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Story Archives: Vitter's defining moment has arrived
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Vitter's defining moment has arrived
 Next week Deborah Jeane Palfrey will stand trial in federal court in Washington on charges that she operated an illegal call-girl service in our nation's capital. The trial is expected to take some three weeks to complete.
Palfrey, better known as the "D.C. Madame," claims her company, Pamela Martin and Associates, was a legitimate business.
The feds say otherwise.
They say Palfrey operated a high-end prostitution ring that turned a net profit of some $2 million over a 13-year period, beginning in 1993.
When Palfrey was pinched, she threatened to publicly disclose her records, including an accounting of her customers. She said she would do it if none of her powerful friends on Capitol Hill came to her rescue, or convinced the feds to drop the case against Palfrey.
No one volunteered to help the Madame.
So Palfrey stood by her word; she produced her telephone records, which included the numbers of men who called on Pamela Martin and Associates for services.
High-ranking government officials were among the company's customers, including a fellow who works in the Bush administration.
U.S. Sen. David Vitter was a customer, too.
Vitter, a Republican who owes his election to the Senate to the so-called Christian Right, beat Palfrey to the punch, though. He acknowledged his relationship with Palfrey's company before she had the pleasure of doing it herself.
Since that fateful day in July 2007, or since Vitter disclosed he has or had a habit of engaging prostitutes, the junior senator from Louisiana has been under intense pressure.
The Far Left and members of his own party roundly criticized him. He was labeled a hypocrite as well in light of his insistence to discuss the importance of old-fashioned family values while, apparently, having a tryst or two with a hooker or hookers.
Some called on Vitter to resign from office, including yours truly.
That seemed to be the fair route for Vitter to take once Republicans took it upon themselves to call for the resignation of a Democrat who got caught hiring a hooker himself.
The Democrat in question, of course, was New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
Spitzer is gone; he resigned amid a feeding frenzy among some of the most ruthless members of media on the planet; that would be the New York media.
Vitter's still serving in the Senate, though.
He's likely to remain in the Senate, too, since, according to the feds, Vitter broke no law when he frolicked about with Palfrey's girl or girls.
Yet, we should brace for another round of Vitter's private life being bantered about in the media once Palfrey's trial gets underway. Folks close to the Palfrey case believe Vitter's involvement with the call-girl company will surface in court, which means it will become a matter of the public record for all to consume.
We also should prepare for the unseen, or the unknown, meaning it's quite possible information will surface in court that could implicate Vitter of wrongdoing on the legal front.
Though it's unlikely the Palfrey case will produce any new information about Vitter's private life, the topic of whether Vitter should resign is expected to surface again.
Knowing what we know now, it would be a waste of time to entertain the idea of Vitter stepping down.
He's made it clear he's going nowhere.
That raises the question, though.
What's Vitter to do when this sordid mess becomes another sad foot note in the history of wrongdoing and the like in politics in America?
He could start by assuring his constituency, as well as the Congress of the United States, that he's a changed man. If he says it, he needs to mean it, and he needs to live it.
We need to hear Vitter say it again he's cut out the behavior that's unbecoming a member of the Senate.
More so, though, Vitter needs to go to work.
He needs to get busy adequately representing Louisiana's interests in an era of great uncertainty thanks to the war in Iraq, the credit crisis, sky-high energy costs and a presidential race that's bogged down in a fruitless discussion about race and gender.
Certainly, Vitter could find something productive to do. |
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