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In Vito Veritas
Monday, May 12, 2008
Representative Vito Fossella faces an uncertain future. We discuss the latest and the larger question of private life and public performance with Richard M. Flanagan, Associate Professor of Political Science at College of Staten Island.
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Comments
The drunk driving charge reflects an error in judgment and selfish decisionmaing. The family problems are his personal business.
Eliot Spitzer slept with hookers and resigned. David Vitter slept with hookers and didn't resign. Larry Craig solicited sex in an airport mens room and didn't resign. What kind of Republican would Vito be if he didn't hang on?
If his behavior is relevant why isn't Vitter's relevant!!!? Why does Vitter's fall flat every time it comes up? What matters to me is the inequality with these situations. I don't care what Fossella is thrown out or not but if he is so too should Vitter. Yes, I'm on a "Get Vitter Too" kick.
all that matters is that he broke the law with his drunk driving. the kid thing and the affair have no consequence.
from a card carrying socialist
I dont care about the affair or out of wedlock baby - not relevent.
It's the DWI that is the coup de grasse.
I wouldn't care about his second family if he hadn't been such a hypocrite about it, standing up for family values, blah, blah, blah. Ditto for Spitzer. With Clinton, he hadn't spent a career prosecuting people for his own sins.
It's relevant because it calls his judgment into question. These are some pretty bone-headed decisions that he's chosen to make. There is also the hypocrisy of it as well.
Should he be ousted for this? Maybe not. But it's foolish to think he won't be if he chooses to run. His behavior shows a serious lack of common sense.
Two words... Elliot Spitzer. If we're going to look at this, we may as well look at it through the lens of Elliot Spitzer and to a lesser degree our current governor. Let's throw in Bill Clinton as well. Where does driving while intoxicated and fathering a child in an extra-marital affair fall?
Also, a person's policies are not the only factor in whether they should serve. Politics is... well... politics! Besides just voting one way or another, you have to work with people.
I think what is at stake here is not just the Family Values issue but the ethical nature of this man's life. He is not supporting his mistress but his father and his uncle are paying her bills.
But can you put the issues of war and peace in the hands of a man who cannot decide not to drink and drive when he could have killed someone.
By the way, I do not think that Clinton should have been impeached, but I do think he did not do his job.
Family Values, the Good Catholic, Against Gay marriage, and on and on and on all equals hypocrite so what makes him any different from the rest.
If you lie to your family you will probably lie to anyone. It goes to his general character and it important to know a politicians character.
the metaphor you just made about the plumber is inaccurate. plumber's are not makeing decisions about law and policy which many at the heart deal with morality and ethics
Best way for Fossella to save his career: come out, publicly appologize, do not resign, and give a speech about how "family values" is a Republican commonplace that has little actual value in doing his duty to his constituents.
HAHAHAHA "they're all human." My parents aren't scumbags, and they too are human.
It just feels like he's a parody of himself...a writer would be admonished for coming up with a Vito character because it's so ridiculously predictable. I mean, a Catholic Republican with a DUI and secret family?? Come on!
Just out of curiosity, what would this guy have to do to for some of you to want him out?
And yes, Republican hypocrisy is a HUGE factor. This is the same with Spitzer's situation (and as a Democrat, I was very pleased to see him resign). Clinton is a different matter, since he didn't preach morality in the first place.
Drunk Driving is Serious! That's why he should either resign or be forced out. Any elected official should be forced out if they break the laws that they claim to uphold.
As a former Staten Island resident, I find Vito Fosella to be a hypocrite of the worst kind. If he doesn't resign, he'll surely be thrown out in the coming election.
"If you lie to your family you will probably lie to anyone. "
BINGO.
A plumber's wife and kids are irrelevant to his job, but a politician's integrity, honesty and judgement are integral to his or hers.
I think a man should represent his constituents. And judging by the calls, this man represents Staten Island(Alabama with better pizza) quite well. Never mind the fact that he's a hypocrite. Never mind the baby's mama drama. The issue is he broke the law. He could have KILLED someone. He was driving drunk. If it weren't for the tawdry details, he could have survived the DUI. Just when you thought the Post was only good for wrapping fish, they accidently bring about positive change.
Elected office in the US isn't like other Western countries. Character matters. We have a lot of people around that'll do a good job.
I think the DWI is a problem but he might have an alcoholism problem that needs to be looked into and in that case it's not really his fault-- it's an addiction.
The family thing would not bother me if he weren't so outspoken about such issues BUT the fact that he IS so outspoken leaves me to think that he's disingenuous on more than the level that we've uncovered so while he shouldn't be forced to step down simply because of these problems, I would expect a man of such convictions to take steps to put his money where his mouth is where it comes to these issues, walk away from office and use his talents to further his cause outside of elected official life...
Drunk driving is a serious offense that's enough to render him unfit for any position of responsibility.
