[bluefish]

“This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible”

Geeze dude. Are we reading about the same guy? He owned up and takes full responsibility.

I guess you and others here would like to see him kneeling in a soccer stadium with an AK47 agains his head, even after you admit yourself that you've had your own moral lapses. The reformed drinkers / smokers / etc. are the most sanctimonious I guess, even when speaking of others who claim to be reformed themselves.

Everbody should get off their high horse and reconsider the quote from the Senator I pasted above. When have you ever heard a Dem talk like that? That alone paints a picture of sincerity.

[Rembrandt_fan]

Sanctimonious? Nope. I don’t concern myself overmuch with the moral shortcomings of others. We all fall short at one point or another and should, as a general rule, tend our own garden and mind our own business. So no, I don’t want to see the man ‘kneeling in a soccer stadium’ et al, or otherwise further humiliated. I just want to see him out of office. If he can’t be faithful to his wife, then he can’t be trusted in any other aspect of his life, either.

But it is bigger than that. Vitter didn’t just fail his wife, he failed his constituents and his country. While supposedly representing their interests, he placed himself in a position where he could be compromised and blackmailed—presumably even by a hostile foreign power, but more likely by one of the many powerful interest groups active in the Beltway who make it their business to gather dirt on public officials. Knowledge is power, after all.

As an aside, emotional confessions occurring after being caught red-handed are usually not acts of conscience. The term we are looking for here, I think, is ‘damage control’.

[Balke]

Are we reading about the same guy? He owned up and takes full responsibility. I guess you and others here would like to see him kneeling in a soccer stadium with an AK47 agains his head, even after you admit yourself that you've had your own moral lapses. The reformed drinkers / smokers / etc. are the most sanctimonious I guess, even when speaking of others who claim to be reformed themselves. Everbody should get off their high horse and reconsider the quote from the Senator I pasted above. When have you ever heard a Dem talk like that? That alone paints a picture of sincerity.

The fact that he apologized and took full responsibility doesn't mean that we (the voters) should just forget about it and let it go. I don't think it is asking too much to expect members of Congress to hold themselves to a moral standard higher than the average person. As leaders of our country they should be held to a higher standard.

Approximately 0.00000178% of the United States population are members of Congress. When such a tiny number represents all of the American people, I think it is perfectly reasonable to demand that members of Congress be held to far more exacting standards than the rest of us. Why shouldn't we demand the best from our representatives? Is it too much to ask that congressmen be moral and virtuous to not cheat on their wives?