Voters should beware of politicians who trumpet family values and position themselves as holier than the rest of us mere mortals. They are probably hiding something.
The latest sanctimonious one to fall is GOP Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana. The less said of him the better, but his conduct is so outrageous that you can't ignore him.
When Vitter finally emerged after his name surfaced on a call girl's phone list, Vitter was more defiant than apologetic. He blamed the press, as if it had anything to do with his problems. He has only himself to blame.
Vitter's wife stood by his side and, despite her drawn and unsmiling face, defended Vitter. She had to be mortified. Vitter declined to answer reports of other dalliances in New Orleans.
Vitter joins others in Congress who have made lofty speeches in defense of virtue and family values. Those speeches are blank pages now.
Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House and a combative type, attacked Bill Clinton almost daily forhis immoral conduct. Of course, Newt was conducting his own extramarital affair at the time.
Gingrich is still pondering a run for the presidency in 2008. Perhaps he's smart enough to stay away from family values as his core issue.
Long ago, a Republican congressman from Maryland's Eastern Shore, Bob Bauman, was on his feet in the House attacking gays. He used every derogatory term in the book.
Bauman was later discovered at a gay bar. It was good riddance when this hypocrite left Congress.
There's a moral in these sordid stories, to wit: A politician without any skeletons in his closet should avoid casting himself as the purest of public officials. He probably isn't.
John W. Mashek covered politics in Washington for four decades with U.S. News & World Report, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Boston Globe. His primary beats were Congress, the White House, and national politics. He covered every presidential election from 1960 to 1996. He was a panelist in three televised presidential debates in 1984, 1988, and 1992.
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