The Louisiana Democratic Party has created yet another smart web ad hitting David Vitter for some comments he made recently to an audience in small-town Crowley, Louisiana. He basically told them that they were all wealthy - and said it in such a way as to indicate his belief that the average Louisiana resident is wealthy as well. The video sends a message to the Senator that, unlike folks he usually hangs out with, the average Louisiana resident makes only $43,000 a year.
This talk was part of Vitter's defense of the George Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans - the very small group making more than $250,000 annually. Congress has to decide this fall whether to let those tax cuts expire or to extend them. Read more in these articles from the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post.
Finally, watch the video from DoingAVitter.com for yourself and then leave a comment with your thoughts on this question -- Is David Vitter really this out of touch with everyday folks in Louisiana?
US Senator David Vitter is scheduled to appear on Fox News Sunday tomorrow morning which has all of us at The Daily Kingfish wondering – Will they have the journalistic integrity to ask Senator Vitter the questions that everyone is wanting to know the answer to?Or will Chris Wallace and Fox News give Vitter a soft landing spot that they always seem to do with Republicans?
Talking Points Memo has obtained directories clearly showing that Brent Furer was assigned to women’s issues and go on to say that while “Lying is a strong word to be used in politics.And it’s usually best to be avoided.”Vitter’s first run in with reporters yesterday in Baton Rouge the Senator unequivocally stated that Furer was not assigned to Women’s issues instead, he claimed that it has always been the case that a staffer in Lafayette and his deputy COS have always handled these issues. TPM clearly shows that has not been the case and points back to the ABC reports from the previous few days that show that as recently as two months ago, Furer was actively working on this issue and met with different Women's Advocacy and Anti-Domestic Violence groups.
Furer you will recall from previous news accounts was arrested and charged with several crimes surrounding an incident where his ex girlfriend claims she was held at knifepoint for over 90 minutes, cut, threatened that she was going to be killed and when she tried to call 911 on her cell phone Furer smashed the phone.
As is so often the case with politicians when they get caught up in the scandal… they lies they produce often only add fuel to the flames.In this case, because Vitter so skillfully evades reporters, this makes it only worse.
In related issues – yesterday as a post script, I posted the Lafayette KATC coverage of this matter.The troubling point is to see the comments from folks who saw the report.They made claims of bias on the part of the reporter and that they would stop watching the channel due to this “clear bias.”Have we really come to this?News, real news, that gets reported on that we don’t like or that doesn’t fit neatly into our own views then it is BIASED?I like most like to listen and engage with like minded folks, but I also want news – even when it hurts or challenges my beliefs or desires.
Vitter said the issue has been "misrepresented" and "misreported," and he called it old news.
"Well, the event was two years ago. The discipline he got in the office was two years ago," Vitter told reporters.
The senator's remarks came on the heels of an announcement from the National Organization for Women over the weekend calling on the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee to censure Sen. David Vitter for tolerating the behavior of a top aide who allegedly threatened to kill a female friend and held her at knife-point during a 90-minute ordeal.
Senator Vitter has again dropped out of sight as yet another scandal breaks in his short tenure as Louisiana’s Junior Senator.
NOTE:As this story has been developing I shied away from reporting on it, as I didn’t think making this political was wise or was worth our readers time.However things have dramatically changed and it’s the Senator’s own actions (and that of his staff), that is making it political.
This week news broke via ABC New’s that Senator Vitter has had in his employ a man who had been arrested for attacking his ex-girlfriend with a knife and had an open warrant for his arrest in Baton Rouge for drunk driving.
The aide, Brent Furer, worked on the Republican senator's last campaign, and has spent the last five years posted in his Washington office to handle, among other things, women's issues.
An ABC News investigation out this morning revealed that Furer had repeated brushes with the law dating back to the 1990s. Those who have had encounters with Furer told ABC News that his presence on Vitter's payroll raised serious questions about the senator's judgment. Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said it concerns her that the senator has talked so forcefully as an advocate for women and an opponent of drunk driving, and yet kept someone with Furer's background on his staff.
