All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Is it the sex … or just the hypocrisy? In discussing the Republicans’ potential “zipper problem” in his morning column, the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz asks the million dollar question:

Does [Hustler publisher Larry] Flynt's goal of exposing political hypocrites--along the way, back in '99, he cost speaker-to-be Bob Livingston his House seat--mean that only conservative Republicans are targeted, and liberal Democrats get a pass?

And the Politico starts to wonder if the Vitter story won’t cost the Republican party at the ballot box:

Embarrassment for the GOP was entertainment for many others, as people in Washington and around the nation chortled over the latest stubbed toe for a crowd that took power, and held it, in large measure by decrying the decay of traditional values and by issuing censorious attacks on the personal failings of political rivals.

Beyond the chortling, however, the Vitter scandal is a small piece of a much more significant development: The demoralized state of the social conservative movement on the brink of the 2008 election.

While I have to take issue with the Politico’s characterization that we’re on “the brink of the 2008 election” in July of 2007, it’s true that the Republicans have had a particularly tough 10 months on the “values” front. From “family values” candidate David Vitter, being tied this week to a number of prostitution rings, to Internet morality policeman Congressman Mark Foley being caught last fall behaving immorally (zing!) on the Internet (oof!), their halos have been tarnished more than a tad.

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If you want to understand one of the key differences between the mainstream media and blogs – and make sense of why the latter have grown increasingly popular in recent years – look no further than the David Vitter story.

Vitter, of course, is the Louisiana Republican Senator whose phone number appeared in the records of "DC Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Like Newt Gingrich and other conservative politicians before him, he offered up an apology chock-full of religious language.

"This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible," he said in a statement. "Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there -- with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way."

What's the reason this story has hit such a nerve with some folks? (It's dominating sites like Memorandum.) Vitter is what The New Republic calls a "family-values conservative" – the kind of guy who gets votes by talking about "stand[ing] up for Louisiana values, not Massachusetts’s values." TNR notes that Vitter said last year that the gay marriage ban was the most important issue out there, and also flags the New Orleans Times-Picayune's follow up reporting, in which Vitter "conceded that infidelity, divorce, and deadbeat dads contribute to the breakdown of traditional families."

In other words: It's the hypocrisy, stupid.

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