Hey, if anybody knows about the “sanctity of marriage,” it’s these two — a closet ‘mo who cheats on his wife in public toilets, and a diaper-lover who cheats on his wife with hookers!
Two United States Senators implicated in extramarital sexual activity have named themselves as co-sponsors of S. J. RES. 43, dubbed the Marriage Protection Amendment. If ratified, the bill would amend the United States Constitution to state that marriage “shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.”
Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), who was arrested June 11, 2007 on charges of lewd conduct in a Minneapolis airport terminal, is co-sponsoring the amendment along with Sen. David Vitter (R-LA).
Craig, who entered a guilty plea to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct, was detained and charged for attempting to engage in sexual activity with a male undercover police officer. His arrest and plea became public two months later. At that time, Craig attempted to withdraw his plea and enter a new plea of not guilty. To date, his efforts have been denied by the courts.
In July of 2007, Vitter was identified as a client of a prostitution firm owned by the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey, commonly known as The DC Madam. …
Larry, Larry, Larry, you just never fail to make us laugh!
For Immediate Release: February 26, 2008
Dan Whiting (202)224-8078 Will Hart (208)342-7985
Craig Accepting Applications for Summer Interns
Deadline Quickly Approaching
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Idaho Senator Larry Craig is currently seeking intern applications for the summer term, which runs from May to August. The application deadline is March 15, however if more time is needed for the application process, please contact Senator Craig’s office for an extension. Craig offers paid internships within the Washington, D.C., office. Preference is given to Idaho applicants attending Idaho schools who are in their junior or senior years of college (including graduating seniors).
‘”Interns have the chance to be an essential part of a working congressional office,” said Craig. “They participate in the legislative process as well as ensure that constituent services run smoothly. For those interested in politics, it is an incredible opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at how our government functions while serving the people of Idaho.”
Interns are paired with staff members based on experience and interests, in order to best utilize their talents. They are also expected to fulfill some administrative duties such as answering phones, sorting mail and greeting constituents.
Applications and more information about the internship program are available on Craig’s website at http://craig.senate.gov/internships.cfm or at any of Craig’s six regional offices in Coeur d’Alene, Lewiston, Boise, Twin Falls, Pocatello and Idaho Falls. It is recommended that applications be delivered personally to the regional offices or sent via fax to (202) 224-2573. Applications can also be mailed, but delays are likely due to heightened security measures for Senate mail. Mailed applications should be directed to:
Office of Senator Larry Craig ATTN: Internship Program United States Senate Washington, DC 20510-1203 (202) 224-2752
The pathetic Larry “I’m Not Gay!” Craig just continues to amuse us to no end — but in his latest desperate attempt to remain not-gay, it’s the bizarre, cryptic puppy metaphor of Craig’s lawyer that has us scratching our heads:
Craig’s new defense: The cop started it
In his latest appeal, disgraced senator says the officer tapped first
The undercover police officer who busted U.S. Sen. Larry Craig in a gay-sex sting in an airport bathroom stall couldn’t have been offended by the senator’s notorious foot-tapping — after all, the officer invited the action by tapping his own foot, lawyers for the congressman said in a brief filed Tuesday.
Those lawyers also contend the Idaho Republican should have his guilty plea to a disorderly conduct charge thrown out because what he did last June wasn’t a crime. The reason: The state’s disorderly conduct statute says the conduct in question has to alarm or anger others — plural — and Craig’s actions affected just the undercover officer.
. . .
Despite Craig’s voluntary guilty plea, if the facts don’t support the charge, the plea is inaccurate and should be thrown out, the brief contends.
. . .
But Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, was ready with a non-legal reply.
“Facts are resilient, and Sen. Craig’s continued transparent efforts to escape them don’t change the truth of his behavior in an airport restroom, or the fact that he admitted guilt last August,” said Hogan.
. . .
Locally, the senator is represented by longtime Minneapolis attorney Thomas Kelly, who, when asked for comment, replied, “Never drive over to St. Paul to have a filing with your puppy in the car. She’s barking at every strange sound and smell.”
Seeking to have his guilty plea in a bathroom sex sting erased, the attorneys for Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho argue in a new court filing that the underlying act wasn’t criminal because it didn’t involve multiple victims.
An appeals brief filed Tuesday contends that Minnesota’s disorderly conduct law “requires that the conduct at issue have a tendency to alarm or anger ‘others”‘ - underscoring the plural nature of the term.
Craig’s brief goes on to cite other convictions that were overturned because the multiple-victim test wasn’t met. His lawyers apply the same logic to his case.
. . .
“Appellant’s alleged conduct in this case affected only a single individual - Sergeant Karsnia,” the Craig brief says. “It did not - and could not affect ‘others’ as the disorderly conduct statute requires, and therefore, does not satisfy that element of the statute.”
