Flynt pays money to procure salacious information about members of Congress and high-ranking government officials.  Last week, he took credit for outing Louisiana Senator David Vitter.  The Republican admitted using the services of prostitutes.

          In a press conference, Flynt claimed he currently is looking at more than 20 similar cases.  He takes particular delight in exposing Republicans.  He’s quoted in The Hill:  “They’ve [Republicans] been living a repressed life all their life.  Democrats are liberal--they wear it on their sleeve.  Their sex life is what it is.  They don’t spend their whole life trying to cover it up.”

          Really?  Perhaps that explains Democrats like former New Jersey Gov. James “I’m a gay American” McGreevy, the late Congressman Gerry Studds, and current House committee chairman Barney Frank.

          “I don’t want a man like that (Vitter) legislating for me, especially in the areas of morality.”  My guess is that Flynt doesn’t want anyone legislating morality.  Could be bad for business.

          Flynt’s zeal for revealing Republican transgressions started when Bill Clinton was impeached.  Larry liked Bill and his pals.  Clinton consultant James Carville had even appeared in a movie lionizing the pornographer.  Hiring investigators who also worked for Clinton, Flynt started digging for dirt.

          His alleged reason for doing this was because he hates hypocrisy.  According to him, Clinton was impeached for engaging in nothing worse than what many conservative Republicans were doing.

          Not exactly.  Clinton didn’t hire a prostitute; he took advantage of an immature White House intern.  He lied under oath and obstructed justice and was fined $90,000 for doing so.  He paid $850,000 in the Paula Jones suit, despite repeatedly denying that as governor he’d sexually harassed the low level state employee.

          Clinton was disbarred in Arkansas.  He was prohibited from practicing law before the U.S. Supreme Court.

          No, Clinton’s sins weren’t the same.  And if Larry Flynt’s scorn for hypocrisy were so strong, he’d have hated the shots of Clinton leaving church, clutching a Bible the size of an aircraft carrier in one hand and the woman he’d done wrong in the other.

          Flynt took several Republican scalps, including that of the speaker-elect, during the impeachment proceedings.  When White House press secretary Joe Lockhart was asked if Clinton would call Flynt and ask him to cut it out, the answer was no.  Some presidents would have been embarrassed having a smut king leading their defense; Bill Clinton wasn’t one of them.

          Lockhart did try to elevate Flynt’s porn rag, referring to it as “a news magazine.”  In Clinton’s White House, maybe it was.

          Democrats were pleased with Flynt’s efforts.  One senior Democratic senator said, “Larry Flynt says his mission is against hypocrisy, and, boy, I think that’s a pretty good mission.”  Party voices condemning his politics of personal destruction were mute.

          When President Kennedy’s one-time aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., reviled “the nation’s number one pornographer,” he was speaking not of Our Man Flynt, but of independent counsel Ken Starr.   Licentious Larry had achieved an element of respectability within the party.

          The following year John Kennedy, Jr., invited Flynt to be his guest at a White House Correspondents’ dinner.  How understanding of Junior.  The smut peddler had once printed pictures of John’s mother sunbathing in the nude in his newsmagazine.

          Flynt’s current crusade has again been met with silence from the people under the microscope.  Maybe Republicans, particularly those of a conservative stripe, are fearful that they or their allies will be caught in the dragnet. 

          Once again, Democrats are satisfied to sit back and let Larry do the heavy lifting for them.  Where is the outrage, and the denunciation of the slime machine?

          I do have a suggestion for any Republican who is accused.  Kill the scandal immediately.  Just issue a statement saying:  “The facts of this incident are now fully public and eventual judgment and understanding rests where it belongs.  For myself, I plan no further statements on this tragic matter.”

          Teddy Kennedy used that on the day the inquest results of a young woman who died in his car were made public.  It worked for him.  He’s become a liberal icon and is now widely seen as a stanch advocate for women.

          And no doubt Larry Flynt, conscience of the Democratic Party, admires him for his moral values.

          This Michael Bates column appeared in the July 19, 2007 Reporter Newspapers.