Sex and the Capitol

My, Washington, D.C. is quite involved with sexual politics, isn't it?

Yesterday the Senate tried to move on repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the military that allows gays to serve in the armed forces as long as they stay in the closet. Harry Reid that that this would be a great way to gain some momentum in the midterm congressional elections by firing up the homosexual segment of the Democratic base - especially on an policy that an overwhelming majority of Democrats and an overwhelming majority of Americans support. But no one bothered to count the votes, and the Democrats thought it would be clever to attach the provision as a rider on a defense bill. It was Reid - still facing a serious challenge from Sharron Angle despite her incurable case of foot-in-mouth disease - that got taken for a ride. Not one Republican - even those few Republicans who support repealing "don't ask, don't tell" - would vote to bring it up for consideration on the grounds that the process wasn't proper.

So the bill failed, there are no chances of letting gays and lesbians serve openly in the military any time soon, and the Democrats only managed to further discourage an already discouraged segment of their base. Gays and lesbians aren't even in a mood to give them an E for effort because Reid and his fellow Dems didn't come across as having made much of one. You know you're politically ineffective when Lady Gaga makes the case for open gay service in the military better than you do.

And what the @#** was she doing injecting herself into the issue, anyway?

I kind of like the days when pop musicians like Joan Baez tried to stop soldiers from going off to war rather than fighting for the rights of people to enlist. These times weren't meant for me.

From sexual orientation to sexual disorientation. Noted unindicted sex criminal David Vitter has had a case brought against him by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The CREW crew charges Louisiana's junior senator with subsidizing the personal expenses of staff member and domestic violence perpetrator Brent Furer after he was charged with abusing and threatening to kill his girlfriend. At issue is the charge the Furer was mostly on paid leave during the three months it took to resolve the case. Vitter's office has brushed it off, mostly by saying that the senator had merely expressed concern over Furer's behavior before he finally resigned, and that the media have misrepresented Furer's case. Furer's lawyer, meanwhile, has insisted that the case is behind him, and that he's putting his life back together.

And Louisiana Republicans have all collectively said, "Good enough for me!"

Four words: Charlie Melancon For Senate.

The details of the case are available here.

More Politics As Usual

Some quick observations of what passes for political discourse in America these days. . . .

President Obama has started targeting House Republican leader John Boehner in his campaign speeches for the Democrats, now that it's finally become apparent that he can't just ignore Republicans in Washington the way they're ignored in Chicago. Some have criticized Obama for personalizing the midterm elections by trying to make Boehner that bad guy when you have folks in the House like Mike Pence of Indiana and Michele Bachmann of Minnesota who are beyond bad. But Boehner would be Speaker of the House if the Republicans were to take control, and he'd have more power than Pence or Bachmann, so what's Obama supposed to do - bash the underlings in the House Republican caucus and ignore the naysayer at the top? Obama's new strategy may not reverse Democratic losses, but it could stem them.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania, Joe Sestak is learning how many voters are turned off by the liberal views he espouses, as polls show him consistently behind Republican Senate nominee Pat Toomey. Although Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, a Democrat, likes and respects Toomey, he know s that the "fruit loops" (to borrow one of his own phrases) in the Republican party will control the agenda if they take back the Senate, and as reasonable as Toomey is, a Senator Toomey wouldn't be effective in a Republican caucus guided by loonies. Rendell hopes to make this clear in his efforts to help Sestak, and he believes Sestak can win if a) enough voters realize the threat to their economic interests a Republican Senate would bear and b) turnout in the Philadelphia area is up tremendously. Voters in the central and northern parts of the state just aren't interested in Sestak's agenda.

Meanwhile, Ed Schultz is helping Republican David Vitter in his bid to win a second term as a U.S. Senator from Louisiana. How is the progressive Schultz doing this? Well, you see, every time Schultz announces on his show his intention to bring up the subject of Vitter's disgusting sex scandals, his idea is to address it in the Rapid Fire Response segment of his show, where he asks a liberal pundit and a conservative pundit for their opinions on the subjects. Twice he's meant to ask his panel about Vitter; twice he ran out of time before he had the chance because discussion on his other chosen topics for that segment ran too long. As much as I would like to hear right-wing pundits like Heidi Harris or John Feehery defend David Vitter in that segment, it's obvious that Schultz has to devote a longer, more detailed account of Vitter's crimes elsewhere in the show, even if this means no conservative commentary in Vitter's defense. Because sometimes, as Edward R. Murrow once said, there is no other side of the story. And no one can excuse Vitter for his sins. Note to Ed Schultz: Get Charlie Melancon back on your show immediately.

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.