New York Times Lets Anonymous GOP Officials Float Bogus Explanations For Republican Inaction Against Vitter
September 1, 2007 -- 10:41 AM EST // //
Today's New York Times has a piece which delves into an important topic -- the contrast between the Republican leadership's handling of the Larry Craig and David Vitter scandals.
In Craig's case, of course, the leadership tossed him overboard faster than you can say "Wide Stance Larry." By contrast, when news of Senator Vitter's prostitute patronage broke this summer, the leadership basically winked, patted him on the back, and said, "What's a little prostitute frolicking between friends, as long as you piously acknowledged you've sinned?"
Unfortunately, in reporting on this glaring difference, The Times lets anonymous GOP officials get away with floating a bunch of justifications for it that are so absurd that they really have to be gazed upon to be believed.
Reporter Carl Hulse writes:
Despite such unusual steps against a Senate colleague, Republicans took no punitive action against Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, after his acknowledgment this summer of involvement with an escort service that the police described as a prostitution front.Okay, with the possible exception of the criminal question, this is all bull, pure and simple -- and it doesn't belong in the pages of the august New York Times, particularly coming from anonymous sources.Party officials said Mr. Vitter’s case was different in that he faced no criminal charges and was not in the Senate but was serving in the House at the time. In the case of Mr. Craig, they said experience from a recent string of misconduct cases, including the House page scandal that hurt Republicans last year, had shown there was no time to waste if the political fallout was to be minimized.
“We have learned we have to move quickly,” said a senior Senate official who did not want to be identified discussing the political ramifications of Mr. Craig’s case.
First, anonymous GOP officials are allowed to float the idea that a key difference here is that Vitter was in the House at the time of his transgressions. But this is just absurd. Vitter was in the Senate when we learned about his conduct this summer. Besides, are we really expected to believe that if Craig had been a member of the House, the dynamic would somehow have been different -- and the GOP leadership wouldn't have moved to oust him upon learning that he'd pled guilty to criminal charges stemming from his cruising in men's rooms? Really, now.
Indeed, when the news broke last fall that GOP Rep. Mark Foley -- who would be a member of the House -- wrote steamy emails to House pages, the GOP leadership criticized him and accepted his resignation.
Then these same anonymous officials are allowed to float the idea that the leadership acted quickly against Craig because they had learned to do so from the Foley affair. But the Vitter scandal broke this summer -- that is, long after the Foley one. So if they'd learned from Foley to move fast, why didn't they employ that knowledge when word of Vitter's indiscretions leaked?
You all know this already from Scott Lemieux and others, but the real difference between the Vitter and Craig cases is that Louisiana has a Dem governor, and thus would have replaced Vitter with a Dem, while Idaho's governor is a Republican, and will appoint a Republican to replace Craig -- one that will be a much stronger candidate in the 2008 Idaho Senate election than the badly-weakened Craig would have been. As Glenn Greenwald argues, the difference was all about the GOP's cost-free morality -- ousting Vitter would have cost the GOP a Senate seat, while ousting Craig costs nothing and essentially saves them one.
The Times piece doesn't share any of this basic info and context. Instead, anonymous GOP officials are allowed to float a bunch of comically transparent mumbo-jumbo that leaves readers less informed, rather than more so.
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