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Republican Louisiana Sen. David Vitter lashed out at a CNN host on Monday for asking if there were similarities between his prostitution scandal and the infidelities of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.

"Newt Gingrich has been suffering some heat over his cheating on his first wife, cheating on his second wife with his third wife," CNN's Ashleigh Banfield reminded Vitter. "And you have also suffered heat in your political career as well back in 2007, admitting to having made call some calls to an alleged prostitution operation."

"You did very well when you ran for re-election in 2010," she continued. "In fact, if I look at the numbers, I think you trounced your opponent by, what, 19 points or something like that? You seemed to manage that baggage very well. I want you to weigh in on Newt Gingrich's baggage and handling that baggage, and what it is like for a politician who has some serious baggage trying to be elected."

"Ashleigh, the good news is, in America, it's not up to CNN," Vitter shot back. "It's up to American people and it's up to voters. That was the case in my election in 2010. That's going to be the case in this presidential election."

"Well, I appreciate that you say it's not up to CNN," Banfield replied. "But I like to say we're the messenger here and one of the messages that you gave was this quotation about your incident and you said, 'This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible.'"

"You're personally, in my opinion, outdoing King, but go for it -- John King, but go for it," Vitter said, in reference to a recent debate where CNN moderator John King asked Gingrich about allegations that he had asked his second wife for an "open marriage" so that he could carry on an affair.

"I'm not trying to outdo anyone, sir," Banfield told Vitter. "I am trying to hold you accountable for the things you did. ... What I'm asking you is -- can you compare the difficulties that you struggled with to what Newt Gingrich is struggling with?"

"No, I can't," Vitter grumbled.

"I appreciate greatly, not only you getting up early and coming in to speak to me, but also equating me with John King, because I think he's pretty great," Banfield said, concluding the interview.

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Countdown's Keith Olbermann talked to CREW's Melania Sloan about their recent ethics complaint against Louisiana Senator David Vitter, this time for attempting to bribe Secretary Ken Salazar by tying his pay raise to approving permits for offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Raw Story has more -- Watchdog: Sen. Vitter tried to ‘bribe’ Sec. Salazar with pay raise:

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) says Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) may have gone too far when he demanded President Barack Obama's Interior secretary approve deepwater oil well permits in exchange for a salary increase.

CREW filed a complaint (PDF) Tuesday calling for the Senate Select Committee on Ethics to investigate Vitter for bribery.

In a May 23 letter (PDF) to Secretary Ken Salazar, Vitter was clear that he would not vote for a pay raise until the Department of Interior began issuing six deepwater exploratory permits each month.

"Last Friday, I was asked to support legislation in the Senate to grant you a nearly $20,000 salary increase," Vitter wrote. "Given the completely unsatisfactory pace of your department's issuance of new deepwater exploratory permits in the Gulf, I cannot possibly give my assent."

"[W]hen the rate of permits issued for new deepwater exploratory wells reaches pre-moratorium levels (so 6 per month), I will end my efforts to block your salary increase."

For his part, Salazar quickly turned down the offer, asking that the pay bill be withdrawn. [...]

The federal bribery statute states that "[w]hoever directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official... to influence any official act" could faces fines, up to two years in prison or both.

Vitter's office has dared the Justice Department to file charges.

"I urge the Obama administration to prosecute," Vitter spokesman Luke Bolar told Politico. "They'll make fools of themselves in court and make my boss a Louisiana folk hero at the same time."

"Whether it is a defense contractor buying French furniture for a congressman in exchange for earmarks, or a senator who ties a department secretary’s pay raise to approving permits, bribery is bribery," CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said in a statement Tuesday.

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This is almost as pitiful as the ambulance chasing we're seeing continue today on the Anthony Weiner story now that he's going to resign. NBC News Deputy Political Director Mark Murray and MSNBC host Richard Lui both acknowledge the criticism their network and others have received for giving non-stop coverage of the Anthony Weiner scandal while mainly ignoring David Vitter and John Ensign's scandals. Rather than admit that it's because of our corporate media's golden rule, IOKIYAR, they blame it on the Democrats.

