the election season. Guys have been caught doing a heck of a lot worse and still got re-elected.

How is it that it's almost always Republicans getting caught doing naughty sex things when they're supposed to be the party with "morals"?

This is exactly the kind of thing ripe for some citizen journalism with anyone with the time to go through these records, they're on her website (I'm going through them right now, and Vitter ain't the only government official on here by any means)

Could someone post the link to her website? I lost the address.

Hey, maybe she just kenneled the guy's dog or sumpin. Could be totally innocent.

From Vitter's web site :

Vitter Pushes for Reauthorization of Abstinence Education Program

June 25, 2007 -

(Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Sen. David Vitter last week authored a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee expressing support for reauthorization of the Title V Abstinence Education Program of the Social Security Act. Twelve senators joined Vitter in writing in support of the program.

"This a valuable program with proven results, but it is nearing its expiration. We must reauthorize this program so we can continue the incredible strides we have made in teaching teens about both risk avoidance and protecting themselves from potential abuse," Vitter said.

Josh Marshall found out that Vitter was having a little problem in 2004 :

http://coloradobob1.newsvine.com/_news/2007/07/10/828197-tidmore-vitter-denies-affair?threadId=123686&cmt=852688#c852688

No "proud conservatives" to defend this guy ?

I'll try.

How can you condemn this man for just trying to release some stress? You know he works hard for us keeping the country safe and on a path of progress.

As he states on his website:

"My Women's Leadership Forum is designed to help me focus on the views and needs of women and families."

If you would just do a little home work, you would see he cares for women and works hard to please them.

....how's that?

This says all that is needed to be known:

Livingston had been a critic of President Clinton, calling on him to resign over his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Additionally from ThinkProgress:

Vitter Flashback: Clinton should resign.

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) first got his start in Congress after replacing former Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA), who "abruptly resigned after disclosures of numerous affairs" in 1998. At the time, Vitter argued that an extramarital affair was grounds for resignation:

"I think Livingston's stepping down makes a very powerful argument that Clinton should resign as well and move beyond this mess," he said. [Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 12/20/98]

So resign, or admit being a lying, adulturing gas-bag that would do anything to be elected.

There's a wiki set up for people to help dig through the records.

Hmmm, kind of quiet from the other side of the aisle in this thread...

I don't see why this needs to be a political matter. These kinds of things happen often; adultery is a symptom and not the root of a problematic marriage. We don't know all the facts and probably never will. I'm sorry that Mrs. Vitter had to put up with his shenanigans, but then it seems like (if he's telling the truth about counseling and whatnot) this problem has already been addressed to some extent in their private discussions. I'm sorrier that this would need to go public so as to amplify his entire family's shame and make reconciliation or a relatively civil break infinitely more difficult to come by. But, his sexual habits--no matter how squalid they might be--don't affect the vast majority of Americans.

As for hypocrisy, he's not the only one, and he's certainly not the only politically important man on the DC Madam's list. He hasn't lived up to the high Christian morals he sets as appropriate for all. But he has rather consistently represented the views of a significant portion of Americans (whom I don't agree with, but still) and in that sense is a valuable legislator. As much as I'd like to see Congress churning out progressive and bipartisan reforms on countless issues, I'm also aware that many others would feel powerless and scared in that situation. His voice is important whether or not it reflects his personal actions, and his influence in the party and in the Senate is the best measure of whether or not he should keep his post.

Look: Congressmen aren't perfect and don't always make good role models. Vitter is getting this criticism because he is a social conservative and his political stance appears to conflict with this alleged side lifestyle. Yeah, he messed up, but the muckraking and accusations are blowing this way out of proportion. When you get down to it, it's just sexual intercourse, it's natural, it's okay. It's definitely not a good policy if you're sleeping with prostitutes when you're in a committed relationship, but he must have had his reasons.

And just FYI: I'm a socially liberal politically moderate Catholic female.

Yeah. I thought I'd give it a shot, but this one is pretty hard to defend, at least with what I (we?) know now. Does anyone know anything about the context of his aforementioned statements, when where and to whom he made them? I could stand to do some more research, and I don't want to jump on the hater train before I get some more definitive info on what exactly was done and said here.

Here's some definitive info from 2004: Link 1

Salient portion of the above article, all of which is good:

October 29, 2004 | A family-values far-right conservative named David Vitter appears headed for victory on Tuesday in the U.S. Senate race in Louisiana. Sharp-edged and uncompromising, but enormously talented at self-promotion, the three-term Republican representative from suburban New Orleans has rocketed to prominence over the last decade despite opposition from the state's Republican power brokers.

Privately aghast at his rise, the state's GOP leaders have all but fallen in line now, afraid to cross the man who may be their next senator. In interviews with Salon over several days, many Louisiana Republicans expressed anguish that a Vitter victory next week could mark the end of the state's unique tradition of moderate, bipartisan politics. This, of course, is exactly what Vitter's breed of brash, Newt Gingrich-style Republicans believe a deeply polarized country needs -- conservatives who disdain common-sense compromise in pursuit of ideological purity. And so Louisiana Republicans are deeply unhappy that the 43-year-old lawyer, known for running slashing negative campaigns with under-the-radar help from white supremacist David Duke, is on track to become the first GOP U.S. senator from Louisiana in more than 100 years.

