Senator Vitter on Marriage, God, and an apology and an intriguing story from Salon

STOP PRESS 10/7/07 3.00 EST
Daily Kos Sun Oct 24, 2004 at 09:59:09 PM PDT

"The irony is that Vitter dropped out of that governor's race last year because of an affair with a prostitute and has an illegitimate child with another woman. No big scoop -- this is all out in the open and well-known in the state, yet Vitter is still running on a "family values" platform and obviously getting away with it."

Read more here how this Catholic churchman campaigned for Family values

Senator Vitter on being found with his pants down ;

"Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there - with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way"

Feral Cat got his hands on the first draft ...

This was a very serious screw up on my part as I got caught. Next time I will be more careful sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible,” Vitter said in the statement. “Several years ago, I switched to a more discrete “massage service” asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of concern for my political career respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there - with my new more discrete “massage service” God and them. But I certainly hope this nonsense will fool everybody offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way.”

By the way he gets a 100% rating by Dr Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition on Marriage

There is a super picture on Flikr of Mr Guiliani and Mr Vitter as Vitter endorses Guiliani in the South - full details on the Guiliani blog. Have a look before it gets pulled

It appears however according to a Salon expose 29/10/2004 this was not his first experience of hookers .... "There is a house in New Orleans"

"Vitter grew up in a well-to-do family in New Orleans. After graduating from Harvard University, he attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship and earned a law degree from Tulane University in New Orleans. He served in the Louisiana House from 1991 to 1999...

"As Vitter geared up in 2002 to run for governor, his bitter race against Treen came back to haunt him. A Treen supporter, local Republican Party official Vincent Bruno, blurted out on a radio show that he believed Vitter had once had an extramarital affair.



The Louisiana Weekly newspaper followed up. Bruno told the paper that the young woman had contacted the Treen campaign in 1999 because she was upset that Vitter was portraying himself as a family-values conservative and trotting out his wife and children for campaign photo ops. Bruno, who declined to comment for this story, and John Treen interviewed the woman, who said she had worked under the name "Leah."

But after nearly a year of regular paid assignations with Vitter, the lawmaker asked her to divulge her real name, according to Treen, citing the account he said she gave him. Her name was Wendy Cortez, Treen said. (Pic is Mr Giuliani and SEn. Vitter and his wife Wendy March 12th 2007 - how long will Vitter nahg around as Southern Campaign Chairman ?)

She said Vitter's response was electric. "He said, 'Oh, my God! I can't see you anymore," John Treen told me, citing the woman's account to him and noting that Vitter's wife is also named Wendy. And Wendy Vitter does not appear to be the indulgent type.

Asked by an interviewer in 2000 whether she could forgive her husband if she learned he'd had an extramarital affair, as Hillary Clinton and Bob Livingston's wife had done, Wendy Vitter told the Times-Picayune: "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me."

Vitter, Bruno and others interviewed the alleged prostitute several times in 1999. She also met with a respected local television reporter, Richard Angelico, the Louisiana Weekly said. But Angelico declined to run with the story after she would not agree to go on camera, the paper said. Vitter denied the allegations. But shortly before the Louisiana Weekly was set to publish its story, he dropped out of the governor's race, saying he needed to deal with marital problems. "Our [marriage] counseling sessions have ... led us to the rather obvious conclusion that it's not time to run for governor," Vitter said at the time.

Chris Tidmore, the author of the Louisiana Weekly story, said he interviewed the alleged prostitute by telephone and reviewed the notes of her sessions with Treen and Bruno before publishing his story. He said she had moved away from New Orleans and is now living under an assumed name. Salon could not locate her.

Amid Vitter's denials and the reluctance of his accuser to go public, no newspapers in Louisiana reported on the allegations. And, when Sen. Breaux announced his retirement last December, Vitter jumped into the race to succeed the conservative Democrat. The far-right and confrontational Vitter was the opposite of Breaux, who had been a consensus-builder in Washington with close relationships with Republican...."

