THE RUIN OF MANY A POOR BOY-- AND DAVID VITTER IS ONE. WHEN WILL HE RESIGN?

Like a second home to Vitter-- on Canal Street

As I mentioned last night, David Vitter called on President Clinton to resign not because of lying but because of marital infidelity. He has been a serial adulterer, caught over and over and over running around with prostitutes and loose women. In the mid-90s he was a frequent customer of an infamous Canal Street whore house (see photo above), run by Jeanette Maier, "the Canal Street Madam," and he paid $300 an hour for the girls to get freaky with him. There is a story that has long circulated among Louisiana political elites about how he was on a "fishing rodeo" with a bevy of hookers and other Republican political leaders.

Louisiana Republicans who take the whole family values thing a little more seriously than Senator Vitter are calling on him to step down-- now. Vincent Bruno a member of the Republican State Central Committee called for him to resign “for his own good, the good of the party and the good of his family.” Bruno said if Vitter doesn't resign from the Senate, he should leave the Republican Party and join the Democrats. DWT called a close friend who is a member of the Democratic State Central Committee and he told us that Vitter's voting record precludes him from being a member of the Democratic Party. "I know you're not a fan of Mary Landrieu, Howie," he said, "but Mary looks like Howard Dean compared to Vitter. Besides, it's hard enough getting our grassroots to go vote for her. If we ask them to vote for someone like Vitter, the party might as well disband entirely."

Bruno said Vitter’s actions violate the Republican Party’s “Family Values” stance but he doesn’t expect the party leadership to do anything about it. “We had David Duke and couldn’t do anything about it.”

“They think more of the party than the right thing to do,” he said. “If they’re not going to enforce family values, they ought to take it out of the vocabulary.

“We’re the party of hypocrites,” he said. “Vote for us and we’ll lie to you, we’ll engage prostitutes and we’ll cheat on our wives.”

Bruno said he puts little stock in Vitter’s apology.

“It’s baloney,” he said. “He only fessed up to it when he got caught.”

“He needs to resign,” Bruno said. “There’s more there; I know so.”

So does the Washington Post

Also worth noting, in an ironic twist of fate, a Louisiana reporter who wrote a few years back about allegations that Vitter had an extramarital affair with a prostitute is now running for the Louisiana state legislature and issued a press release today claiming he is "vindicated" by the Vitter revelations.

The candidate, Christopher Tidmore, reported in the Louisiana Weekly newspaper in the summer of 2002, after Vitter dropped out of the race for governor, that Vitter, a state representative at the time, had allegedly engaged in an 11-month affair with a prostitute. At the time, Vitter dismissed the allegations as a political smear campaign by rival Republicans.

Tidmore released a statement today saying, "Mr. Vitter has used his considerable power to attempt to silence those who knew the truth. Those who attempted to expose hypocrisy and corruption early on were met with threats and disdain. ... Mr. Vitter's actions have harmed Louisiana at a time when we could not afford any further loss of influence in Washington."