If Vitter wins more than 50 percent of the vote in Louisiana's unique multiparty open election on Tuesday, he will avoid a runoff and head directly to Washington. In a state where the other U.S. senator (Mary Landrieu) and the governor (Kathleen Blanco) are moderate, consensus-building Democratic women, the polarizing Vitter will become Louisiana's GOP standard-bearer.

While many Republican politicians and operatives see Vitter as duplicitous, and many African-American leaders call him racist, Louisiana's white conservative voters appear mostly beguiled. Based in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, Vitter has won his last two congressional elections with more than 80 percent of the vote. He presents himself as a morally righteous, clean-cut family man, and his wife and three young children have become virtual campaign props. The Harvard-educated Rhodes scholar is also extremely intelligent, observers say, and runs perhaps the most effective political ads in the state. But there are hints of a dark side: allegations of an affair with a prostitute and a lawsuit claiming he lost his temper and physically charged at a woman at a town hall meeting.

Yet Vitter's increasing popularity and power have caused his once-vocal critics to retreat. The situation today is in stark contrast to five years ago, when virtually the entire state Republican establishment lined up against the young state representative in his successful bid for the congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Bob Livingston, a Republican who was forced to retire after revelations about his extramarital affairs.

and

In Congress, Vitter became a reliable vote for the extreme right, earning a 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union in 2002. He vowed to outlaw abortion in almost all cases, even when pregnancy results from rape or incest; his only exception was to save the life of the mother. And -- with an eye on the governor's office -- he continued the crusade against gambling that he'd started in 1993 with the ethics complaint against Gov. Edwin Edwards.

In 2002, Vitter criticized his fellow Republican, Gov. Mike Foster, for supporting the expansion of a casino operated near the Texas border by the Jena Band of Choctaws. Coming to Vitter's aid was an advocacy group called the Committee Against Gambling Expansion, which mailed out campaign fliers on Vitter's behalf and allowed Vitter to use its name in phone calls to supporters.

It turned out that the advocacy group was not run by "Louisiana folks with the Christian community," as Vitter told the Times-Picayune he had initially thought. Rather, it was a sophisticated front group set up by a Washington lobbyist, who is now under federal investigation for his activities, on behalf of a rival tribe that was trying to block competition. Vitter has said he had no idea the Committee Against Gambling Expansion was actually representing casino interests.

As Vitter geared up in 2002 to run for governor, his bitter race against Treen came back to haunt him. A Treen supporter, local Republican Party official Vincent Bruno, blurted out on a radio show that he believed Vitter had once had an extramarital affair.

The Louisiana Weekly newspaper followed up. Bruno told the paper that the young woman had contacted the Treen campaign in 1999 because she was upset that Vitter was portraying himself as a family-values conservative and trotting out his wife and children for campaign photo ops. Bruno, who declined to comment for this story, and John Treen interviewed the woman, who said she had worked under the name "Leah."

But after nearly a year of regular paid assignations with Vitter, the lawmaker asked her to divulge her real name, according to Treen, citing the account he said she gave him. Her name was Wendy Cortez, Treen said. She said Vitter's response was electric. "He said, 'Oh, my God! I can't see you anymore," John Treen told me, citing the woman's account to him and noting that Vitter's wife is also named Wendy. And Wendy Vitter does not appear to be the indulgent type.

Asked by an interviewer in 2000 whether she could forgive her husband if she learned he'd had an extramarital affair, as Hillary Clinton and Bob Livingston's wife had done, Wendy Vitter told the Times-Picayune: "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me."

Vitter, Bruno and others interviewed the alleged prostitute several times in 1999. She also met with a respected local television reporter, Richard Angelico, the Louisiana Weekly said. But Angelico declined to run with the story after she would not agree to go on camera, the paper said. Vitter denied the allegations. But shortly before the Louisiana Weekly was set to publish its story, he dropped out of the governor's race, saying he needed to deal with marital problems. "Our [marriage] counseling sessions have ... led us to the rather obvious conclusion that it's not time to run for governor," Vitter said at the time.

Chris Tidmore, the author of the Louisiana Weekly story, said he interviewed the alleged prostitute by telephone and reviewed the notes of her sessions with Treen and Bruno before publishing his story. He said she had moved away from New Orleans and is now living under an assumed name. Salon could not locate her.

Amid Vitter's denials and the reluctance of his accuser to go public, no newspapers in Louisiana reported on the allegations. And, when Sen. Breaux announced his retirement last December, Vitter jumped into the race to succeed the conservative Democrat. The far-right and confrontational Vitter was the opposite of Breaux, who had been a consensus-builder in Washington with close relationships with Republicans.

Note that Vitter was elected to the House to replace Bob Livingston, who had to step down rather than become Speaker of the House because of a sex scandal after Newt Gingrich had to step down in the wake of the impeachment of Bill Clinton, who as you will recall, was involved in a sex scandal. (Gingrich, who is considering running for president as a candidate of the Hypocrisy Party, was having an extrmarital affair with his secretary at the time he was decrying Clinton's behavior during the impeachment investigations and only in August 1999 did he seek a divorce from his third wife. At least he had the decency to not behave so callously with her as with his first wife, whom he announced he would be divorcing while she was recuperating in the hospital from cancer surgery.) Link In such a torrid climate, you would expect Vitter to promise the voters in 2002 that he was squeaky clean, and you would be right.

Link 2

NEW ORLEANS, July 10 — 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.

David Vitter, whose phone number was among those of an escort service's clients, and Rudolph W. Giuliani.
"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.