The Vitter End
by Clancy DuBos - Gambit Weekly (excerpt)

"He hath given his empire up to a whore."

-- William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

U.S. Sen. David Vitter spent the better part of the last three decades positioning himself to run for president of the United States. Within the past few months, having won the role of Rudy Giuliani's lead dog in the South and among social conservatives, he actually stood on the threshold of realizing his life-long dream. He was seriously talked about as a possible vice-presidential running mate on a Giuliani ticket.

After three decades of meticulous, obsessive planning for this moment in history, Vitter's dream came crashing down in less than a week.

People who know Vitter well understand just how precipitous the 46-year-old junior senator's fall from grace has been. This is not just a sex scandal. He has not just been exposed as a rank hypocrite. This is an epic downfall of Shakespearean proportions. For Vitter, who had spent virtually every waking moment of his adult life contemplating a run for president, the revelation that he was a client of the so-called D.C. Madam is the end of life as he knows it.

(A)s tragic figures go, Vitter evokes little pity -- particularly among his fellow politicians, many of whom privately describe him as shamelessly self-righteous, blindly ambitious and ruthlessly calculating. The legions of Vitter-haters include quite a few Republicans, by the way. In 1999, when he first ran for Congress, not one of Vitter's fellow GOP state legislators in Louisiana's First Congressional District endorsed him. Now, as he hides from a media horde that smells blood in the water, one can almost imagine a tableau of gays and Republicans sharing a moment of uninhibited shadenfreude, dancing gleefully on Vitter's political grave.

Vitter should stop hiding behind his wife and kids and come out to face the music. He spent enough time pretending no one could see him; it's time now to buck up and answer all questions thoroughly, openly and honestly. It's also past time to face his constituents and apologize -- this time with sincerity. If he doesn't have the guts to do all that and take his licks like a man, then he's got no business being in this business -- and the rest of us should all thank Vitter's merciful God that he was outed as a phony, a liar and a coward before he got any closer to the White House.