Their new excuse -- they had to cover it because the Republicans were pushing the story. And why did they ignore the Republican scandals? The Democrats didn't push those when they were going on. I'm sorry, but since when is that some kind of guideline for what your networks should consider "news" in the first place? Reince Priebus says that Weiner should resign, and that means your network has to cover it non-stop for weeks? And it's not true that the Democrats did not say anything about those other scandals. Your network, with the exception of Rachel Maddow, chose to primarily ignore them.

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Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz accused Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus of hypocrisy Sunday after he called for the resignation of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), while remaining silent on the sex scandals of Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) and Sen. John Ensign (R-NV).

"What Reince is saying doesn't pass the straight-face test, from a chair of a party who none of its leaders called for Sen. Vitter, who actually broke the law, to resign, who is still serving office," Wasserman Schultz told NBC's David Gregory. "[Vitter] hired prostitutes and evaded the truth. Chairman Priebus was chairman when Sen. Ensign was also embroiled in unethical, unacceptable, and probably illegal conduct, and he did not call for Sen. Ensign to resign."

"Sen. Ensign resigned," Priebus insisted.

"But you never called for his resignation, so it's a double standard," Wasserman Schultz charged. "So, you only call for Democrats' resignation, but not for Republicans', okay."

For her part, the Democratic chairwoman called on Weiner to resign after he admitted sending lewd pictures to several women and lying about it.

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Other than his tasteless joke about Ellen at the end of this, kudos to Bill Maher for reminding us of just how many Republicans like Newt Gingrich who's still pretending he wants to run for president are huge flaming hypocrites when it comes to having the audacity to tell Americans that they're still the party of "family values."

"To address the tragic shortage in stock photos of scary minorities, Stephen [Colbert] starts his own fear-based photo licensing service." Features campaign ads by Sharron Angle in Nevada and David Vitter in Lousiana using the same scary illegal aliens.

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I've just got to wonder if it's possible to find a bigger political hack than Louisiana Senator David Vitter. Mr. Drill-baby-drill Diaper-boy apparently thinks that unless the President just did a few more photo ops down in Louisiana and caused who knows what kind of problems for anyone within ten miles or more of him with the security involved when a President of the United States goes anywhere, the media isn't going to cover what's going on.

That or the more likely scenario which is that he's just taking a cheap shot for political purposes and trying to put President Obama in the same box as George Bush who couldn't be interrupted from his vacation to even bother watching news coverage during Hurricane Katrina.

I've got a ton of criticisms for how this disaster has been managed. How many photo ops the President has done in Louisiana isn't one of them. If David Vitter is worried about this story being moved off of the front page, he's got ample opportunity to make sure it doesn't himself as he did here.

I'd prefer Vitter be asked if he thinks the industry that's he's taking that campaign cash from was regulated properly so something like this doesn't happen again rather than listening to Chris Wallace give him a chance to just play politics with this disaster.

WALLACE: Senator Vitter, let's get to this question of the cleanup, because both of you are exactly right.

VITTER: Sure.

WALLACE: Even if not a drop more oil is spilled into the gulf, according to some estimates...

VITTER: Right.

WALLACE: ... as much as 200 million gallons of oil are already in the water.

Senator Vitter, how long will it...

VITTER: Right.

WALLACE: ... take to clean that up? And how long will it take to restore your state's coastline and especially, as we're seeing here on the screen, that very fragile marsh land?

VITTER: Well, ultimately, it will take years, Chris, and I hope everyone in the nation realizes that so we just don't forget about this story once the flow is stopped.

I also hope President Obama realizes that. He hasn't been to Louisiana since June 4th. I'm afraid he's decided to deal with this issue at least politically by not coming back here and trying to move it off of the front page rather than dealing with the situation forcefully.

Again, even if this flow is stopped permanently, we have major challenges ahead, number one in terms of cleanup, number two in terms of economic devastation, including the drilling moratorium.

WALLACE: But let me just follow up with you there, Senator Vitter.

VITTER: Sure.

