The "Bush Defense" and Republican Sex"It's in the Past"

I go away for the weekend, and when I come back, I hear the news that the "Bush Defense" is already working: It's in the past. We're going to move on.

While I postulated a few days ago that this defense would be adopted by shoplifters and naughty children, the first public example is Republican Senator, David Vitter.

David Vitter is/was a champion of family values...having relased a statement on the sanctity of marriage which said, in part:

“This is a real outrage. The Hollywood left is redefining the most basic institution in human history, and our two U.S. Senators won’t do anything about it.

We need a U.S. Senator who will stand up for Louisiana values, not Massachusetts’s values.

Unfortunately, the Senator got caught with his....ah...phone number in the little black book of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the infamous D.C. Madame.

Now, sure enough the man stood in front of the press this weekend. Reuters has the lead:

A Republican U.S. senator who admitted to "serious sin" after he was linked last week to a Washington escort service apologized for the sex scandal on Monday, but said he will go back to work.

Sen. David Vitter, a social conservative who has routinely touted family values, said his undescribed sins occurred several years ago, implying that his misdeeds were behind him. He accused enemies of dredging up the scandal to hurt him.

Vitter will not stop nagging us about family values, then, despite his wandering ways, and, according to the Reuters article:

Wendy and I dealt with this personally several years ago. I confronted it in confession and marriage counseling, I believe I received forgiveness from God, I know I did from Wendy."

In other words: Yes, I cheated on my wife; yes ,that was in deepest opposition to everything I claim to hold sacred; but no, there is no need to for me to feel the sting of punishment; no need for me to resign my Senate Seat....for after, all, it is in the past.

There was some reaction from Republican officials:

If he doesn't resign, the Republican Party will lose the moral high ground," said Vincent Bruno, a member of the Louisiana Republicans state executive committee. "We have portrayed ourselves as being the moral party."

Obviously this Bruno character is a Luddite: completely out of step with the times. First, he doesn't understand that the Bush Defense trumps all other arguments...once that card is played there is no need to look further at any given issue. It is, after all, in the past. Let us move on.

And second, the only people who think the Republicans hold ANY high ground on this issue are other Republicans....the rest of us have long been wise to their lyin', cheatin' hypocritical ways.