Louisiana Senator and family values merchant David Vitter is apparently the latest Republican stalwart to run afoul of his own libido. The AP reported Monday night that Vitter's name turned up on the client list of the DC Madam. And as Salon reported back in 2004, this episode is not Vitter's first prostitution imbroglio.

The coming Vitter implosion is all the more enjoyable, given his pretensions as a national player. An outspoken storm-trooper in the battle against so-called "partial birth abortion," a sponsor of a Senate resolution calling for prayers at school bard meetings, and a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage ("the most basic institution in human history"), Vitter was a surprising Southern endorser of the socially liberal Rudy Giuliani. And given his home state's neglible Hispanic population, Vitter took a leadership role in the conservative fight against immigration reform.

As it turns out, Vitter was a player of another sort. Vitter apologized Monday for what he deemed "a very serious sin in my past." He then took a page (no pun intended) from the Mark Foley and Ted Haggard playbook by claiming that was now right with God:

"Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there - with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way."

As a blistering 2004 Salon profile revealed, however, it was ironically the moral failings of Louisiana Senator and Clinton inquisitor Bob Livingston that gave Vitter his chance to break into the national spotlight. Thanks to campaigns characterized by dirty tricks, backstabbing his Republican brethren and an unholy alliance with David Duke, Vitter found himself in the Senate. But not, as Salon details, before he had to weather another run-in with a street walker.

As Vitter geared up in 2002 to run for governor, his bitter race against Treen came back to haunt him. A Treen supporter, local Republican Party official Vincent Bruno, blurted out on a radio show that he believed Vitter had once had an extramarital affair.

The Louisiana Weekly newspaper followed up. Bruno told the paper that the young woman had contacted the Treen campaign in 1999 because she was upset that Vitter was portraying himself as a family-values conservative and trotting out his wife and children for campaign photo ops. Bruno, who declined to comment for this story, and John Treen interviewed the woman, who said she had worked under the name "Leah."

But after nearly a year of regular paid assignations with Vitter, the lawmaker asked her to divulge her real name, according to Treen, citing the account he said she gave him. Her name was Wendy Cortez, Treen said. She said Vitter's response was electric. "He said, 'Oh, my God! I can't see you anymore," John Treen told me, citing the woman's account to him and noting that Vitter's wife is also named Wendy. And Wendy Vitter does not appear to be the indulgent type.

Asked by an interviewer in 2000 whether she could forgive her husband if she learned he'd had an extramarital affair, as Hillary Clinton and Bob Livingston's wife had done, Wendy Vitter told the Times-Picayune: "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me."

Ultimately, the alleged prostitute never came forward publicly. Vitter won the Senate vacated by Democrat John Breaux, and the rest is history. Until tonight.

Now right with God, David Vitter can apparently sleep at night. But not, that is, until he hides the knives and scissors from his wife.