OK, I Was Wrong

Apparently the good Mr. Vitter has a much more serious self-control problem than I'd given him credit for. Just ask the Canal Street Madam, who did a lengthy, out-of-control interview on WDSU last night.

As a thunderstorm brewed outside my windows, I watched in fascination the interview with former madam Jeanette Maier. The editors at WDSU were apparently fascinated too because there she was, just rambling on and on and on.

As she rambled, I thought, "Just hand the woman a shovel" because as she talked she dug Vitter into a deeper, more humiliating hole from which to slither out of. First, yes, he was a client. Well, he was a really nice man and loves his wife. (Oh boy, don't you bet the wife appreciates hearing that from a hooker!) And what a good politician he is. Oh, and he might have needed something other than sex, you know, maybe just a girl he could talk to.

Good grief. When the man's biggest advocate is a former madam who now supports herself selling soy candles and living in a single room, he's really got problems.

And then there's the Hustler connection. Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt claims that an investigator he hired to track the phone numbers of the D.C. Madam's little black book found evidence tracing a number to Vitter, and that the savvy Congressman ran to the AP to make his "confession" before Hustler could release the story.

Ironically, it was a similar Hustler hustle that drove Bob Livingston from Congress in 1999. He was suceeded by, you got it, Vitter.

Now, I personally have another theory. A while back, Hustler ran a full-page ad in the Washington Post offering a $1 million reward to anyone who could offer evidence linking a member of Congress to the D.C. Madam. And I'm thinking, who would turn in the conservative Vitter? What Democrat needs money really badly these days? What Louisianan would want attention diverted away from his own shenanigans?

Yep. I say that Dollar Bill Jefferson sold Vitter down the Hooker Highway for defense money. You heard it here first.