WALLACE: Why do you -- why do you say that he's moving it off? I know you were very critical -- and we'll get to Mr. Nungesser in a second -- initially in how the Obama administration is handling this. Are you saying they're trying to sweep it under the rug now?

VITTER: I get the impression that is the president's political motivation, his way of dealing with this. He was coming here on a pretty regular basis trying to deal with the issues personally. He hasn't done that in Louisiana since June 4th. That's personally disappointing to me.

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Greg Sargent at WaPo's Plumline caught this exchange earlier today on New Orleans radio station Rush Radio 99.5.

MALE HOST: I wonder if Senator Vitter is ever going to post, like, maybe the video of the first time he was on the floor of the Senate.

FEMALE HOST: Yeah, that would be cool!

MALE HOST: ....If I have to show the way I looked the first time I was on TV, you should do that too.

VITTER: We should go further back than that, how about high school yearbook?

MALE HOST: Oh yeah.

VITTER: De La Salle marching band.

MALE HOST: That'd be cool. Well you know, with Rachel Maddow they had that picture of her...

FEMALE HOST: Looking like a woman.

MALE HOST: Yeah it was really bizarre.

VITTER: [LAUGHS]: Must have been a long time ago.

ALL THREE: [HEAVY LAUGHTER]

Vitter later apologized but this continues a pattern of remarks and behavior of his which has been decidedly anti-woman and anti-gay.

In his New Rules segment, Bill would like us to quit worrying about private sector jobs in the oil industry among others and start making some government jobs producing alternative energy instead. Bill I'm pretty sure those oil rig workers would be happy to be doing something else along with a whole lot of other Americans if the good paying jobs were there. Sadly there's a whole bunch of new "oil industry workers" cleaning up this toxic mess that would rather not be working for them, but don't have too many other choices right now with their previous livelihoods destroyed and that are getting sick as a result of it.

I'm not sure how much worse this has to get before our politicians start treating this as a national emergency and take some of Bill's advice with really putting some money into alternatives.

No more Real Time until September. This was the last show of the season.

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Looks like Louisiana's Sen. David Vitter is getting his talking points from former Shell Oil executive Ken Arnold who also likened the disaster in the Gulf to a plane crash last week. No one ever accused Vitter of being the brightest bulb in the Senate. Sorry Sen. Vitter but what's not rational is comparing an airplane crash to an accident so severe that it could destroy your state's economy.

CROWLEY: Watching this environmental mess come up and go into your marshes, come up on your shore, why doesn't that dissuade you from ever wanting deep sea or any kind of ocean oil drilling? It seems to me if it is so important, you should be now opposed to that?

VITTER: Well, I mean, by the same token, after every plane crash, you and I should both oppose plane travel. I don't think that is rational. I think we need to get our hands around this event, determine exactly what went wrong. We are going to need a lot of new technology and mandates and procedures to make sure it never happens again. And I will be a big part of that effort.

But to jump from there to say, no domestic offshore drilling, no domestic production of oil and gas, which is basically what you just suggested, I think is a crazy leap, quite frankly.

CROWLEY: I want to play you something the president said on Thursday at a news conference.

VITTER: Sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Let me make one final point. More than anything else, this economic and environmental tragedy -- and it is a tragedy, underscores the urgent need for this nation to develop clean, renewable sources of energy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: Agree or disagree?

VITTER: Sure, but we are not going to do it next week or next month. So we also need a plan to bridge where we are to that new future. I think the two biggest components of that bridge are natural gas and nuclear. They are here. we can deal with them. They are clean. But, you know, natural gas takes exploration and drilling.

CROWLEY: Senator, I need kind of a quick answer from you on this. We know that we have already -- that there has been the firing of one MMS official who had been overseeing the permit process. Should there be more firings in the federal government because of this?

VITTER: Probably. Certainly MMS. We knew two years ago -- from the scandals two years ago, that there were huge problems at MMS and they weren't cleaned up over these two years. So probably yes.

CROWLEY: Senator Vitter, we really thank you for your time...

VITTER: Thanks, Candy.

CROWLEY: ... out of Louisiana today. we appreciate it.