from ThinkProgress.org’s summary of today’s headlines – following up on the story of Sen. Vitter’s phone number showing up on the DC’s madam’s list:
Sen. David Vitter visited a Canal Street brothel several times “beginning in the mid-1990s, paying $300 per hour for services at the bordello.” Attempting to defend Vitter against the “solicitation of prostitution charges,” the so-called “Canal Street Madam” whose operation was shut down by a federal investigators in 2001 said, “I want his wife to know he’s a good man.”
++++My question: If the rate was $300 an hour, would a politician try to slide by with paying only $10 for the 2 minutes he used?
TalkingPointsMemo.org has great stuff today on Vitter’s denunciations of Bill Clinton’s moral turpitude, which coincidentally occurred at the same time Vitter was being billed for time logged by hookers.
How many of these guys were screwing around while trying to impeach Clinton for screwing around? Delay, Gingrich, Livingston,Vitter….who else???
Thanks for the link BTW
I expect there were at least a few congressmen who favored impeachment who weren’t “gittin’ any on the side.”
This sideshow will be fun to watch! There will be more names since the madam that has been harrassed by the feds was cleared by a judge to post those numbers. Right now, there has to be a staff somewhere researching those #s. Now I think prostitution is nothing more than two consenting adults agreeing on an economic arrangement but the irony and hypocrisy will be sweet to watch!!!! Can’t what for the next tearful “I have sinned but my wife has forgiven me” moment!
The only downside is that this might shatter my faith in the system.
Jim, I have pondered over your question about whether a pol would try to get by with paying 10 bucks for 2 minutes with a $300/hour sex worker. The answer is yes, but only if he was paying with his own personal money. If he was using expense account money, campaign funds, or his wife’s money, he would pay the full $300 plus a tip. Speaking of tips, it seems Vitter is missing and their is reason to believe his penis may also be missing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/10/AR2007071001858_pf.html
Tom,
Great article! Sounds like Vitter’s wife has a sharp edge (yes, I went there). I also like how he is a part of Rudy “el Duce” Giuliani’s campaign. Birds of a feather…..
Jim and gang,
Looks like the GOP isnt the only “major party” screwing over unconventional candidates…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-mike-gravel/why-i-wasnt-invited-to-t_b_55931.html
This is news?…..gee, I always thought that Washington was a kind of Pimp-Fest anyhow. The fact that there is a Prostitute servicing the Political Class is about as remarkable a piece of news as recognizing some flys hovering over the methane vent of a Holstein.
Actually, what would be a shocking development is to see an announcement that claims 100% proof of the lack of brothels in any location where power and money flow. Call me jaded.
While it is a slim pleasure to watch one of these sanctimonious wankers get a good dose of their own medicine, I’d rather watch a couple politicians get stoked over the decision of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals of a few days ago that said because the NSA spying was “secret”…..then nobody could actually confirm their status as injured or an aggrieved. Don’t Ask, Don’t tell, we presume. This….now this would be remarkable news if somebody, anybody…..anyone… actually said anything about what must be a turning point for the lapsed Republic , based upon this sorry decision. There aint no Conservatives and there aint no liberals no more, theres just a giant monolith called Lifestyle Statism and the public, to quote Mencken , “is gettin it good and hard”.
I was puzzled that congressmen did not simply rely on interns on this.
On the other hand, perhaps no one in Washington has forgotten the lesson of ’98 — Never get serviced by someone who wants to lecture you about federal education policy while working the polling.
Tom – maybe this would explain Vitter’s slavishly pro-Bush voting record.
Lyndon Johnson was famous for saying “I’ve got his pecker in my pocket” – referring to some senator who would never disobey his commands.
Maybe that’s why Cheney is so anxious to avoid any audit of his personal file boxes – he might have half the Republicans on Capitol Hill thereabouts…
Our tax dollars truly hard at work! Isn’t 300 an hour what attorneys charge nowadays? I should have stayed in law school, but I wanted to have a clear enough conscience to be able to sleep at night. Oh well, as my pappy always used to say “The only good union is a sexual union, the only good version is a perversion and the only good job is a blow job!”
Yet another unanswered question at the moment – were the congresscritters receiving professional courtesy discounts? Same trade group, after all.
PS: Attorneys charge depending on geography and service. I’m out in the woods of the Pacific NW. Civil stuff gets billed at about $155 an hour, my public defense work has been averaging $75 an hour, but there are PD attorneys billing only forty bucks an hour. Moving to the Big City down the street would probably bump my civil rates up to two hundred. With larger firms you start getting close to the three hundred mark, for senior partners in their areas of expertise.
Costs in places like LA, Chicago, NY, or DC are considerably higher, of course.
Jim
I was listening to Mike Gallagher’s show last week, and he was speaking on this issue. And you guessed it, Bill Clinton was mentioned. You know, I was never a fan of bubba, and I know you wrote an entire book, and owe a great deal of thanks to bubba for your increase in your personal assets during the 90’s.
You know, I read recently that the Democrats are proposing a Cabinet Dept of Peace.
I think we should have a Dept of Sex, with Bubba as Sec, and as we have the Surgeon General wearing a Navy uniform, I would suggest that Bubba wears a Condom. (As a side note, his assistant would be Josie Elders.)
Jean, thanks for the plug for Feeling Your Pain.
On Clinton wearing a condom – if it was of the same caliber that Jocelyn Elders passed out as freebies to Arkansas school students when she was Arkansas’s @Surgeon General under Gov. Clinton, the condom would be breathable — sine Elders was famous for having distributing defective condoms.
That is the kind of thing that can give young people a bad opinion of government benevolence.
The part about police and throw-downs is definitely true. I attend the local gun show regularly, and in this state it is perfectly legal for private individuals to sell used handguns face to face without paperwork. I was standing directly behind two cops once who were checking out some legal no-paperwork handguns and quite clearly heard one say “this would make a great throwdown” to the other, who then noticed me and started hissing “shut up, shut up!”.