This diary is inspired by seeing him on "Fox News Sunday" this a.m., where somehow Chris Wallace neglected to ask him any questions about his upcoming primary challenge, the fact that he assigned a staffer convicted of domestic violence to cover "womens' issues" and lied about it, denied abortion was a "womens' issue," made extremely sexist comments about Rachel Maddow, and his generalized patronage of prostitutes.
Shame on Chris Wallace, therefore. But what I really want to know is where the meme that he has some sort of diaper-wearing fetish came from, since it would inevitably appear in anything anyone on the left blogs writes or says about Vitter.
As best as I can tell, it comes from a single un-named source, who offered no basis to have personal knowledge and contradicts what the Canal St. Madam said about the Senator:
Tonight I got confirmation from a solid inside source who has no ideological ax to grind. The source said Vitter was a client at Canal Street, and provided some additional details that shed light on Maier's comment that there was "more to the business than sex". [Update: Based on her comments about Vitter not having "unusual predilections", I would interpret this comment to mean something like companionship and social interaction rather than fetishes... etc.] These details are not for the faint of heart, either.
We're talking about, among other things, Diaper Fetishism. That's right folks, according to a trusted inside source, Vitter was well known among other Canal Street Brothel patrons to like diapers as well as other bizarre "fetishes".
This was picked up by Wonkette on July 11, 2007, and the rest is history.
So, I ask you, should a reality-based community really traffic in this stuff? Isn't it sufficient that we know he's a mysogynist without suggesting he's a pervert? (And make no mistake about it, at least 95 out of 100 comments about the fetish are to suggest there's something wrong with Vitter for allegedly having one; not the "oh, it's hypocrisy" angle.) I don't personally think the alleged fetishism is worth joking about on the merits, nor do I think there's an adequate basis to believe it's true.
To be clear, I sincerely hope either Justice Traylor or Congressman Melancon is the next Senator from Louisiana, for the sake of the women of Louisiana.
Update: From Bill W in the comments, the original blog, Your Right Hand Thief, that first posted the diaper rumor added this about the source:
I only have one source about this salacious "diaper detail", which is beside the point of the matter. However, for the record, this source knows multiple former patrons of the Canal Street Madam who happen to be lawyers, and they told my source about the diaper fetish.
This seems to contradict the claim that there was an "inside" source, for what that's worth. We're taking the advice of what people "who happen to be lawyers" and are self-admitted patrons of a brothel are telling an unnamed person based on what they claim to have been told by their prostitutes about one of those prostitutes' other clients? We shouldn't be in the business of repeating these allegations as undisputed fact.