Even for Louisiana politics, this seems out there:
To briefly recap, Furer is the aide Vitter kept on his taxpayer-financed payroll, despite Furer having held his ex-girlfriend hostage, threatening to kill her, and attacking her with a knife. The right-wing, scandal-plagued senator knew about this, and not only kept Furer on his staff, but tasked him with helping oversee women’s issues for the Senate office. Making matters worse, Vitter, when asked about this, appears to have lied.
Vitter will probably cruise to re-election regardless.
C Nelson Reilly
Depends.
Perry Como
IOKIYAR
JC
If Vitter was a democratic politician, Fox News, Rushbo, etc, would on his a$$ 24/7, this would then be picked up by CNN, picked up by Time, WashPost, etc.
And he would be out.
It’s nice to be a republican operator. You get the financial backing of your chosen corporate interests, you salute the flag, all the while screwing the little guy, and then you get to be completely hypocritical in your stance on morality.
Then at the end, once you are done in Congress, you join the lobbyist gravy train, and become a multi-millionaire.
Nice work, if you can get it.
JC
Perry said the same thing, without ranting. Forgive me for ranting, but it still annoys me…
Bob Loblaw
You’re only getting on this story now?
Maybe this blog should open up its worldview beyond McArdle’s latest post du jour…
beltane
From a Republican’s standpoint, Furer would be something of an expert in women’s issues as he clearly knows how to treat a lady.
Vitter has a primary challenger who is hitting him hard on all of this to the point that Diaper Dave is threatening to sue the radio stations airing his opponent’s ads. The Republican nominee will cruise to victory, but Vitter might not be the man.
DougJ
@JC:
I was going to say if he were a in the New York State Senate, in either party, he could do the kidnapping and knifing himself and get re-elected. But that guy did finally get booted.
Chad S
I don’t think he’s going to cruise. He’ll probably win, but it’ll be closer than expected.
DougJ
@Bob Loblaw:
I’ve meant to write about it a million times, but kept forgetting.
malraux
As always, the dead girl or live boy rule holds for LA.
Mumphrey
I really hope Diaper Dave wins his nomination race. I don’t know anything about Melancon, but I pray he beats Diaper Dave over the head with this for 2 months. It’s so sleazy, maybe even Louisiana voters will wake up and dump this freak out on his ass.
Hal
Out there for Louisiana politics? Maybe. Out there for a guy who frequented prostitutes while wearing diapers?
Not so much.
trollhattan
As a serial prostitution customer, Vitter’s earned enough frequent, uh, flier miles to earn the cloak of invincibility(tm) that protects Republicans (“water just beads up and rolls off”). So just never you mind about that woman-beater dude, hear?
jacy
Local polls show show Vitter leading primary challenger Traylor 74% to 5%. That could change, and probably will, but I don’t think it’s going to change enough to make it anywhere near close. Traylor’s got his own skeletons in the closet, and Louisiana voters aren’t just low-information voters, they’re often no-information voters.
Melancon has a shot though. On local radio and TV, political experts say that if Melancon can do well getting to the voters in Cajun country, it can damp down Vitter’s gains in Baton Rouge and make it a squeaker. But they agree it all depends on Melancon.
Oh, and Melancon’s got the Landreius on his side, so that counts for a little something.
Bob Loblaw
@DougJ:
I’m just curious as to what this blog sees as its identity. It has no particular activist focus, nor any particular policy area of interest or expertise. If I had to describe it, I would say its a media criticism site for the aging online population. Hence the generally shallow and frightened tone on a lot of topics, plus the frequent pet and gardening posts.
And yet, none of you main pagers really fit that age description. It’s very weird some days.
DougJ
@Bob Loblaw:
Shallow, ok. But frightened?
beltane
@jacy: It’s good for Melancon that Traylor’s going on the attack. It will be even better if Vitter carries out his threat to sue him and all the stations broadcasting the ads.
Bob Loblaw
@DougJ:
I think Cole’s economic postings demonstrate a lot of uninformed fear, yes.
cmorenc
@Mumphrey
The mixture of knowing cynicism, and willful ignorance in Louisiana is unfortunately deeply pervasive enough to envelop both parties – remember that ex-Congressman William-100k-in-his-freezer-Jefferson was a Democrat, as was the late Gov Edwin Edwards. It speaks volumes that the current Governor (Republican) Bobby Jindal is what passes as an “intelligent, uncorrupted reformer” by Louisiana standards. Louisiana’s other (Democratic) Senator Mary Landrieu manages to retain office mainly because she so arduously avoids provoking any of the state’s big “bidness” interests, especially Gas and Oil, and is so obviously willing to serve their bidding that there’s little advantage in spending the money and effort to see to it that she’s thrown out and replaced by a Republican Senator next election. Who knows, there’s also the downside risk to them that some right-wing ideologue Republican may actually prove significantly less predictably pliable to their interests than Sen. Landrieu.
