Far too little attention has been paid to new revelations that the senator retained a legislative aide even after learning the aide attacked a girlfriend with a knife and held her against her will for 90 minutes. It turns out the aide has a record of brushes with the law dating back to the 1990s, a record the senator should easily have discovered once he was apprised of the knifing incident in 2008. Yet Vitter not only kept the aide on his staff, but also assigned this abuser of women to handle women’s issues.
Even for somebody with Vitter’s dodgy record, this abrogation of judgment defies belief. To understand the frightening nature of aide Brent Furer’s attack on girlfriend Nicolia Demopoulos, consider these lines from the June 23 report by ABC News in breaking the story:
The two returned to Furer’s Capitol Hill apartment, the report says. Furer “would not let her leave.” He “pulled on her coat, which caused it to rip,” then “pulled out a knife and stabbed [her] in the hand.” ... He smashed her phone when she tried to call 911, the records say, and he shoved her to the floor when she tried to leave, then held his hand over her mouth and threw her on a bed. ... Furer “grabbed an unknown object and held it under her neck. The suspect asked the complainant, ‘Do you want to die?’ ... After a 90-minute standoff, Furer made her promise not to call police, and then allowed her to leave. She fled to a friend’s house, and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. A slash on her chin took eight stitches to close, the police report says.
Furer already had an arrest record — three DUIs and a cocaine possession arrest. Another time, during a road-rage incident, he hit a motorcyclist with his SUV, breaking the man’s leg. Still, Vitter kept him on staff.
Vitter thus far has survived his infamous ties to the “D.C. Madam,” along with credible accusations of earlier assignations with at least one other call girl. Supporters apparently forgave his moral lapse — and overlooked the fact that paying prostitutes is a crime. Nobody should be in the Senate drafting laws if he is unwilling to abide by them.
In another incident, just last year, Vitter showed his true colors at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., reportedly yelling at an airport worker when told he was late for a plane, pushing open the security door, and (according to one report) “invok[ing] his standing as a senator, delivering a ‘do-you-know-who-I-am’ tirade.”
Vitter’s explosive temper is legendary. His former legislative colleagues long ago dubbed him “Bitter Vitter.” He once lost a lawsuit arising out of a 1993 town hall meeting in which a local Republican activist said Vitter became enraged at her question, pushed aside chairs to confront her, and seized her tape recorder.
For the GOP, the stakes are high. Vitter is an unstable element waiting to go fissile, an embarrassment to his state and his party. Republicans would be in a bind if he attracts no significant primary opponent and then implodes. By rights, he should not run — or GOP leaders should pressure him to defer to another candidate. Otherwise, when Democrats highlight the dangerously abusive aide and Vitter’s other serious character flaws, Louisiana’s sole Republican Senate seat will be as imperiled as a throat held at knifepoint.
[Editor’s Note: New Orleans native Quin Hillyer, a former state chair of the Louisiana Young Republicans, is an award-winning opinion writer for The Washington Times and The American Spectator. This column was reprinted with permission from Gambit, where Hillyer once worked as managing editor.]
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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Vitter's "passion" is more politically correct--lol