Matt Yglesias

David Vitter Fundraising Off “Deather” Lies

You don’t cheat on your wife, repeatedly, over a period of years, with prostitutes without developing a certain facility for deceiving people. And it turns out that kind of thing can come in handy when you need to write fundraising letters. Eric Kleefeld has the text:

So what about the claims that this plan will reduce health care costs? Well, to do that will simply require a plan to ration existing resource sand restrict benefits for certain medicines, procedures and therapies.

The government will determine who is eligible for what and if you are older or have certain other afflictions, an economist will determine if you are worthy of the government’s “investment” in your longevity. That’s right, a bureaucrat will be making life or death decisions.

This is what’s so frustrating about the health reform debate—instead of arguing the merits of the provisions that are actually in the bills, we’re arguing the merits of made-up fake provisions. Meanwhile in the tactics-obsessed world of political reporting we then move on to a debate about what kind of strategic errors the White House may or may not have made, rather than reporting aimed at correcting the record and giving people accurate information about health care. Heck, Mickey Kaus has spent the past two months dedicating nearly 100 percent of his attention to criticizing the White House for leaving itself open to having its plan lied about rather than to criticizing the liars for lying to people. I’m old-fashioned, though, and don’t think politicians should say “a bureaucrat will be making life or death decisions” unless there’s actually a legislative provision that would have that effect.

Why Does Adultury Only Matter For Democrats?

Mike Tomasky says he’s finally figured out what it takes to be banished from public life in the United States:

I’ve spent the last 14 years thinking well, we’ve finally learned in America what you have to do to be utterly banished — you have to literally get away with murder, or two of them (oops, I forgot this is Britain; I mean allegedly! Allegedly! And did I mention that he was acquitted by a jury of his peers?).

And now we add to the category a second condition: if you cheat on your cancer-stricken wife with another woman and still decide you can run for president, and you get busted, you’re pretty much finished. Yes or no?

He’s talking about John Edwards. But I have a question about this theory: what about Newt Gingrich? It’s true that Gingrich hasn’t launched a presidential campaign, but cheating on his cancer-stricken wife he’s done. Then he divorced her and married a second woman on whom he also cheated. And now he’s on his third marriage. And he converted to Catholicism! And he’s a defender of traditional marriage! And he’s still a high-profile public figure.

Consider also the starkly contrasting treatment of Elliot Spitzer, forced into resignation and disgrace for seeing a prostitute, and David Vitter, sitting pretty in the United States Senate.

Logically speaking, since there’s only one of the two parties that puts a very high premium on the idea that state regulation of individual sexual behavior should be the main role of government, these allegations should be more damaging to Republicans. Hypocrisy on the part of the media is part of the story. But part of the issue, I think, is just partisan and ideological solidarity. A politician can survive a great deal if his co-partisans are willing to stand by him, and conservatives are much more inclined to stand by their man than are progressives.