Social Conservative.
Sen. Vitter continues to show up for work this week surprising many
Dana Milbank - Sex and the Conservative - washingtonpost.com who figured that a politician revealed to have a strong fond heartfelt attraction for prostitutes while maintaining a portfolio on the sanctity of marriage and family would go quietly away
Senator's Number on 'Madam' Phone List - washingtonpost.com. But Senator Vitter believes that the time has come for indiscretion to become discretion. What would beating this rap mean? French style political privacy, a respect for the separation of spheres? But this would require the republican caucus backing away from certain aspects of the SOCON agenda. Backing away because they also respect the sphere of privacy, and because it is becoming increasingly clear they don't really believe in their agenda. Or it could mean a course of a pure hypocrisy; continuing to bully-pulpit morality - not even pretending to practice what they preach. Seeking only to master the art of looking away, being discrete. There are those who would have us understand that this is One Little Sin, scarcely a bump. It does not seem to be the case where this was a single simple lapse in judgement by the Senator, but a longer more extensive pattern of behavior, extending back to his home state Louisiana. The social conservative rank and file shouldn't think that Vitter's hanging-on to his office is a victory for their cause. They shouldn't think the brave sons they've elected to speak for them have any intention of living by their norms. That is not what those who have created societies consisting of distant privileged elites do, or have ever done. This exposes a hypocrisy not just of the movements leaders, ambitious contemptuous and entitled, but of all the self-styled righteous among them covetous and permissive, of those in the right clubs. If you attack others as Senator Vitter made a career doing; harshly, unfairly, and then prove vulnerable, those you attacked will take you down. This is not mercy perhaps, but fairness first. Mercy is extended pointed towards balance. And then only to the genuinely contrite, fairness allows nothing else. As Ruth Marcus points out some, David Ignatius among others, ask for the decency of privacy for such fallen figures
Ruth Marcus - Private Sin, Public Matter - washingtonpost.com. Some say "look his wife forgives him", many if not all of these people still doubt Hillary Clinton's sincerity ascribe various motives to her decision and it will always be held against her, by them especially. On the other side of this divide Effie Barry stopped listening to Mayor Marion, and Jeri Ryan, as lovely as Jessica Devlin in Shark as she was as SevenOfNine, left her game congressman husband. I'm sure; though, Sen. Vitter didn't intend to bring his wife out in front of the cameras to send the message "my wife is giving me a pass so should you." Vitter is a public figure. His public positions, and exercise of public power were to trumpet his sanctimonious superiority over others and use this power to negate rights and freedoms they felt they had claim to. His standing before us is entirely public. He has no automatic right to retreat to privacy to escape contradiction. His wife by whatever measure she makes choices made hers. But we the public still have right to voice our opinion that he walk away from us, disgraced.
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