Exclusive: Vitter's 2004 Family Values Campaign Ads Are Unearthed
Oh, dear. We've just learned that Senator David Vitter's 2004 campaign ads are still on his old campaign Web site's multimedia page -- and we've captured them for your viewing pleasure.
In his ads, Vitter repeatedly uses his wife and kids as campaign props in an effort to portray himself as a solid family-values sort of fellow, a portrayal he reinforced during the campaign by defending traditional marriage against its assorted enemies. Take a look:
Vitter, of course, is Rudy Giuliani's Southern regional chair and has now confessed to a very serious "sin" for getting linked to the D.C. Madam.
It's hard to decide which moment in these ads is most interesting. In one ad, his daughter narrates the whole thing. In another, Vitter is quoted as follows against the backdrop of his kids eating breakfast:
"Bottom line: For the sake of our children, there are a lot of things I'm gonna change."
And in the third ad, Vitter says:
"In life's most important moments, we're not Repulicans or Democrats, we are parents."
Special thanks to TPMer Ben Craw for putting together the video -- and for coming up with that "prostitute patron" gag.
Leave it to a master hypocrite like this one to use his kids (and their illness as newborns) so brazenly in campaign ads.
Oh, if only he could be the first in a long line of tumbling dominoes.
But I've spent a lifetime in Louisiana, and let me assure you he'll wiggle out of all this and get re-elected in 2010 -- with the Christian fundamentalist vote to boot.
July 10, 2007 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Parents who patronize prostitutes, oh my!
July 10, 2007 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I oppose allowing those who frequent prostitutes to marry.
:)
July 10, 2007 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Bottom line: For the sake of our children, there are a lot of things I'm gonna change," like stop frequenting prostitutes.
"In life's most important moments, we're not Repulicans or Democrats, we are parents," the rest of the time we are Johns.
July 10, 2007 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seriously, I wonder if he told his children. At this point, I'm sure that they have found out. Sad.
July 10, 2007 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
These videos really put the hypocrite meter off the chart. He was obviously seeing the prostitute before he made the ads. How many times is his phone # on the list, and in what timeframe?
Regardless, the Dems should take advantage. Run ads in some of the more conservative swing states to point out the hypocrisy and further damage the GOP brand. It's sad in some ways, but these Mark Foley-type situations really move the numbers in the polls like nothing else will. That hurt them a lot in 2006.
July 10, 2007 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
David - What were you thinking? But then what are all politicians thinking? You must have known someday you'd get caught, and God and your wife wouldn't really forgive you, that someday you'd get caught and your kids would be snickered at when they went to school. Maybe you just believed your own lies a little too much....
I think the proper way to repent is to enlist in the Army right now. I think they raised the enlistment age so they could get people like you (as anyone younger with any brains doesn't want to get their asses shot off in Baghdad or Baqouba or wherever else hypocrites like you have sent them.)
And when you get to Iraq, maybe you can share a good 'ol boy joke with whatever call girl service they've got over there. They'll laugh and laugh 'cause in Iraq, son, the call girls aren't run by nice ladies like Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who, after all, is just a Californian. In Iraq, they're all secret agents for the Iranians and their laughter is just to suck you in....
July 10, 2007 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am hoping that the Democratic Party of LA takes FULL ADVANTAGE of this treasonous traitorous scumbag. He was out there, getting laid by some whore, while his wife was hoping washing his underwear. What a piece of lying scummy crap.
And he can take his "sincere apology" and cram it up his penis sideways. That's the part of Christianity which I SIMPLY HATE: you can do anything you fucking want, and then apologize, and you are FORFUCKINGIVEN. Well, fuck that. Once you pull shit like this, it's A PERMANENT BLACK MARK.
It's not like this piece of lying steaming crap just got fucked by some whore once. He's been trailed by these allegations for years. It's over and over and over. He's a serial whore-fucker. And I hope that his opponents call him that.
July 10, 2007 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
"On July 10, 2007 - 7:01pm ohiomeister said:
"Parents who patronize prostitutes, oh my!"
Action! --
Prostitutes can be parents too, ya know.
Even as politicians can be prostitutes.
I'm David Vitter, and I'm attempting to deny I approved this message.
Oops.
Cut!
July 11, 2007 12:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
I believe welfare whores should work for their money. That's why I pay my prostitutes.
I'm David Vitter, and I've run out of excuses.
July 11, 2007 12:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Later posts reveal that the DC Madam was not Vitter's first. Seems he also did a little business (well actually a lot of business) in NOLA with the Canal Street Madam.
