By ADAM NOSSITER

That self-created image, a political winner here since 1991, when Mr. Vitter joined the Louisiana House, took a tumble Monday with the disclosure that his phone number was among those on a list of client numbers kept by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the so-called D.C. Madam, who is accused of running a prostitution ring in Washington.

Mr. Vitter admitted Monday night to a "very serious sin in my past," and talk radio and coffee shops here buzzed all day Tuesday with the front-page news, even as the senator remained out of sight. But the fallout was far bigger than local: his admission is also a blow to the presidential campaign of Rudolph W. Giuliani, for whom he is Southern campaign chairman.

Mr. Vitter, an uncompromising foe of abortion, same-sex marriage and the immigration compromise that died in the Senate in June, was supposed to be Mr. Giuliani's ambassador to a region with large numbers of social conservatives suspicious of the candidate's moderate views. His viability in that role is now in doubt with his acknowledgment that his number was already in the phone records of Pamela Martin & Associates before he ran for the Senate in 2004.

The woman at the head of the company, Ms. Palfrey, contends that it was a legitimate escort service before being shut down last year. Federal prosecutors say it was a prostitution ring, and a State Department official, Randall L. Tobias, resigned in April with the disclosure that he had been a client.

But Mr. Vitter is the first member of Congress to admit an association. Hustler magazine said Tuesday that it had uncovered that link and that the senator's public admission had resulted from its subsequent call to his office.

Five years ago Mr. Vitter was linked by a New Orleans weekly to a prostitute in the French Quarter, an association he angrily denied. But by then his position as a self-proclaimed scourge of lax ethics was well established. In the early 1990s, he quickly established himself as a champion of political morality in the Legislature, taking on Governor Edwards and his associates, firing off ethics complaints, battling casinos and pressing for term limits that this year finally ousted the largely Democratic legislative old guard.

In New Orleans, meanwhile, the madam of a high-priced brothel that was shut down by federal authorities in 2002 told a local television station, WDSU, that Mr. Vitter was one of her clients in the 1990s. The woman, Jeanette Maier, called him "one of the nicest and most honorable men I've ever met." Mr. Vitter's office did not immediately return a call for comment Tuesday night.

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excerpted from:
"Senator's Moral High
Ground Gets a Little Shaky."
By ADAM NOSSITER
© New York TimesJuly 11, 2007