We really need a Department of Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Guy. When David Vitter was in the US House he had a Clenis obsession like no other. Turns out his own little soldier had a bad habit of going out on unauthorized foraging missions:

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., apologized Monday night for "a very serious sin in my past" after his telephone number appeared among those associated with an escort service operated by the so-called "D.C. Madam."

Haven't seen anybody else catch this particular angle, but Prince Namor did right away: Vitter is a Republican Senator now. From Louisiana. Whose governor is a Democrat. And I don't think LA has one of those nitwitted laws like Wyoming does requiring the governor to replace a resigned-in-disgrace senator with one from the same lowlife dirty-sex-obsessed, gay-hating, God- and wife-forgiven so often politcal party.

Heh.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention the funnest part of all: Vitter is (as of this writing; it may not be the case by the time you read this) Southern Regional Chairman of Guiliani for Preznit. Can we start to see a trend in the sort of personnel manager Julie Annie is likely to be? If Bernie Kerik wasn't enough of a clue?

Now with FRESHER, NEWER UPDATE! From Greenwald:

A Treen supporter, local Republican Party official Vincent Bruno, blurted out on a radio show that he believed Vitter had once had an extramarital affair.

The Louisiana Weekly newspaper followed up. Bruno told the paper that the young woman had contacted the Treen campaign in 1999 because she was upset that Vitter was portraying himself as a family-values conservative and trotting out his wife and children for campaign photo ops. Bruno, who declined to comment for this story, and John Treen interviewed the woman, who said she had worked under the name "Leah."

But after nearly a year of regular paid assignations with Vitter, the lawmaker asked her to divulge her real name, according to Treen, citing the account he said she gave him. Her name was Wendy Cortez, Treen said. She said Vitter's response was electric. "He said, 'Oh, my God! I can't see you anymore," John Treen told me, citing the woman's account to him and noting that Vitter's wife is also named Wendy.

I'm developing a case of "heh" fever over this story. Now back to your earlier edition:

My first thought on the other hand was that those bastards at ABC News--who famously and piously said that "they hadn't found any important names" on the Madam's phone lists so they weren't going to release any names at all--either flat fucking lied about this or (more likely) were too fucking cheap to pay a couple of peons to go through the whole list and see who those numbers connected to at the time in question.

Atrios points out that the list ABC had was not the complete list and may not have included the years Vitter was wick-dippin' with the escorts. Atrios can be a tad charitable at times, a character flaw with which I am not cursed.