A serial john. It's what GOP family values are all about.
July 11, 2007 2:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
According to my sources the man likes Diapers.
July 11, 2007 3:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Vitter is more of a whore than any woman he ever paid for sex.
They sold their bodies, he sold his soul.
July 11, 2007 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Those ads are so cloying that they make my teeth hurt.
And that bit about raiding the Social Security trust fund: did he vote for Bush's wars? Bush avoids a tax increase by raiding the Social Security funds to pay for his wars.
Is Vitter planning to spend more time with his family now? His wife found common cause with Lorena Bobbitt regarding marital infidelity.
July 11, 2007 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is something really jarring in these ads. Maybe it is the disconnect between the people. Like when Vitters wife dumps the baby on him and then rushes off. Or when he gets his cereal and doesn't sit down with the kids. The kids are treated like objects instead of people. And how can these ads celebrate "family values" when his daughter treats him as a sign reading imbecil?
And that soppy stuff about his daughters. Reminds me od Duke Cunningham. Didn't give a damn about health issues until HE got prostate cancer. Then he voted for govt funding. Couldn't care less about anyone else's problems- govt support for someone else's problems? That's just welfare for lazy, good for nothing....
I notice that Vitter's statement implied that since he straightened this out between himself, god and his wife, there was no other issue. That is the tricky thing with mixing moral law and civil law. Apparently some people are exempt from the consequences of civil law because they get it worked out with god.
I wonder if those ILLEGAL migrants could square things with god and get a free pass too. They haven't even violated a moral law. They just crossed a geopolitical boundary to try to make enough money to keep their families alive. But there are a lot of people out there who think this is the BIGGEST issue facing our country.
And then there are those gays and lesbian families. Vitter and his evangelical friends want it encoded in our civil laws that what his god says is wrong is ILLEGAL. No way are those people allowed to talk to their god and say that (s)he is really OK with it and that love and treating each other as you wish to be treated is what really counts.
We don't need to go "over there" to fight religious extremists. We've got more than we can handle right here. And I do believe that religious extremism threatens democracy.
July 11, 2007 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Starwheel hits it on the head. The real question about this story is not what it means for Vitter but what it means for the "debate" about marriage equality.
Arguments about the sanctity of marriage started to sound a bit ridiculous after Brittney Spears got hitched and unhitched in 54 hours, during which time her "husband" had more legal rights than two same-sex partners who had been together a lifetime.
I hope and believe that the Vittner story, long after Vittner himself is forgotten, will further undermine the argument that the "threat" to marriage comes from gay people.
July 11, 2007 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
This guy is such a fucking scumbag. If the GOP continues with him, we Dems need to get down and dirty and call him "Vitter the Whore Fucker". Enough with the political correctness.
July 11, 2007 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's the problem? I mean, it's not like Clinton who got a BJ in the whitehouse by one of his staff members. At least this stand up guy actually inputs into the economy, as he's - uhhh - outputting, so to speak.
July 11, 2007 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am here in Louisiana, and I know that most people here will forgive "sins of the flesh," but will not tolerate one of their senators becoming a laughing stock because he wore diapers. Write this down: Vitter will resign because of the diapers.
Diapers, diapers, diapers! Resign, resign, resign.
Does Dem Governor Blanco have to appoint a republic to fill Vitter's slot, or can she appoint a Dem? (Of course, knowing her she would do the "right" thing and appoint another republic...but, she is a lame duck and has nothing to lose? Hmm)
July 11, 2007 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
SONG OF DEBORAH
..they chose new gods then was war in the gates.. awake awake deborah utter a song.. the Lord gave you dominion over the mighty.. curse you bitterly the inhabitants thereof who came not to the help of justice against the mighty.. they divided the prey, to every man a damsel or two.. let all thine enemies perish o Lord and the land rest forty years..
Deborah palfrey deserves the Pemberton Award for Clean Governance.
Palfrey list is like the Black Book of 1918.
That trial of the Century is deleted from all books, cursed be reporters.
The list there had 47000 names.
The list here has 46000 phone bills.
The listed are not womenizers, machos or ordinary sinners.
They are power brokers gay lutheran shock and awe agitators of all wars and all panics.
These wretches are one dirty cover to the real pimps deep underground.
A curse on the kingpins, Justice Charles Darling then and Judge Adolph Kessler now.
Noel Pemberton-Billing
Trial of the Century 1918
October 7, 2007 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink