I think I am going to run against the Senator in the next election and I am going to say, you know, when they say "can you beat him" and will say, ahh, I don’t know. But I tell you what, if Senator Vitter will sign an affidavit that he never had a homosexual encounter, I will get out of the race.
That may take a couple of readings to absorb.
Let's say at the outset that Vincent Bruno has many faults, and that Vitter is blessed to have him as an enemy. However, over the past eight years, on this issue, Bruno has made very accurate claims about Vitter's criminal activities with prostitutes. He's been impeccable, actually. Bruno was the first to publicly state that Vitter was visiting prostitutes. He was the first to break the Wendy Cortez story.
Now, all of a sudden, Bruno states on a radio talk show that he may oppose Vitter for his Senate seat, and in the next breath he says he will challenge Vitter to sign an affidavit that he never engaged in a "homosexual encounter".
Oh no! Bruno!
Knowing all that I know, I can only interpret this quote to mean that Bruno is sending a message to Vitter about issues he intends to raise during Vitter's re-election campaign. (Vitter recently formed the Vitter Majority Committee to assist with fundraising for his re-election campaign. I will henceforth refer to this as the Vaj Committee, for short.)
The absolutely fascinating aspect about Bruno's comment is that it doesn't involve the Wendy Cortez affair, of which he knows all kinds of details. No. On nationally syndicated radio, he chose to introduce this new "homosexual encounter" question for Vitter. And Bruno apparently believes that is the lethal political play against Vitter. How can he be so sure?
Ask yourself: Why would Bruno do such a thing? After finally being vindicated before the critics about Vitter and Wendy Cortez, why would Bruno introduce some baseless smear into a conversation about his own political ambitions? Why would he bring something like that up, now, if he didn't believe it to be true?
Recall that during the height of the Vitter scandal this summer, I was expecting some piece of hard evidence to turn up, showing that Sen. Vitter lied when he denied those "New Orleans stories". If a photo of Vitter and Cortez had surfaced, Vitter's career would've ended immediately. And Vincent Bruno understands that.
Also, please recall how much less harshly conservatives treated Vitter's heterosexual whoremongering versus Sen. Larry Craig's lightfooted "stall tactics". Clearly, the homosexual subtext to the Craig scandal was an unspoken factor there. Vitter was applauded, and Craig was asked to step down. And I think Bruno understands this political reality, too.
So, if Bruno understands those two things-- the need for "hard proof" to nail Vitter, and how politically explosive the "gay" angle is in the GOP-- would he dare raise this issue, at this time, if he was just blowing smoke? Would Bruno spring that obvious "affidavit" trap without something in his back pocket to support his claims? I don't think so.
What possible "proof" of a gay encounter could Bruno have on Vitter? I can't say. But I will say that I think it's exceedingly unlikely that Bruno was inventing a gay "smear" out of whole-cloth. And I believe that "affidavit" question was a trap, not an empty bluff. (Bruno's affidavit question is similar to the one posed by the Flaming Liberal to Vitter years ago on talk radio in 2002.)
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Thanks to the Flaming Liberal for transcribing Bruno's quote for me.
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Speaking of Bruno, here's a video of Nomeansno performing the song "Oh no! Bruno!". And here's some bass genius lagniappe.
Labels: gays, GOP, radio, Vitty-cent, Wendy Cortez
