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David Vitter's Bad Dream

Reader alert: This post has nothing to do with the influence of blogs, the topic I usually cover here. But it is about a subject that is sure to be hot in the news and in the blogosphere.

I'm a country music fan, and Restless Heart is my favorite group. So when I read that the telephone number of Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, made the online list of "D.C. madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey, I couldn't help but think of the lyrics to "Dancy's Dream."

It's a Restless Heart tune about a religious man who committed adultery but kept it a secret. Although according to a statement, Vitter disclosed his "very serious sin in my past" to his wife and a marriage counselor, I thought of the song because Vitter is from Louisiana, and the other woman in "Dancy's Dream" is from New Orleans.

Here are some of the lyrics to give you a taste of the song:

Dancy has a demon livin' somewhere in his past.
A dark-haired Cajun angel was the devil dressed in black.
Was it really voodoo, or just weakness in the man?
The only time he ever fell was when she took his hand.

Oh, it's been so long, but it's still so strong;
Every night the devil comes and walks through Dancy's dream.
She takes him by the hand and leads him back to New Orleans.
The good man's goin' crazy somewhere in between,
The hymns on Sunday mornin',
And the sins in Dancy's dreams.

UPDATE: Bloggers are thinking out loud about what the Vitter story, and the existence of the online phone list, might mean for the political world. Here are links and excerpts:

-- Patrick Hynes of Ankle Biting Pundits, a consultant for the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., noted that Vitter has endorsed Rudy Giuliani for the Republican presidential nomination.

"[T]he Giuliani campaign needs Vitter when discussion of Giuliani’s abortion record start to dominate the public dialogue. ... But with Vitter now tainted good, the Giuliani campaign will not be allowed to use him to inoculate against attacks on Rudy’s record," Hynes wrote. Marc Ambinder made the same point at The Atlantic Online.

-- Captain's Quarters: "Palfrey has posted an enormous amount of phone records on line, and it won't take long for enterprising amateurs to start putting phone numbers together with names. Vitter might be the first elected official to get burned by his escort-business past, but he likely won't be the last."

-- The CarpetBagger Report: "The reason this is noteworthy has very little to do with a powerful politician carrying on extra-marital affairs, and everything to do with Vitter holding himself out as a virtuous family man, entitled to lecture those he deems immoral about 'family values.' Stupidity is one thing; hypocrisy is another. The prior is easy to forgive; the latter tends to breed resentment."

-- Don Surber: "Memeorandum has a list of links to liberal hypocrites getting on their high horse to condemn Vitter as a hypocrite. I am smiling. My position is the same: Adultery is wrong. Lying about it is wrong. Lying about it under oath is a felony."

Posted by Danny | 09:12 AM

Comments

Or maybe October's Queen by Bob Weir:

Well, I spend my tomcat nights in New Orleans
Always 'round this red moon time of year
Just let it go, and fall right off the deep end
'Cause you sure don't look for soul salvation here

Bars and alleys are running wild with Frat Rats
And your three-piece Bible-belt conventioneers
And your drag queens and your strip bars
And your hazy purple streetlights
All steaming up the atmosphere

She always waits for me right down there in the lobby
A little shop-worn but sure not the worst I've seen
And I nod across the way to Bon Temps Billy's Black Water Lounge
And she nods back, 'cause we both know what that means

She follows me on in like we're both strangers
'Cause I kind of can't afford, y'all, to be seen
She's got that far-off, smokey, leaves-are-falling look in her eyes
A true last chance October Queen

And I know it's gonna be one hell of a evening
Just like the year before, and the year before, and the year before
Still something about it, something about her
Something that always evades my memory
I don't know what it is
There's so little I recall, little I recall

So we small talk and drink our way through the motions
And then the lights dim for the big show up in my room
On a thread-bare bed with feathers and scented lotions
Like some kind of carnival gin-soaked dream cartoon

Well I guess you can chalk up one more night up for the ages
And I wake up in a haze of sweat and cheap purfume
But she's way long gone, way long gone at the cottonmouth sunrise
And I don't know if it's way too late or way too soon

Down the street, the hose wagon's
Washing last night on down the storm drain
And I'm lying here and my head's on fire and my body's flat
Guess it's gonna take a long hot shower or two to wash it away, wash it away
We just won't talk about that

And I think about the life that I'll go back to
And the congregation that pays my country club and rent
But at 1:55 Delta flight 648 gonna take off and fly
And I'll have one more full year to repent

And I bet it was one hell of an evening
Just like the year before, and the year before, and the year before
Still there's something about it, something about her
Something always evades my memory
I don't know what it is
There's so little I recall, little I recall

Bill | 07.10.07 09:59 AM

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