From the political side of things, this is yet another serious blow to Senator Vitter’s attempt at reaching out to women.But the story doesn’t end there.Guess what Mr. Furer’s job was for Senator Vitter?You guessed it – in part he was responsible Women’s Issues.
Yet it seems the Senator’s office is trying as hard as they can to say that they were giving Mr. Furer a second chance because he is a Vet and suffering from PTSD.
Remember last week how Republican Sinning Senator David Vitter talked tough regarding "angry mobs" appearing at elected officials' town hall events:
This and any other angry mob is welcome to my town hall meetings whenever you want to come.
Of course, it was then reported that the questions that the Sinning Senator so bravely took from the mob were pre-screened:
The Louisiana Republican spoke at what was billed as a town hall meeting at Louisiana College's Guinn Auditorium. It was a friendly audience but there was little chance for disagreement to be expressed.
The panel of speakers all joined Vitter in opposing the reform package being debated in Congress. Questions from audience members were screened and selected in advance of the event.
Well, sports fans, that's not all. Now it's being reported that, not only were the questions pre-screened but, the audience was handpicked! And when I say handpicked, I mean that Vitter's harem shipped in Teabaggers and turned away constituents! (emphasis added by me)
Unlike his Democratic colleagues who take all comers at their town halls, Vitter has sought to enforce a strict code of message control. According to a citizen journalist attending the August 8 Vitter town hall, "No one was allowed to spontaneously address the podium. There were no questions read that presented anything other than Vitter's view and those who spoke with him. ... Vitter was said to have no time to answer questions from the press." Indeed, Vitter only responded to questions that were written on cards by audience members and screened in advance by his staffers.
Many of those attending Vitter's town halls have been shepherded to the events by local chapters of TeaPartyPatriots.org, a supposedly grassroots network of national activists that happens to "partner" with the health-care and insurance industry-funded lobbying firm Freedom Works, which has directed angry mobs to Democratic events. At a town-hall meeting on August 10 in Jefferson Parish, many local constituents were reportedly turned away while Tea Party activists were allowed to enter. When the event concluded, Vitter rushed out of the back door and away from the press and his constituents, guarded by a phalanx of police officers.
Vitter has good reason to fear public scrutiny. Had he not pre-screened his audiences, some wily constituent might have asked the senator to address his affair with Wendy Cortez, a high-priced New Orleans escort, or asked how his name showed up on the client list of Jeanne Palfrey, the so-called DC Madam, who killed herself in May 2008 after being convicted of money laundering. The constituent could have framed the question in terms of the health-care debate by asking Vitter why he reportedly wore a condom when he visited Cortez but subsequently tried to introduce an amendment barring health-care providers that offer free STD testing and contraception from receiving federal funds.
David Vitter has not answered to his constituents or to the law for his criminal acts, his dishonesty, his hypocrisy, or his shudder-inducing cowardice. He's not even willing to answer to a skeptical constituent on his opposition to health care reform, much less his opposition to not sleeping with prostitutes. I imagine that he will continue "rushing out of the back door" of events in order to avoid constituents and the press throughout the 2010 cycle. Seriously, how does this coward look in the mirror?
Fox News' own right-wing nutbag Sean Hannity said the following last night:
If you're going to be a family-values candidate and a family-values politician, and you don't live up to that, I think you should resign.
Of course, Hannity said this in response to Nevada's Republican Senator John Ensign cheating on his wife with a staffer's wife, not David Vitter cheating on his wife, kids, and constituents with prostitutes, but the message is quite clear. Even conservatives (heck, especially conservatives) should be put off by one of their own not living up to their own standards. Conservatives should not stand with Sinning Senators, as much (if not moreso) for the hypocrisy as the sin itself. We'll have to wait and see how principled "family values" conservatives are on this issue when it comes to David Vitter.
Does it seem like there's a new Republican scandal in the news every single week? Well, that may be because there is.
That seems like an awful lot of corruption, scandal, hypocrisy, impropriety, and jail-worthy crime, huh? A lot of corruption. One might say an entire Culture of Corruption.