Remember: the ONLY reason powerful business interests in Louisiana get aboard replacing Democrats with Republicans is because in so many cases, the latter seem so much more willingly pliable and subservient in office. But why rouse the rabble when the incumbent suits them just fine?
About the ONLY time in modern history when the voters of Louisiana seemed to get interested enough to “wake up” and dump a freak on his ass was the Gubernatorial election nearly two decades back when a modest majority were persuaded to “vote for the crook – it’s important”, and make sure that Edwin Edwards won the governorship rather than open Ku Klux Clan member and White Supremacist David Duke.
The Edwin Edwards quip about the only time you’ll get in trouble for any sort of sex scandal in Louisiana is if you get caught with either “a live boy or a dead girl” was the most famous example of Edwards’ wry humor, but it also hit the truth dead-on. The ex-girlfriend Furer beat up falls short of the requisite “dead girl” standard.
Comrade Kevin
@Bob Loblaw: Says the guy who suggested that West Virginia be depopulated.
jacy
@beltane:
Oh, I totally agree, and I hope Traylor doesn’t pull out any stops. Vitter tends to get really pissy when confronted, so I hope both Traylor and then Melancon just keep hammering him.
DougJ
@Bob Loblaw:
I am mostly interested in trying to come up with catchy titles for posts. I don’t know what motivates the others.
Keith G
@DougJ: Awesome.
Bob Loblaw
@Comrade Kevin:
Yes, states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Alaska, etc. should be depopulating more rapidly than they currently are. Urban-intensive living is the next stage in American economic evolution under the next energy paradigm. We need to get denser, faster.
Rural states that didn’t sufficiently value and build their educational systems do not have a future. The industrial reinvention will not happen there. Cities like San Antonio and Austin are the next stage in American development.
South of I-10
Vitter and Melancon are both already on the atack, though I did find it interesting that Vitter attacked first. Vitter has also accused Traylor of being a plant by Democrats. Vitter seems a little paranoid for someone who thinks he is cruising to reelection. Y’all will probably not like Charlie Melancon, he is definitely a Blue Dog, but he beats the hell out of Vitter. I hope to never have to look at Vitter’s smug face again.
jacy
@South of I-10:
You and me both. I’m sure I would eventually want to punch Melancon repeatedly should he be elected, but he’s miles and miles better than Vitter.
John O
@Bob Loblaw:
You’re either independently wealthy, or somehow otherwise able to self-subsist if you don’t feel a certain degree of fear about the economy. Do tell…it makes quite a difference in terms of understanding your comments.
I live in a quiet little middle class neighborhood of duplexes and town homes and we’re at about a 10-15% foreclosure rate. I have some good friends in upscale Denver who were recently burglarized as part of a wake of burglarizations in their neighborhood. I know a frightening number of 40-55 year olds out of work with weirdly little chance of re-employing, people who’ve held jobs competently their entire lives. My own personal 401K (I’m one of the lucky ones!) is stuck in neutral-to-reverse for years, and my job is permanently at risk, after 26 years on it.
And I don’t see any reason to believe the problem is going to get better, particularly after November. Fear isn’t a bad thing when it’s rational.
MikeJ
Vitter’s just too Pampered.
LT
Great, now I’ve got something else to be afraid of: the incinerating gaze of Bob Loblaw.
Bob Loblaw
@John O:
I think the causation is far more transparent than people are willing to believe just yet. This recession was not an unforeseen. It’s been literally decades in the making.
John O
@Bob Loblaw:
Oh, I agree, but I don’t see how that relates to your suggestion the place was about economic fear. “Uninformed” no less.
I would be pretty hesitant to call the people out here uninformed, that’s for sure. At least from what I can tell, everyone’s paying a lot of attention.
mantis
Hence the generally shallow and frightened tone on a lot of topics, plus the frequent pet and gardening posts.
Can tone be shallow?
pixelpusher
@Bob Loblaw: Funny you should mention Texas cities in relation to education. The new anti-science bent of the Texas Board of Education isn’t going to help attract the best minds in the country. Hopefully, Texans will wake up and smell the Darwin.
Bob Loblaw
@John O:
Because the fallout derives completely from the causes of the recession in the first place.
