Politics - Hoist By His Own Petard

Why, you might ask, am I devoting so much blogtime to David Vitter's sex life when I believe prostitution should be legalized and sex between consenting adults is their business alone and none of mine?

Because this revolting hypocrite campaigned primarily on his moral fitness versus the moral unfitness of, oh, Bill Clinton, gays, Democrats, non-Christians, gee, everyone else, apparently. This holier-than-thou attitude pisses me off. I have no problems with people who admit they're flawed. We all are, some to a greater and some to a lesser extent. But those why try to make out that their feet are made of gold and all others' of clay are just begging for potshots. Begging.

Here Senator Vitter holds forth on Clinton, Bill:

The writings of the Founding Fathers are very instructive on this issue. They are not cast in terms of political effectiveness at all but in terms of right and wrong -- moral fitness. Hamilton writes in the Federalists Papers (No. 65) that impeachable offenses are those that "proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust."

In considering impeachment, Vitter asserted, Congress had to judge Clinton on moral terms. Decrying the law professors' failure to see this, Vitter observed, "Is that the level of moral relatively [sic] and vacuousness we have come to?" If no "meaningful action" were to be taken against Clinton, Vitter wrote, "his leadership will only further drain any sense of values left to our political culture."

I believe these words best illustrate the meaning of the phrase "hoist by his own petard."

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