Republican Politicians Embracing Scandalized Senator David Vitter

From NOLA.com:

U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal, the front-runner for governor and one of the state's best-known and most popular Republicans, broke his silence Friday over the call-girl scandal surrounding GOP Sen. David Vitter, issuing a cautious statement of support.

U.S. Congressman Bobby Jindal (R.-LA)

"While we are disappointed by Senator Vitter's actions, Supriya and I continue to keep David and his family in our prayers," Jindal said, referring to his wife. "This is a matter for the Senator to address, and it is our hope that this is not used by others for their own political gain."

Jindal had stayed mum Thursday as other Louisiana Republicans rallied to Vitter's defense. Jindal waited until late Friday afternoon before issuing the two-sentence release regarding the embattled congressional colleague whose 1st District seat he assumed when Vitter ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004.

Pollster Bernie Pinsonat said that the Vitter scandal is unwelcome news to Jindal, who will officially launch his gubernatorial bid Monday and was expecting Vitter to play an active role campaigning, particularly in north Louisiana.

"It is the best you can expect out of Jindal because he is running for governor," Pinsonat said. "This is not something he wants to deal with right now. It couldn't come at a worse time for him."

Vitter rocked the Louisiana political establishment on Monday night when he acknowledged that his number appeared on the billing records of a Washington call girl service whose owner is charted with running a prostitution ring. Records show the number appeared at least five times between 1999 and 2001, a period during which he served in the U.S. House.

In his only public statement, Vitter acknowledged a "very serious sin," and in an e-mail to supporters sent out early this week, offered a separate apology. He assured his backers that he and his family "will be fine."

"I will live every day always striving to fully honor that friendship and those prayers," Vitter wrote.

The e-mail was sent before a former New Orleans brothel owner said Vitter had been a customer of her operation and a prostitute said then-state Rep. Vitter was a regular client of hers during the mid-1990s. Vitter has not addressed the most recent allegations, but denied them in 2004.

Louisiana Republicans said little at first as each day brought new revelations. In a concerted push Thursday to offer some support for the most prominent Republican statewide elected official, the state GOP organized the release of a flurry of supportive statements. Most urged personal support for Vitter and his family and focused on the legislative work Vitter has done in his eight years on Capitol Hill.

Few were as expansive as the statement released Friday by Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton, who not only defended Vitter's character but also warned the news media to tread carefully before it prints any more stories.
U.S. Representative Richard Baker (R.-LA)

Baker said Vitter's behavior was serious and disappointing, "but it does not define the whole of the man and it is not irredeemable." He urged the news media to "demonstrate some restraint and professionalism."

Baker took aim at critics who labeled Vitter a hypocrite for promoting conservative views, talking about family values and advocating sexual abstinence at a time when he was in a touch with an alleged call girl service.

"If a man has values and standards, but does not live up to them, it does nothing to discredit the validity or those values and standards, and he is far preferable to those timid souls who, without values and standards, cannot fall short of them nor ever run the risk of being charged with hypocrisy," Baker said.

Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, by contrast, issued a statement more in keeping with the reserved tone of the one issued by Jindal.

"David and his family are going through a difficult time and my thoughts and prayers are with him," Boustany said.

U.S. Representative Charles Boustany (R.-LA)

As in the rest of the South, the Republican Party has been ascendant in Louisiana over the past 10 years. The loss of a senate seat, should Vitter resign or lose reelection in 2010, would be a major blow.

Pinsonat, the pollster, said most Republicans are offering guarded support for their standard bearer because they aren't sure of all the details surrounding the current allegations or what else might come out.

"They are sticking their toe in the water very carefully because they don't know how hot it will get," Pinsonat said.

Louisiana Democrats sought to turn up the heat Friday by launching a petition drive calling on Vitter to resign because of his "immoral, unlawful and hypocritical behavior."

"We really have been getting lots of phone calls from all over the country," said Julie Vezinot, spokeswoman for the party. "People are fed up with his hypocritical behavior and he is not doing his job in Washington."

