David Vitter Must Go

I hate David Vitter.

I mean, I just don't dislike Louisiana's junior U.S. Senator. I detest him. I loathe him. I really, really hate him.

Hatred is a feeling normally reserved for places and things rather than people. But in the case of David Vitter, it's justified. He is without question the sorriest excuse for a U.S. Senator right now. James Carville, a veteran Democratic political consultant and a Louisiana native, knows of what he speaks when he calls Vitter the slimiest man in the U.S. Senate.

Here's the rundown. Vitter, a former House member, was elected the first Republican senator from Louisiana since Reconstruction in 2004 when he ran in a nonpartisan state primary. Louisiana had all interested candidates for office run in a primary, and a general election is held in November only if no candidate gets a majority. Vitter won the primary with 51 percent of the vote, getting elected to the U.S. Senate and replacing retiring Democrat John Breaux. Vitter was one of seven freshman Republicans elected to Congress in 2004, all but one of them replacing Democrats and whose victories were fueled by fears of gay marriage and terrorism (thank you, Ken Mehlman!).

As a senator, Vitter has been a more vocal apologist for the oil industry than his Democratic colleague Mary Landrieu. In fact, about a month after the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico began, Vitter asked for unanimous consent to pass legislation that would have limited BP's financial liabilities for oil spills (and coincidentally, the liabilities of other oil companies) to $150 million or the total of its last four quarters of profit, whichever would be higher. Under this proposal, guess who would have been primarily responsible for cleaning up the oil leak? The taxpayers!

Vitter's record in the House is equally offensive. While a House member, he proposed a bill limiting criminal liability of corporations responsible for oil spills and exempting oil companies except those specifically cover by the Oil Pollution Act, which was passed in 1990. For the record, neither of these odious bills were passed, and had Vitter's proposed legislation in the Senate made it to President Obama's desk, the President would most assuredly have vetoed it. It was, as many agreed, a BP bailout bill.

If Vitter were just another stooge for Big Oil, he'd wouldn't be worth hating. However, Vitter has a lot of problems with his record, both personal and professional, regarding women. In 2007, he was revealed to be involved in a Washington prostitution ring when his phone number surfaced in its records. Vitter -a defender of "family values" - was also accused by a former New Orleans prostitute of having conducted an affair with her. Vitter apologized with his wife standing by his side, but rather than suffering political damage from it, he got applauded by fellow Republicans - who apparently believed the scandal was a smear campaign by the "liberal media" - at a subsequent public appearance.

Can someone tell me what kind of a country we live in where a man of the people like Eliot Spitzer gets caught in a prostitution ring and is forced to resign the governorship of New York but a defender of the privileged and the powerful like David Vitter gets caught in a prostitution ring but keeps his Senate seat and gets a standing ovation?

But wait - there's more! Apparently Brent Furer, a Vitter aide, held a woman hostage, threatened to kill her, and slashed her neck with a knife. The senator continued to keep Furer on his payroll for more than two years after the incident.

Did I happen to mention that Furer is the senator's women's outreach coordinator?

What's really depressing about all this is that Vitter is still a favorite for re-election. The reasons for this are numerous. First, it's likely to be a good night for Republicans on Election Day. Secondly, Louisiana is identified as having the tenth largest base of conservative voters in the nation. Thirdly, Vitter has spun his support for the oil industry as an effort to preserve jobs in Louisiana and is likely to be rewarded for his distortion of the facts. Fourth, he's from Louisiana. The former Louisiana House member Billy Tauzin may very well have been right when he said that half of the state is under water and the other half is under indictment, but you know what? Louisianians love roguishness in their politicians. This is what allowed them to elect flamboyantly corrupt politicians like Edwin Edwards as governor, and they love libidinous politicians as well - as the movie Blaze (about governor Earl Long and his mistress) made clear.

Oh yeah, Vitter just won his party's primary for a second Senate term. Fortunately Charlie Melancon, a Louisiana congressman won the Democratic primary for the Senate. Melancon, whose district has been adversely affected by the BP oil spill, has been fighting the petroleum monolith since the leak began and hasn't let up. He has a strong reputation for bipartisanship and fairness, and although Louisianians have been disappointed with Washington's handling of the crisis - good grief, a recent poll suggest that Louisiana voters were more satisfied with Bush's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina than Obama's handling of the BP disaster! - such cynicism can hardly be applied to Melancon. He's bee across the state, talking to the people, and listening to their concerns. And he sure has hack hasn't been supporting any lawsuits brought against Preisdent Obama to show his birth certificate, as Vitter has. The choice is clear: Charlie Melancon should be Louisiana's next U.S. Senator.

I have to take a nice long shower after having posted this. Writing about David Vitter at length makes me feel so unclean. Maybe that's why I put it off for so long.

Go to Mr. Melancon's campaign Web site for more information. Please.