Marcus on Vitter

Where I would least expect it, Ruth Marcus takes a hard anti-Vitter line while David Ignatius makes excuses in a predictably establishmentarian way. Both links come via Ross who also wants Vitter to go.

And I agree -- it's hard to understand how criminal activity undertaken by a US Senator could constitute a "private matter." When police officers -- public officials -- catch people committing crimes, they're hauled before judges (public officials) by prosecutors (public officials) and sent to jails staffed by guards (public officials) or put under the supervision of parole officers (public officials). Breaking the law is the quintessential public matter. Perhaps if we were talking about allegations that Vitter broke the law when he was nineteen it could be conceived of as private, but that's not the case here.

If Vitter and Vitter's friends in the GOP caucus and the press don't think he should be punished for hiring a prostitute, I certainly sympathize with that view, but then they should take the line that nobody should be punished for this sort of thing. For the "DC Madame" to be on trial, where her Senator client gets off the hook because it's "private" is ridiculous. What about her privacy?

Comments

Well there is a certain pragmatic logic to having selling some products a criminal offence, but not buying them. That logic is applied more or less to drugs and prostitution and I guess in practice to lots of other products in many countries, but I don't know exactly what the DC law on being a 'buyer' of prostitution provides.

Posted by otto | July 20, 2007 8:30 AM

There's a fig leaf of plausible legality in that no one has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that Vitter actually engaged in sexual relations with an "escort." We all know he did, sure, but that doesn't mean the crime can be proven. So either he'd have to confess, or the government would have to do the investigative work of finding out who the escort was and trying to get her to implicate him in a crime. The government can reasonably say that's not worth its investigative resources, and frankly, there's no reason Vitter should be singled out for this treatment out of the thousands of customers on the list.

If you think we ought to declare a War on Prostitution and go after everybody on the list, on the other hand, you might just be a member of Vitter's political party.

Posted by Steve | July 20, 2007 8:39 AM

Worth the Salon ad: Ruben Bolling comic on Vitter and what might be called Crime & not Punishment

Posted by Bragan | July 20, 2007 8:40 AM

1) Actually, the picture of the US Congress making prostitution illegal is what's hilariously funny. They are the biggest pack of whores around.

2) As was the picture of the US Congress criticizing Enron CEOs for deceitful accounting and other CEOs for raiding their pension funds. Congress ,after all, is the author of the federal budget and is also the pack of thieves who have stolen $4 Trillion from the Social Security/Medicare Trust Fund.

By the way, what happened to that $5 Trillion "surplus" that they told us we had about 6 years ago?

Posted by Don Williams | July 20, 2007 8:44 AM

As a practical matter, how often are patrons of prostitutes arrested? I hear about it happening every now and then as part of a "shame the Johns" campaign, but that's about it. Be careful of supporting a hard line on these matters; you never know when it will turn around and bite you on the ass. Has no Democrat ever used an escort service?

Posted by DaveL | July 20, 2007 8:46 AM

Also, it's part of the right wing credo that sins generally ought to be crimes, so Vitter really has no defense.

Posted by MattF | July 20, 2007 8:53 AM

Have you even been following this story, Matt? Vitter received forgiveness from God. So how could one proceed with any prosecution?

And it is too a privat matter anyway. Kind of like the Catholic priests who sexually abused hundreds of children. The church took care of that just fine.

Posted by ed | July 20, 2007 9:01 AM

The standard here is (as always): IOKIYAR.

In saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Pardon me, I've got to go weep and gnash my teeth.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 20, 2007 9:24 AM

I wonder if secretly the break down is not going to be along partisan lines, but along gender ones? Or more accurately between those who can imagine themselves getting their names in a Madame's phone book and those who cannot (some large percentage of whom might be able to imagine their husband's name therein). This will of course be disguised as something else as no one will want to talk about it openly in those terms. I wonder.

The "Reasonable Man" test always seemed to be more accurately about what we could see ourselves doing. So what is the Reasonable Man test here? Could a reasonable man see his name appear in a Madame's phone book even though he had no connection to her in that specific professional sense? I know a lot of people, it is just possible that my name might innocently end up known to a "colorful" person. Could a reasonable man see that he might perhaps one day be lonely and avail himself of such services? I blush to answer, but as someone who has stayed in a lot of hotels, a lot of hotel managements seem to assume their guests are going to be "lonely" - look at the charges they ask for porn.

Now try asking those questions from the perspective of a Reasonable Man's Wife.

Not that I have any time or sympathy for Vitter either way. He seems a little shit and I for one won't miss him at all.

Posted by HeiGou | July 20, 2007 9:34 AM

Well there is a certain pragmatic logic to having selling some products a criminal offence, but not buying them. That logic is applied more or less to drugs and prostitution and I guess in practice to lots of other products in many countries

Not really. Possession of drugs is still a crime; it's just that selling is a bigger crime.

Unless you meant "in many countries" to apply to drugs as well as "lots of other products" - but I think you'll find that in e.g. the Netherlands, where the law tolerates possession, it also tolerates small-scale supply under controlled conditions.

Posted by ajay | July 20, 2007 9:47 AM

Could a reasonable man see that he might perhaps one day be lonely and avail himself of such services?

dude, I haven't got laid in a LONG time but I still haven't ever thought about paying for sex. Jerking off, on the other hand, is free and, provided you aren't in public, doesn't get you into trouble.

I have NO sympathy for Vitter - and even less for that pathetic old bag he calls a wife.

Posted by lonley non-john | July 20, 2007 10:40 AM

Could a reasonable man see his name appear in a Madame's phone book even though he had no connection to her in that specific professional sense?

Irrelevant; Vitter has admitted that the connection was a professional one.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | July 20, 2007 10:43 AM

"For the 'DC Madame' to be on trial, where her Senator client gets off the hook because it's 'private' is ridiculous. What about her privacy?"

Ah-yup. You called it.

Posted by Kyle | July 20, 2007 12:23 PM

David Vitter isn't news because he's a politician who solicited hookers, David Vitter is news because he's a deceitful, conniving hypocrite who paraded his 'superior' morality as a political weapon even while secretly indulging in criminal and, by his own publicly flaunted definition, immoral behavior.

Moral Republicans would demand Vitter resign immediately. The conspicuous absence of those demands for resignation from Republicans suggests that their definition of "Republican" now includes "deceitful, conniving hypocrite." But then 'rules' are increasingly applied less and less to Republicans, assuming 'rules' are applied to Republicans at all.

Merriam Webster definition:
Hypocrite: "a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion." Vitter now defines 'hypocrite,' and so do most of the Republican politicians who are now supporting him.

Posted by Disgusted by Vitter | July 21, 2007 5:35 AM