From the "Do As I Say Not As I Do Department (that's DAISNAIDD for short) I bring you U.S. Senator David Vitter.
The Louisiana Republican has been M.I.A. ever since it was revealed that he was a regular customer of an alleged D.C. prostitution ring (and, quite possibly, a brothel in New Orleans as well).
"Just because people visit a whorehouse doesn't make them a bad person," Jeannette Maier, former madam of the New Orleans brothel, told a Baton Rouge paper.
I agree. Visiting a whorehouse doesn't, technically, make someone a bad person. But visiting a whorehouse, regularly, while building your political career as a "family values" defender of marriage against pesky homosexuals does.
According to the Hartford Courant, "In a June 2006 speech on the floor of the Senate, Mr. Vitter argued for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. It was 'well overdue that we in the Senate focus on nurturing, upholding, preserving and protecting such a fundamental social institution as traditional marriage,' he said."
And wouldn't you know it, but Vitter is a big supporter of abstinence education, too. "Mr. Vitter last month urged his colleagues in the Senate to devote more federal spending to programs urging sexual abstinence among teens," the Hartford Courant reported. "The best way to avert teen pregnancy, he wrote, is 'by teaching teenagers that saving sex until marriage and remaining faithful afterwards is the best choice for health and happiness.'"
"It's hypocritical," Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), told The Hill July 13. "My own view on this is that privacy and hypocrisy are separate issues. People have a right to privacy but not to hypocrisy. People should be held to the standards they would hold others to."
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman said, "It is the pinnacle of hypocrisy for Senator Vitter to be thundering about 'family values' and the 'sanctity of marriage' and doing everything possible to deny the freedom to marry to same-sex couples while apparently paying for sex behind his wife's back. If his wife and family want to forgive him, fine, but this far surpasses a personal transgression. He owes all Americans, particularly those of us who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, an apology."
What makes the Vitter hooker scandal even more ironic is the fact that back in the 1990s, Vitter replaced Rep. Bob Livingston who stepped down after it was revealed that he was having extramarital affairs. Livingston was, in fact, in line for the coveted Speaker of the House position after none other than Newt Gingrich who, it turned out, was whoremongering, too! This all went down when the Republicans were impeaching Clinton's wiener. Vitter called Clinton "morally unfit to govern."
Allegations of Vitter's penchant for prostitutes go back to 2000. In fact, Vitter's wife told a reporter in 2000 that she wasn't into forgiving and forgetting. "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary (Clinton). If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me."
Wendy Vitter, however, is currently standing by her man, though no one has seen Vitter or his penis around D.C. since his public apology July 9.