Friend and colleague Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., told the Associated Press that he has been in touch with Vitter by e-mail and that Vitter plans to return to Capitol Hill next week for votes on Tuesday. He said Vitter was contrite in their exchange.

U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R.-South Carolina)

"It's a huge moral failure that reflects on the whole body. And for that he's very sorry," DeMint told the AP. "Obviously he has a lot of remorse. He seems to want to address it head on and not try to hide it."

David Vitter, Hiding Out

At NOLA.com:

Louisiana Sen. David Vitter will probably emerge from seclusion soon and return to Washington to fight for his political career, a colleague of the first-term Republican said Friday.

When Vitter does, he is sure to be confronted with his past remarks about the sanctity of marriage, the importance of fidelity and the need for high ethical standards among office holders.

In a statement last Monday night, Vitter apologized for committing a "very serious sin in my past," acknowledging that his Washington phone number was among those called several years ago by an escort service that prosecutors say was a prostitution operation. Telephone records show that the service called Vitter's number five times from 1999 to 2001, while he was a U.S. House member.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., told reporters Friday that, based on e-mail exchanges with Vitter, he expects his colleague to return to the Capitol by Tuesday. Vitter, 46, missed votes on Iraq policy matters on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
DeMint said of Vitter's admission: "It's a huge moral failure that reflects on the whole body. And for that he's very sorry."

Several GOP colleagues in Washington and Louisiana have rallied to Vitter's side, saying politicians deserve forgiveness when they err and repent. Some opponents have accused him of hypocrisy, noting that his career is built largely on an image as someone more ethical than the average politician.

Vitter, a married father of four, last month urged colleagues to devote more federal spending to programs urging sexual abstinence among teens. The best way to avert teen pregnancy, he wrote, is "by teaching teenagers that saving sex until marriage and remaining faithful afterwards is the best choice for health and happiness."

In a June 2006 Senate speech supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage, Vitter said it was "well overdue that we in the Senate focus on nurturing, upholding, preserving and protecting such a fundamental social institution as traditional marriage."

On Friday night, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who ran the escort service and whose phone records led to Vitter's problems, said she was "disgusted at the hypocrisy" of the senator's comments about gay marriage.

"How dare someone dictate one thing and practice another, and in the process deny so many in this country the opportunity for happiness," said Palfrey. "In particular, I'm talking about dictating what constitutes a family. What constitutes a family is love, pure and simple."

A lengthy 1999 profile of Vitter in the Times-Picayune of New Orleans was headlined, "Straight arrow aims for Congress."

Several lawmakers including Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., publicly accused Vitter of hypocrisy this week. Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt reveled in his role in unearthing Vitter's phone records, saying, "I'm only exposing the hypocrisy."

Roger Villere, chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party, said Friday he had tried to get in touch with Vitter without success. Villere said he'd been inundated with e-mails from Republicans, most of them supporting Vitter. A "vocal minority" is voicing opposition, he said.

Also Friday, people close to Vitter confirmed that he sent an e-mail to supporters earlier this week saying: "I ... deeply apologize again for letting you and others down. ... Our family will be fine, though we certainly appreciate your continuing thoughts and prayers."

Vitter, a Harvard graduate and Rhodes Scholar, moved rapidly from the Louisiana legislature to the U.S. House and then the Senate, thanks largely to his repeated attacks on what he portrayed as ethical shortcomings of his opponents. He assailed their junkets, ties to casino gambling and use of a tax-paid scholarship program.

The 1999 Times-Picayune profile called him "the boyish-looking, straight-laced freshman state representative" who was "sometimes lampooned as a Boy Scout in adult life." It said he hammered everyone "who didn't pass Vitter's ethical muster. Along the way, he made some powerful enemies. ... Even some of Vitter's fellow Republicans privately groused that he was a grandstander."

Vitter's allies say they will try to help him regain some of his luster.

"The past conduct that Sen. Vitter has acknowledged and taken responsibility for is serious and disappointing," Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., said in a statement Friday, "but it does not define the whole of the man, and it is not irredeemable."