There is more on this story 29th December 2003 in the Louisiana Weekly here

Right Hand Thief has some fascinating detail at the same time about Vitter, marriage, temper tantrums etc.,

Washington Post have now picked up the story as has the Guradian which prints the AP story. Fox News now have the story. ....etc

Lawmaker?s number on escort list (MSNBC.com: U.S. News)

Phone number links senator to escort service (HoustonChronicle.com -- Politics)

Senator Nipped By "D.C. Madam" Scandal (Politics: CBSNews.com)

Senator Nipped By "D.C. Madam" Scandal (US News: CBSNews.com)

Senator Nipped By D.C. Madam Scandal (Breaking News: CBSNews.com)

Senator's number on escort service list (USATODAY.com Washington - Top Stories)

Senator apologizes about escort calls (The Seattle Times: Politics)

Senator Admits Use of an Escort Service (NYT : Washington)

Wolfowitz goes and it's the US's greatest Ally that does the dirty on him

Poor old Wolfy, not even mentioned on Madame Palfrey's list !.. he get's the bum's rush, and quelle horreur only gets US$400,000 pay off - Geez ! Not enough for a dog kennel in Georgetown.

That nice man Mr Boulton had to leave the UN, even after George couldn't sneak him past the Senate, now the sniffer out of corruption in the third world is the biter bit.

In a curious and sutly ironic twist, just as Tony and George are having their Definitely Last Show it is the true Brit and member of the World Bank’s board, Thomas Scholar, who took the lead in negotiating with Mr. Wolfowitz’s lawyer,Robert S Bennett over the president’s exit.

Thomas Scholar ? - Who He ? Well he was private secretaryand apparently close friend of ...er.. Gordon Brown .. the .. er ... new UK Prime Minister.

"I regret that it's come to this," said President George Bush at a morning news conference with departing British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "I admire Paul Wolfowitz." - maybe poor old Wolfy didn't use Colgate toothpaste - looks like his teeth could do with some attention - not to mention his distinctive lickspittle coiffeur.

However WaPo reported that ..."The German executive director on the board, Eckhard Deutscher, and the British representative, Thomas Scholar, were both under strong pressure from their governments to resolve the leadership crisis swiftly, and both were authorized to pursue a vote to fire Wolfowitz"

Sally Clark - "Family Friend" , John Batt - the first of Job's comforters

Solicitor John Batt, author, family "friend" of Sally Clark could not wait to run to Rupe's Rag the News of the World to help Neville Thurlbeck write his EXCLUSIVE ......

TRAGIC cot death mum Sally Clark drank herself to death as she tried to drown out the pain of being wrongly jailed for murdering her two baby boys.

The 42-year-old solicitor was found dead at her home on Friday following a massive heart attack brought on by years of boozing to blot out the horror of losing both tots to cot death.

Her devoted husband Stephen was away on business.

Speaking exclusively to the News of the World, Sally's closest family friend John Batt revealed: "She was drinking to console herself and to ease the pain of her grief. It was no secret she had an alcohol problem."

You can read more of this unseemly guff peddled by Batt and Sue Stapely (Quiller Consultants T: 020 7233 9444 M: 07885 798833 ) and relentless charcater assassination of Professor Meqadow, if you wish ... pass the sick bag Alice.

May she find some peace, away from "close family friends".

In another of Rupe's Rags, the Sunday Times they report ...

“I am furious,” said Mike Mackey, Clark’s solicitor. “Eight years on from her conviction, people are still going to prison for murders they didn’t commit where infant deaths occur that can’t be explained by medical science.”

Perhaps if he and her brief Julian Bevan QC (who never met his client before thrial) had done a better job at the trial she would never have been found guilty, the jury split 10-2 so not everyone thought she was guilty.

Remember there were 2 appeals and at the first in which the services of the gilded Julian Bevan QC were retained and had ample opportunity to re-visit the evidence, the Appeal Court Judges said , "If there had been no error in relation to statistics at the trial, we are satisfied that the jury would still have convicted on each count." The Court of Appeal judge Lord Henry, said the point was of "minimal significance", adding that the combined weight of medical and circumstantial evidence against Mrs Clark made her conviction safe.

