"Anybody who looks at the two cases will see that there is an enormous difference between the two of them. The people that are trying to draw comparisons to the two cases are people who've never agreed with me on important issues like immigration and other things." --Louisiana Senator David Vitter New Orleans--You think he should resign? Who doesn't these days? The Republicans have no reason to protect him anymore, he's served his usefulness. Do it now, he's hoping you'll forget again. If Spitzer had to go, so does Senator Vitter, the only difference is the statute of limitations, you cannot nail Vitter on that count. It's great that Republicans in Congress held-up any potential ethics investigations of the Louisiana senator for about nine months, but then, so did Barbara Boxer. You might ask her why sometime. You might also ask the FBI, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, and the Bush administration why they gave Vitter a free-pass back in 2001 when they should have been monitoring the 9/11-hijackers.
Sitting-on any inquiries gave the Republicans time to wait-out the outgoing Democratic governor Kathleen Blanco who had been in a great deal of conflict with Vitter's bosses (he was literally the errand-boy for Karl Rove during the aftermath of Katrina) in the White House. It seems she didn't want to be their scapegoat, but she wasn't running around having-sex with prostitutes, and touching escorts:
Until recently, Vitter at least had a political rationale for not resigning. When he was first ensnared in the D.C. Madam criminal case last June, Republicans were one vote shy of controlling the U.S. Senate. Had he quit then, Louisiana's Democratic governor, Kathleen Blanco, might have named a Democrat as his interim replacement. Now, however, Louisiana has a Republican governor in Bobby Jindal, who can name a Republican to replace Vitter. Thus, there no longer is any rational basis for the GOP to protect Vitter. Indeed, Republicans in and out of New York did not hesitate to demand that Democrat Spitzer resign as that state's governor last week. Like Vitter, Spitzer had been a crusading moralist. Unlike Vitter, Spitzer recognized and admitted his sins, including that of rank hypocrisy. He resigned within days.David Vitter should do likewise. (www.bestofneworleans.com, 03.18.2008)
The ditching of Vitter could be coming very soon, and most definitely for the reasons enumerated in the words of bestofneworleans.com. They aren't the only voices calling for Vitter to resign--he has enemies within his own party in Louisiana, and they've been trying to make him accept responsibility for his serial-solicitations of escorts and prostitutes for many years now. But enough on Wendy Vitter, some marriages-of-convenience can become so...inconvenient.
For enemies of Vitter within the Louisiana GOP, their time appears to be ripe and they are already striking. David Vitter's days in office are probably being numbered to the single-digits as this is being written, a happy thought indeed. What we know is that in 2001--shortly after some of his contact with escorts of Deborah Jeane Palfrey--Vitter was flying down to New Orleans to have sex with prostitutes around Canal Street.
The FBI was recording phone "chatter" to-and-from the brothel he solicited, entered them into logs, and then they sat on them. Vitter was positively identified, as were other members of the , most of them being members (pun-intended) of the Louisiana GOP. This wasn't under Clinton, it was under the current administration during their first term. The timing puts it with former Attorney General Ashcroft, and continued into the embarrassing tenure of Alberto Gonzales.
Vitter couldn't be more wrong in the above quote. There are many Republicans who agree with him on the issues of "immigration and other things," but they can say it more articulately under duress. Maybe not. Stammering and stuttering seem to be an acquired-habit in the current GOP incumbency, and it's likely to become contagious in the next few weeks when the economy keeps crashing and the dollar keeps plummeting globally. And what of the "other things," and "you know...uhhhhhh, ermmm, ahhhhhh"?
The public isn't having it anymore, and the outrage isn't likely to end with former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Corruption is in the air, and Spitzer was the least of it--but David Vitter is someone who is up-to-his-neck in it, and so is the entire Republican Party. They don't even have Lincoln Chaffe to kick-around anymore. It's time that they be held-responsible for their actions. All you have to do is look at their voting-patterns and their lockstep unanimity. How much of it is ensured through sexual blackmail? Spitzer's case appears to give us that example that many of us have been waiting for, and a very long one at that. I'd mention the rumors that Vitter enjoyed being put into a diaper by prostitutes and escorts, but I'm no Anderson Cooper.™
BestOfNewOrleans.com, 03.18.2008:
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2008-03-18/commentary.php
No comments:
Post a Comment