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign digs a deeper hole by trying to explain the difference in Republican reactions between David Vitter's scandal and Larry Craig's scandal:
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., the Senate Republican campaign chairman, said Craig "admitted guilt. That is a big difference between being accused of something and actually admitting guilt."
"David Vitter never did that. Larry Craig did," continued Ensign on ABC's "This Week" program.
Whoa! Chairman Ensign is conceding that David Vitter has never admitted guilt for anything? Really? Either Ensign did not see David Vitter's press conference from almost two months ago, or Ensign will try to contend that Vitter never explicitly admitted to soliciting prostitutes, in which case every member of the media covering Washington DC and Louisiana politics should be on the horn to David Vitter's office to get a clarification.
Has David Vitter formally admitted (or will he now admit) that he solicited prostitutes?
Though it may already seem like quite a long time ago, it was just a little over a month ago that Republican David Vitter held his press conference, vaguely acknowledging that he frequented prostitutes behind his family's back and trying his darnedest, with his wife in tow, to play the victim card, chastising his political opponents and the press for seeking to profit from his egregiously immoral actions.
Vitter acknowledged that he had indeed commited acts that, years earlier, he suggested that President Bill Clinton should resign his office for having committed, calling Clinton "morally unfit to govern." Further, we cannot trust anything that escapes Vitter's mouth, as he has a record of lying when asked directly about his misdeeds.
We see Vitter guilty (though, unfortunately, not convicted) of the criminal act of soliciting prostitutes and the moral indiscretions of infidelity, hypocrisy, and deceit against both his family and his constituents.
And now, just over a month later, David Vitter firmly hopes that the entire episode has been swept under the rug and forgotten.
There was much talk about whether or not Vitter would, in fact, resign his Senate seat in the wake of his scandal. Political observers noted that, had Vitter resigned right away, Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco would have been responsible for naming Vitter's successor. With a gubernatorial election later this year in Louisiana, and a Republican, Congressman Bobby Jindal, the front-runner to win, it was also noted that Republicans would politically benefit from Vitter riding out the scandal as long as he could, until a Republican Governor was in office. Then, Vitter could resign and a Republican could appoint a fellow Republican to succeed him.
In short, Bobby Jindal, David Vitter, and the Republican Party hope we have short memories. They hope that we have already forgotten David Vitter's admission from just over a month ago (an admission lacking any true demonstration of responsibility) and have already forgotten that his career is soaked in hypocrisy and lies, frequently speaking of "family values," but never living up to those values.
Should Bobby Jindal win the 2007 Louisiana Gubernatorial election and, shortly thereafter, David Vitter decides it is then time to resign his seat, after months of "soul searching," in order to spend more time with the family he betrayed, I hope that we will all remember this and hold Vitter's successor (or Vitter himself, should he actually run for re-election in 2010 as scheduled) accountable for the Republican Party once again putting rank partisanship ahead of the "family values" they falsely claim to champion.
At a recent Senate Republican policy lunch, prostitute-enthusiast David Vitter offered his thoughts on how to improve Republicans' image (emphasis added by me):
Only seven days earlier, [Vitter] had delivered a heartfelt apology at the same weekly meeting. Fellow Republicans responded with thunderous applause, and most refused to tell reporters how Vitter had addressed his forced public admission that he had committed a "serious sin" and was linked to an alleged prostitution ring.
So just imagine their confusion when Vitter scrambled to his feet a week later. Would he apologize again? Had he committed some new sin?
But no. Instead, he launched into a speech about his thoughts on "rebranding" the party by reclaiming the fiscal conservative mantle.
Yes, that's right: Vitter, on improving the Republican image.
This time, his colleagues held the applause.
You'd think that would be a story from The Onion, but, no, it really happened.
US Senator David Vitter is scheduled to appear on Fox News Sunday tomorrow morning which has all of us at The Daily Kingfish wondering – Will they have the journalistic integrity to ask Senator Vitter the questions that everyone is wanting to know the answer to?
Talking Points Memo has 
The aide, Brent Furer, worked on the 
