The New Orleans Times Picayune is reporting today that a prostitute has come forward who claims she had a four-month sexual relationship with Republican Senator David Vitter back in 1999. Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine, paid for the woman to take a lie-detector test, which, Flynt says, the woman passed with flying colors.

Previously, Vitter denied having anything to do with hookers in the Big Easy, and he'll no doubt maintain that claim today after Flynt holds a Beverly Hills news conference with the prostitute, Wendy Yow Ellis:

During a phone interview Monday, Ellis said she met regularly with Vitter in the French Quarter aprartment and that he paid her through her pimp, Jonathan, whose last name she did not know. She said Vitter met her through the New Orleans Escort Service, not through the madam whose notorious Canal Street brothel was raided by federal agents in 2001. Although that madam, Jeanette Maier, claimed in interviews that Vitter patronized her brothel and favored a prostitute named Wendy...

Of course, it could just be a political hit. Vitter, who has already confessed to committing a "very serious sin" in using the services of D.C. madam Deborah Jeane Palfry, may have only ever visited escorts in the nation's capital, not in New Orleans. After all, Ms. Ellis stands to make a bit of money from this revelation. Yet, for enterprising reporters, if the allegations of a four-month entanglement are true, then there will be a leads to follow.

This is the last thing the Republican party needs at the moment (and if I had a dollar for every time I've said that over the past two years!). Let's say Larry Craig gets a judge to overturn his guilty plea, and a formal trial begins. Meanwhile, every gumshoe in New Orleans will set to work on Vitter.

Vitter and Craig, two men who chastised Bill Clinton for his indiscretion with Monica Lewinsky, bound together again. Good luck with that, boys.

The Lousiana GOP is reporting a huge pickup for 2008. They have convinced John Kennedy to switch parties. The big news is that he ran unsuccessfully for the Senate seat now held by David Vitter in 2004. The speculation is that he will be gunning for Mary Landrieu in 2008.

Senator Landrieu barely won her seat in 2002 and since then the largest part of her voting base in New Orleans has disappeared due to acts of God. She's a long shot, but up to this point, the LA GOP has not recruited a good challenger for her. John Kennedy could be the guy. From Nola.com:

In an email message to supporters, Kennedy cited "certain fixed, bedrock principles" that he believes are more in line with the Republican Party than the Democrats, and said GOP officials have been more responsive to his proposals in recent years.

"For the past several years, it has increasingly been the case that those public servants who have embraced my ideas and my philosophy of trying new approaches are primarily Republicans," Kennedy wrote.

2008 is shaping up to be a horrible year for the Republicans Senate Committee, they must win in Louisiana to make up for losses elsewhere.

Deborah Palfrey, the "D.C. madam", has released her entire phone list and Sen. David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana, is on it. But he didn't waste time getting out in front:

"This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible," Vitter said Monday in a printed statement. "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."

Vitter's spokesman, Joel Digrado, confirmed the statement Monday evening in an e-mail to The Associated Press after a statement purported to be from Vitter was received by to the AP bureau in New Orleans.

It said his telephone number was on old phone records of Pamela Martin and Associates before he ran for the Senate.

I know what you're thinking. Vitter isn't up for re-election until 2010 so this came out at a really nice time politically for him. And doesn't really change things for 2008 in Lousiana. The Democratic senator, Mary Landrieu, is still up for election in 2008 and she's still in trouble, although the GOP hasn't lined up an establishment challenger yet.

... from New Orleans. Eight murders over the weekend and Mayor Ray Nagin has asked Governor Blanco of Louisiana to keep the LA National Guard on the streets of New Orleans through the summer. They are desperately needed.

New Orleans has watched violent crime escalate in the wake of Hurricane Katrina although the latest Census Bureau estimate said the city had slightly less than half the people it did before the storm. A study by Tulane University demographer Mark VanLandingham put New Orleans' per capita murder rate at 96 per 100,000 people last year - the highest in the nation.

"With all the efforts being made by the city and the feds, you have not seen a down turn," said criminologist Peter Scharf. "Nothing has had any impact. In fact, things are getting measurably worse."

The crime in New Orleans was bad before, of course. But it's reaching new levels of insanity. This elevated crime-wave is absolutely threatening to smother any chance at a real recovery for New Orleans.