It was the evidence of the blood tests on Harry that Dr Williams concealed (plus his detremined absence to explain himself) that Sally Clark was finally acquitted - the principal argument - which formed the first paragarphs of the case brought at the 2nd (and successful) Appeal by Claire Montgomery.

Elsewhere in the same paper the columnist Minette Marrin says incorrectly, " Her trial turned on whether two such deaths could possibly be a coincidence. " it did not, it turned on what she calls

"incompetence, arrogance, inattention to detail, more than a whiff of cronyism, and above all a glaring lack of common sense. ".

.. not of medical witnesses, but the lawyers she paid to defend her , who made such a botch of the case.

This doesn't stop her stoking up the fires the fashionable feminists are stoking under Professor Meadow.

Geoffrey Wansell in the Independent spreads further myths.

"In the wake of her conviction, the jubilant Cheshire Police had suggested, privately, in media briefings, that Sally had a "small drinking problem" and "didn't want to sacrifice her glamorous lifestyle for children" - and the world believed that whispering campaign. What utter, felonious, irresponsible nonsense."

That is "felonious, irresponsible nonsense". Sally Clark's problems with alcohol had been deliberately suppressed in court, (and hence unknown to the jury) bya shabby agreement of both the prosecution and defence with the collusion of the Judge, the quid pro quo being that no character witnesses were allowed. (What did the jury make of a successful lawyer, educated, who didn't or maybe couldn't produce a single characater witness, friend, lawyer, employer, neighbour, healthcare worker, doctor ?) Her treatment for alcohol problems was exposed at the end of the trial by the Prosecution in open court and the Judge declared in passing sentence to have taken into accounts psychiatric reports and her problems with alcohol going back to 1996.

Speculation in the press was extensive and lurid both by police involved in the case and others, usually anonymously and it was not restricted to Sally Clark alone.

In the book of the trial by John Batt ,"Stolen Inoccence", he tells of Det. Insp. John Gardner, who led the investigation, who said he was pleased with the verdicts and hoped that Clark could finally come to accept responsibility for what she had done. It had been the most difficult of tasks, he said, to confront a parent and accuse her of killing her own children. “Most people believe it is an unbelievable act. It is harder to accept when you have a woman who has advantages in life.”

Mr Gardner said of Clark's husband:

“I don't know how much he knows, how much he suspects, or whether he has almost turned a blind eye to what has gone on.”

NB Curiously Marilyn Stowe, the Leeds solicitor who volunteered her services and obtained the medical notes from Macclesfield Hospital on both babies which eventually led to the acquittal of Sally Clark never rates a mention.

NB2 Catch Septic Isle in a necessary and very topical post about the treatment of women in prison and the happily hypocritical Dail Mail.

NB3 Monday mid -day "family friend" John Batt is still at it, revealing Sally Clark's alcoholism and the lonely circumstances of her death, whilst her husband Stepehn was away in France on business. .. this time in the Evening Standard

Femme Fatalé ... Scapegoat .. or sacrificial Lamb ?

It was late 2004 - the spring election loomed. New Labour needed new funds. Naturally it's chief fund raiser, the Karaoke King, and ace backhander (on the tennis court) smiling, petite, Lord Levy, stopped lolling on the scarlet leather ottoman in his Foreign Office. He got to work. With a will.

Markers were called in, funny handshakes made, egos massaged and the vain were flattered. The result was 12 handy sized loans and sizeable loans and £14 Mn banked at the Co-op. (How many were approached and stalled one wonders ?) £14 Mn concealed, not only from prying eyes, but from the Party, it's senior officers but also from the Party Treasurer - although where he thought all the money he was authorising to spend came from , is a puzzle.

It was a conspiracy to deceive. The provision of coronets for cash was a subsidiary and sordid affair - the grubby and familiar stuff of politics which starts with steering Planning committees in Town Halls up and down the land by all Parties. The mechanics of it were a tertiary and (they thought in the rarified atmosphere that rules in No 10, even now) tiresome task of housekeeping - best left to a woman then.

This self evident Truth is slowly dawning .. the Sunday Telegraph, exultant that a handwritten note of the Dear Leaders apparently appears on a document apparently from No 10 says ...

