The report about Sen. David Vitter's temper
tantrum at the airport catalyzes me to tell this story again,
which I THINK (but am not sure) I have told in short in this
space before.
Back in about 1988 I had served as the key "witness" for a Tulane
Law School mock trial in a trial-ad (or maybe moot court?) class
for which Vitter had been paired with a good friend of mine as
defense counsels. We worked well together, had some fun and, no
doubt due to my superb acting job as witness (not really -- it
was due to Vitter's and my friend's good lawyering), Vitter and
my friend earned 'A's. So I was at least somewhat favorably
disposed toward David. Then, three years later, a truly bizarre
thing happened. I was managing editor of Gambit Weekly in New
Orleans by then and Vitter was making his first run for State
Rep. We had a feature called "Scuttlebutt" which involved short,
hard-news (i.e. not just gossip) snippets of behind-the-scenes
political goings on. I wrote a series of scuttlebutts one week
about Vitter's race. Any reasonable person would come away from
those scuttlebutts thinking Vitter was the candidate most on the
ball, far and away. I reported things along the lines of
Candidate A having taken the first step by hiring a campaign
manager, and candidate B having just leased a campaign office,
etc. Vitter, meanwhile, according to my report (this is from
memory), had already done something like "blanketed every house
in the district with not one but two pieces of glossy campaign
literature touting his credentials and platform."
Again, it was just straight reporting, but reporting that by any
objective criteria made Vitter look good.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I got a phone call from David
where he literally was yelling and occasionally cursing into my
ear -- so loudly that I literally had to hold the phone away from
my head, about six inches from my ear -- like he was absolutely
unhinged. This went on for something like seven or eight minutes
straight. Why was he so upset? Because, he said, my use of the
word "glossy" -- hey, uh, David, that is a type of paper, dude,
as in do you want your photos glossy or matte? -- was a
deliberate attempt to insinuate that he was "slick and
insubstantial." How DARE I? I was a dirty, rotten, bleeping
yellow journalist. Or so he yelled, or words to that effect.
As I said, he sounded unhinged. It was truly, 100 percent
bizarre. And this was from a guy for whom, if I had lived in his
legislative district, I probably would have voted (before this
incident) because his credentials seemed stronger than the other
good and worthy candidates in the race. But he was convinced that
I was out to get him. Weird. Very very very very weird, and
thoroughly unpleasant.
In that light, his tantrum at the airport does not surprise me
one bit.
(That Vitter later won his U.S. House seat in a thoroughly
dishonorable campaign is yet another story for yet another day.)