It will be a jobless “recovery.” The primary victims will be minority males, and this time, older workers. Your loyalty to your companies before will not save you. You are educated, well-trained, and above all else, costly. Why pay for you when they can get 2.5 twentysomethings instead for the same annual wage? And why pay for those 2.5 twentysomethings in a northern industrial state, when they could do so in Texas instead? And why pay for them in Texas when you could pay for them in Malaysia and India instead?
This is the art of perpetual downsizing and outsourcing, finally doubled back on the population that thought for sure it would never happen to them. This is what late-stage corporatism looks like. And no, neither political party in this country will step in to save the American worker. They haven’t in a very long time.
demimondian
@Bob Loblaw: This blog’s identity is built around making fun of people — particularly self-important people. I think you have a bright and useful future around here.
Bob Loblaw
@pixelpusher:
True, and endlessly worrisome. We can’t continue to afford an under-producing Texas in this country because of the politics of the worst among us. Fortunately, demographic changes should win out first. That’s why I specifically mentioned San Antonio.
JGabriel
@demimondian: Win!
.
TooManyJens
@Bob Loblaw: I’m not sure why you’re under the impression that nobody here understands this but you.
cmorenc
@Bob Loblaw
This country seems to indeed be getting “denser, faster”. We have a seemingly inexhaustible supply of stupidity already, and we’re producing more of it every day.
GR
@Bob Loblaw:
Uh, so I guess you are distinguishing yourself as expressing *informed* economic fear as opposed to the *uninformed* economic fear of John Cole? Or something?
Bob Loblaw
@TooManyJens:
How many people here were ready to declare the recession over from Nov09-Apr10? How many were willing to consider austerity measures? How many people still even bother using the word ‘inflation’ and expect to be taken seriously? How many people missed the inventory adjustment as sustainable demand growth? How many people understand PCE growth as a function of transfer payments? How many people have any better understanding of the housing and foreclosure markets today (and the government policy addressing them) then when this all started?
How many people know that Obama has a net negative job production total in his first nineteen months in office? That state and local losses have simply overwhelmed, and will continue to overwhelm, the private gains (which haven’t been insubstantial, if still meager)? How many people are willing to do anything about that with their Blue Dog representatives and senators?
Bob Loblaw
@GR:
What makes you think I’m afraid for the future? Things will shake out pretty much as they always do. This country will still grow, millions will still prosper. This isn’t the end of Western civilization. Nor is it even the beginning of the end.
Of course, if nothing you do will ever really matter in the macro sense of things, then the only thing that really matters is what you do anyway.
TooManyJens
Why don’t you read here for five minutes and find out? Jesus, inflation? Really? I can’t remember the last time anyone here mentioned inflation except to mock Very Serious Pundits for worrying about it. (Unless it was Kain; no offense, dude, but I don’t always pay attention.)
Wile E. Quixote
@Bob Loblaw:
Bob, do you have a clue about any of this? Somehow I doubt it. As to why I come here, well, with ammo costs what they are shooting fish in a barrel, literally, is kind of pricey these days, so I come to BJ and go after guys like you. It’s not challenging, but after a long day trying to beat OpenLDAP into something usable it’s relaxing, the verbal equivalent of playing GTA IV with all the cheat codes running and just running around and blowing shit up.
flagpole
Loblaw:
Whatever Lily and Rosie may wish to believe, this site is about Tunch, who has remarkably little patience for self-righteous fuckwits peddling pat answers to absurdly intricate problems. For the record, what you believe to be fear is actually a mixture of disgust and dismay, not an unusual reaction to skyrocketing levels of Teh Stupid. Even uber-felines find the degeneration of the collective human mind somewhat disconcerting, despite having had rather little regard for it at its height.
frosty
@Bob Loblaw:
As someone who ended up hefting 100-lb sacks for Manpower with a freshly-minted BS in Engineering during Nixon’s recession, I’ve never thought it couldn’t happen to me. Here’s the quote I’ve lived with for years. (Wish I knew the source):
“Should any practice of engineering become routine, it’s practitioners will descend to the level of a respectable intellectual peasantry.”
HyperIon
@Bob Loblaw:
I don’t know what half of this means.
So…where are all the wonky and knowledgeable econ folks hanging out? Maybe Calculated Rick? I don’t understand half of what they post about either.
LosGatosCA
That’s irregardless to you. And I’ll refudiate anyone who disagrees.
shortstop
Bob Loblaw is one of my favorite Arrested Development characters. Every time I think of his late-night commercial — “Why should YOU go to prison for a crime that someone else…NOTICED?” — I crack up. That is all.
stormhit
@Bob Loblaw:
You must be really proud of that intro econ class you took once.
mclaren
Is there anything an elected politician can do to make himself unelectable nowadays? Biting the heads off live puppies on TV? Anything?