"The note is understood to acknowledge the efforts of Labour's 12 secret lenders who provided £14 million to help the party fight the 2005 election." **

...which is of course exactly what the Conservative Party were doing as well - but were not in the business of bunging baronetcies on the strength of it. Cue silent Opposition.

Let's get this clear - this was a financial conspiracy undertaken to conceal the source of political funding .... now we need to back track and look at the funding of Mr Blair's office when he was in opposition and Leader of the (then) Labour Party.... arm's length Blind Trust's m'lud.

** ..er... No 10 deny the existence of such a script.

Israel Parliament and Government - Business as usual

Former President of Israel the late Ezer Weizman, accepted “gifts” of $450,000 from a French millionaire while serving as an MP and minister and was forced to resiign.

The current President Moshe Katsav has been charged with raping a former employee at the Tourism Ministry and sexually harassing three other workers at the presidential residence. He will also face charges of fraud, breach of trust, harassing a witness and obstruction of justice.

Meni Mazuz, the Israeli Attorney-General last week announced a criminal investigation into the involvement of the Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, in the sale of the government-owned Bank Leumi in 2005 when he was Finance Minister. Meni Mazuz, has removed himself from the case because his sister holds a senior position at the Finance Ministry and took part in the privatisation of the bank.

The state comptroller's office, a government watchdog, is investigating Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert's purchase of a home in Jerusalem, allegedly for far below its market value.Mr Olmert sold the house for US$2.7 million to an offshore company controlled by S Daniel Abraham, the founder of Slim-Fast, in 2004. Mr Abraham had previously contributed funds to Mr Olmert's election campaigns.

The newspaper Haaretz has claimed that Mr Olmert continued to live in the house following the sale, paying rent at about half the market rate.

On September 24th 2006 Tzahi Hanegbi the chairman of the Israel Parliament's influential Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee and a senior ally of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was charged with fraud, bribery and perjury in connection with appointments he made as a minister. The charges relate to appointing political allies to government jobs when serving as environment minister from 2001 to 2003.

The Wide Awakes looking for recruits.

The top three from a trawl through Google's News with the search term "The Wide Awakes" produces these today.... Interesting bunch.

No 1 on the list

Big Dog spends a lot of time pushing Conservative issues and preparing for his radio show at Wide Awakes Radio.
Blogcritics.org
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/09/21/101055.php
For Ben Cardin, It's All About The Race

No 2 on the List

Several Contributors -Jay, Gribbit, Kender, Bob, ArrMatey, JCB, Bluto, Justin, Ian, Glib Fortuna, Jim.

Stop the ACLU
http://stoptheaclu.com/archives/2006/09/17/cha-cha-cha-changes-at-gribbit-live/
Beating them with their own Sickle and Hammer!

No 3 on the List

Jay777
The Wide Awakes
http://thewideawakes.org/archives/2006/09/21/aclu-says-providing-free-ids-for-voters-is-a-poll-tax/
ACLU Says Providing Free I.D.’s For Voters Is A Poll Tax?

Who are looking for like minded rednecks and fascists to help them spread their poisonous xenophobic creed....
If you would like to join us, please email Jay at Jay@stoptheaclu.com or Gribbit at GribbitR@gmail.com. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 200 blogs already on-board.

John Reid, the Christian Communist

John Reid preached a sermon to a gathering of attentive Muslims today ....

"There is no nice way of saying this. These fanatics are looking to groom and
brainwash children, including your children, for one thing. Grooming them to
kill themselves in order to murder others. Look for the tell-tale signs now and
talk to them before their hatred grows and you risk losing them forever. In
protecting our families we are protecting our community. That is why I am asking you to be part of that fight for our common values, for this is the real conflict."

Does this explain why John Reid's son married the daughter of Glasgow's most notorious gangster and drug baron ?

It doesn't explain how 2 allegedly extremist Muslims known to the Met. MI5, MI6, CIA, Mossad, Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all were allowing in the same room as Joh Reid to an invitation only meeting, whose location, and time were secret.

Nor does it explain the patient sheparding of the said gents from the room , unlike say the handling of a heckler of Jack Straw at last year's Labour Conference ... but then he was 80 years old, ...and looked like trouble.