Humorist Jon Swift quotes the disgraced and disgraceful then-candidate Senator David Vitter in 2004:
We need a U.S. Senator who will stand up for Louisiana values, not Massachusetts’s values.
And when it comes to Louisiana values one could always snark that Sen. Vitter was a perfect match…
Moral benchmark | Louisiana | Massachusetts |
|---|---|---|
| Teen pregnancy rate per 1000 (source) | 58.1 | 23.3 |
| Reference STD/VD rate per 1000 (source) | 485.7 | 205.8 |
| Divorce rate per 1000 (source) | 3.6 | 2.4 |
| Reported rapes per 100,000 (source — scroll down)) | 31.4 | 29.1 |
...though this would be grossly unfair to the fine people of Lousiana. Who are just stuck with a bunch of supercilious liars like Mr. Vitter. And, it must be said I think the actual hypocrite in this situation is, Wendy Vitter, who’s (still) married to the Senator.
How does that work? Well, David Vitter could be accused merely of parroting the sort of lies that need to be told to be elected in a socioeconomically disadvantaged state that’s desperate to do something/anything about their in-their-own-terms morally wretched condition… even if it’s the wrong thing. He didn’t have to believe it. And the evidence suggests he didn’t believe in it. But he could have just been saying what needed to be said in order to advance his own, personal well being.
Wendy Vitter? She wasn’t running for anything when, in response to a previous revelation about her husband’s dalliances with prostitutes, she said
Asked by an interviewer in 2000 whether she could forgive her husband if she learned he’d had an extramarital affair, as Hillary Clinton and Bob Livingston’s wife had done, Wendy Vitter told the Times-Picayune: “I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me.”
I got it from Matthew Yglesias. Follow his links to their ultimate source starting here.
As far as one can tell Ms. Vitter has neither castrated nor divorced her (serially?) philandering husband.
Which, of course, most people don’t do when confronted with a partner’s infidelity. But by talking phony macho bullshit she, as much as her husband, contributed to a culture of extreme and largely domestic violence that is also part of Louisiana values (13.9 murders per 100,000 pre-Katrina) vs. Massachusetts (only 2.7 murders per 100,000)!
Don’t get me wrong, in a small way I’m glad that neither Vitter practiced what he or she preached because both preached from unsustainable, uncreditable pulpits. But it would have been better for the country, for their state, and for their families had neither preached at all.
Submitted by 1481 (not verified) on Fri, 2007-08-03 08:58.
Yeah, Figleaf, David Vitter's really keeping on the tradition of representing my state with pride, isn't he??
I'm not going to cast too many aspersions onto Wendy Vitter; since who knows how she really feels about all the secret perversions of her hubby being revealed. Perhaps, she's just playing the political role of the supportive Stepford wife while privately she would really want to break out Lorena Bobbitt's knife...who knows.
But that "Louisiana values vs. Massachusetts values" smack really tickles me most of all..especially considering that Vitter comes from the same congressional district that seriously considered at one time electing David Duke as its representative. It is even rumored that he bought a few mailing lists from Duke's old Senatorial campaign for his own Senate race.
And no, Rae...Louisiana politics can get pretty grimy, but they aren't that far from the pack nationally speaking. At least we aren't attempting to add a religious test to our state pledge as our neighbor to the west is doing. (OOPS..don't give 'em any ideas.)
[Thanks, Anthony. To be honest I'll cast aspersions on Wendy Vitter because she publicly *said* what she would do... when, I might add, there was already plenty of evidence he was already up to something on a regular basis. That she hasn't injured him as she claimed, and that she's *still married to him,* suggests she was engaging in macho conservative posing that she couldn't live up to but nevertheless implicitly expected the rest of us to. Not ok in my book. (Call me a prudish libertine about that.) --fl]
Submitted by 1481 (not verified) on Fri, 2007-07-13 21:38.
my entire family is from Louisiana, and it's no secret the politics is the dirtiest, and the people the basest. we seem to revel in it, and rise above, all at the same time.
[Yup. Sort of like the old Russian monk Rasputin who's sect allegedly believed in continuously redeeming one's self from increasingly transgressive behavior. Thanks, Rae. --fl]