Selective outrage shows what LA Dems really think

One has to laugh at the selective outrage and post-modern hypocrisy shown by the Louisiana Democrat Party in its online petition for Republican Sen. David Vitter to resign – but in the process also to realize what it tells us about them.

Last week, Vitter issued an apology for an unspecified “sin” after his phone number turned up on a list connected to an alleged brothel operator in Washington, D.C. Previously politically invulnerable, Vitter’s enemies piled on him that is unlikely to remove him from office one way or the other for a long time.

That reality isn’t keeping state Democrats from trying with this petition which presents a reason for him to resign as being “hypocritical.” Funny thing is, though, that the very selectivity of its outrage demonstrates the hypocrisy of the party itself in revealing their hypocritical view of what “hypocrisy” is.

Vitter has admitted to no crime nor does it appear he is prosecutable for any crime, much less one of dealing with corrupt activities while in office. He confesses error in his personal life and promises to do (and apparently has done) better. Yet Democrat Rep. William Jefferson is indicted for corrupt activities while in office and I don’t see any calls from his state party for his resignation. Nor when former Democrat Gov. Prisoner 03128-095 was known as the “Silver Zipper” for his activities did we see his party ask for his resignation.

The reason, of course, is that Democrats know they are seen as the anti-moral party. It particularly enrages them that some Republicans get elected by stressing morality in both personal and public behavior and/or try to encourage it in public policy and then every once-in-awhile one of them is found not to have lived up to those articulated standards in private life. As far as Republicans go, that somehow then disqualifies them from serving in office.

Well, let me pose this question for my Democrat friends: is not better to aim high and occasionally miss than to aim low and never miss? Who would you rather have in office, someone who ethically promises much and delivers almost always, or someone who promises little and maybe can’t even do that?

More to the point, if a Democrat who never stressed moral behavior in campaigns or legislation gets in a similar situation as Vitter, is he not just as culpable and would we not demand true repentance on his part? After all, marriage vows are not contingent on your party affiliation (something Democrats seem to have forgotten in the case of Democrat Pres. Bill Clinton who went even farther by committing illegal acts to prevent investigation of the matter).

Or by the resignation call for Vitter by state Democrats on the basis of being “hypocritical” show that they believe not stressing values in campaigns and legislation inoculates one from any evaluation of yourself in moral terms, i.e. you can behave immorally if you don’t stress these things? Maybe that’s why Democrats often promote the idea that government should not encourage “conventional” morality so we are as free as we want to act badly without taking personal responsibility for that?

In the end, there are going to be former supporters of Vitter who feel betrayed because in moments of weakness (apparently now long past) Vitter failed to practice what he preached – values these people place primacy in not only in their own lives but in how they evaluate a politician. Their outrage is deserved and justified. But while marital fidelity and related moral precepts are meaningful values in these people’s lives, to the state Democrats they are merely political issues they try to use for personal gain. The political impact of the petition will be nil; the real message of the effort will be the demonstration that this is how state Democrats see moral “values.”