I personally feel that his private life is his business, but I do hope that those who voted him in on account of his blather on family values will vote him out on account of his hypocrisy.
As a gay man I find this
" as long as he does his job well who cares..?"
reply galling. A Hypocrite who dared to pass judgement on the right of homosexuals to marry- A man who agrees deny us the 'sacred' right of marriage he so perversely enjoys. He deserves to fall on his own sharpened stakes.
These people who say "Who cares?" are missing the point.
I don't give a damn if a Congressman or anyone else has a double family, if that person does not vote to prevent me (a gay guy) from having rights I deserve to have, and not only that, preaches that the way I happen to be is somehow immoral or against so-called family values.
Hypocrisy does matter. You're talking about real people's lives -- there are millions of gay people in this country who are negatively affected not just by the denial of marriage rights, but also by the kind of hateful, bigoted, faux-self-righteous moralizing that the likes of Vito Fossella do when they characterize our lives in misguided terms of morality. He not only voted for the Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, but also voted to ban adoptions by gay couples in Washington, D.C.
In 1996 Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich pushed the Defense of Marriage Act through Congress, claiming that gay marriage would be a violation of the sanctity of marriage. Dole is a guy who left his first wife and daughter, and Gingrich cheated on his second wife, who he'd married after leaving his first wife when she was in the hospital with cancer. Yet the American people are still gullible enough to believe that the "family values" Republicans stand for are actually real and meaningful.
If it were all rhetorical and hypothetical, then I wouldn't care. But like I said, we're talking about real people's lives.
when you make legislative decisions from a moral high ground, as Fossella has done, and you yourself don't abide by that morality it reveals a moralistic sensibility wherein decisions are made about what is best for all and an insensitivity & a condescending attitude toward individuals/constituents needs and wants. It's a total disonnection to his constituents and to the type of laws that he so vigorously supports.
I think the people of his district should decide. If they want him to resign he should resign. If they think he can still represent their interests he should stay. Maybe they'll vote him out anyway.
I'm not calling for him to resign, I honestly don't care. However, what does get to me is the hypocrisy. Unless a Republican is seen as being homosexual,--wrong or right--there isn't the same outrage when the offender is Democratic. Several people seem to be making excuses for him and saying it's between him, his wife, and his god. Maybe people would be upset if he actually killed someone on the road or paid his "baby momma" for the sex.
The irony is that in at least one way, Vito Fossella did uphold a Catholic pro-life value. A more venal politician would simply have asked his girlfriend to have an abortion. In choosing to support the mother and child (indirectly, as I suppose it would have drawn too many questions had he done it directly) he arguably did "the right thing" after wrongly initiating and continuing an extramarital affair.
It's cost him, but you should at least give credit where due.
I hate drunk drivers. I hate extramarital affairs. But should he leave office, I wish him luck sorting it all out. Everyone makes mistakes, and this is nothing on the level of Spitzer. In a sense, this was a much more serious mistake, since it literally drained the time he would have had for his acknowledged children.
Do you really want me to vote for a Brooklyn Democratic (which would make him a 2-time loser)? Never going to happen! Vito clearly has issues at home, so I would think, now, the best course of action is to get his home, where ever it mat be, squared away. Plenty of time before November.
BTW, let's again be reminded of Clinton, a president, no less.
The Dems are all over this because they want that Congressional seat, not that they have righteous indignation at this sex scandal (there's that Clinton reminder again).
Vito, stay the course!
With regard to Vito Fossella (as with Gov. Spitzer) it seems appropriate for them to resign because their actions in extra-curricular activities completely contradict their public political position. If Fosella hadn't voted for Clinton's impeachment or preached "family values" (whatever that might really mean) then his extra-marital activities would not be a political issue in my mind. Or take the cases of Barney Frank and Larry Craig. Frank is consistent with his position, Craig is not. I don't expect perfection from politicians - if Fossella is convicted of drunk driving he needs to be sentenced for that, but unless he is on the campaign trail with a "no tolerance" platform, I would give him leeway on that issue - all of us make serious mistakes at one time or another. But I do expect that my lawmakers stand behind the positions they take. If they are "true to wife and kids" then that should be their behavior because they are saying that they expect that of everyone else - we should expect it of them.
Vito Fossella has just made it easier for those of us Democrats who were going to work hard get him out of office in November.
Not only has he shown incredible lack of judgement if he's driving drunk but he's also opened himself up to potential blackmail if he has a secret life he doesn't want discovered.
As for Tony #20, Fossella reps a portion of your borough too. So, while I'm sure it's a hoot to make fun of SI, part of your borough also has to suffer under Fosella's misguided representation. Give me "Alabama" any day, if we at least know who our government officials are; unlike yourself, apparently.
Roxanne,
Good point on representation - and you sure don't mince words!
This thread is closed.
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