The brief also argues that Karsnia himself could not have been offended by the alleged conduct because “he invited it.” The alleged conduct, Craig’s lawyers added, doesn’t rise to the level of being “offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous or noisy.”
. . .
Besides attacking the law he was prosecuted under, Craig’s legal team argues that the hand signal allegedly used to communicate a desire to engage in sexual conduct would be constitutionally protected speech. They also say the plea is technically flawed because it lacked a judicial signature.
Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, which oversees the Minneapolis airport and which brought the charges, said he was confident the guilty plea will stand.
“Facts are resilient, and Sen. Craig’s continued, transparent efforts to escape them don’t change the truth of his behavior in an airport restroom or the fact that he admitted guilt last August,” Hogan said.
Prosecutors have 45 days to respond, and then the case will be scheduled for oral arguments. Once heard, a ruling is required within 90 days.
Claims to fame: Republican U.S. Senator from Idaho (1991-2008); former U.S. House rep (1981-1991); National Rifle Association board member; Idaho Hall of Fame inductee; farmer/rancher; anti-gay, not-a-gay gay Republican (who earned a 100% rating from the Christian Coalition in 2003); men’s-room-sex cruiser; denial queen; biggest Republican laughingstock of 2007
Moral apex: It’s hard to choose. There is, of course, his June 11, 2007, arrest for lew conduct (a.k.a. “cottaging“) in a men’s room at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Here’s the police report:
At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I oved my foot up and down slowly. … The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area. Craig then proceeded to swipe his left hand under the stall divider several times, with the palm of his hand facing upward. …
But then there’s his claim that he was railroaded into pleading guilty (albeit to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct, for which he received “a suspended 10-day jail sentence, was fined more than $500 and was placed on unsupervised probation for one year” [NYT]).
Then there’s his resignation from his Senate seat. Then there’s his withdrawal of his resignation of his Senate seat.
The denials began June 30, 1982, when CBS broke news of a scandal alleging gay sex between congressmen and underage pages. The following day, before any public allegation that he was involved, then-Rep. Craig issued a denial. Craig married a year later and adopted the three children of his wife, Suzanne. In 1990, the Idaho Statesman asked Craig about an allegation that he was gay made by an opponent in his first Senate race. “Why don’t you ask my wife?” Craig replied.
Then there’s his attempt to have his own guilty plea overturned. (It didn’t work; you can’t just “withdraw” a guilty plea.)
Then there’s his insistence that he’s not gay (not, I tell you, not, not, not!).
Then there’s the allegations that his dalliances with other men were known as far back as the 1980s — with “with underage congressional pages,” no less (but he’s still not gay!).
Then there’s the “40-year-old man [who] reported having oral sex with Craig at Washington’s Union Station, probably in 2004,” and the “man who said Craig made a sexual advance toward him at the University of Idaho in 1967 and a man who said Craig ‘cruised’ him for sex in 1994 at the REI store in Boise.”
Then there’s…
There’s a lot.
Here’s just one of Larry’s versions of the story:
I’m a commuter. As you know Mark, Suzanne and I decided to build a home back in Idaho. (We have) seven grandbabies here, our family’s here, and that I would become the commuter for the balance of my time in Washington, so that we wouldn’t miss those grandbabies growing up. So nearly every week I was flying through and stopping at the Minneapolis airport, and walking from one side to the other side of it to catch an airplane to Washington. I’ve learned to do that with my lifestyle for Idaho. When I stop, I often times go to a bathroom. It’s early in the morning when I leave here, so about the time I get to Minneapolis, I’ve had several cups of coffee, so it’s a natural thing I do before I go on to Washington.
. . .
I go to bathrooms to go to bathrooms. I walked in that morning into a sting, that I had no idea I was walking into. I suspect every American, or anyone who wanted to listen or try at all has heard the tape of the interrogation. They know a great deal of the detail that has been told by others. Yes, I walked by the stalls. I looked to see if they were empty, most of them were full, or apparently all of them were full as I recall. I stood back, I waited, I kept looking — finally, one opened up. I walked in, I put my suit case down — I sat down on a bathroom stool. I did not realize that to look into a stall, set a suitcase in front of you was a gay action, or at least according to this law enforcement officer. He was watching out through a door profiling me. “Oh my goodness he did this, oh my goodness he did that.” At least that’s my reaction to what I finally experienced.
Something caught my eye. I glanced down. Whether it was foot movement close to my stall, I was spreading my legs, and uh I saw paper — it looked like it was stuck to the heel of my shoe. … Toilet paper. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen anyone walk out of a toilet with toilet paper stuck to their shoe….
Well, I reached down, I pulled it off. My hand went below the divider. Within seconds there was a card under the divider that said “police,” and the motion of the finger to the door. And I said “no!” — then the motion again.
I stood up, stepped out and was physically jerked out of the bathroom in to a lobby area. And I said “what’s going on here, what are you doing?” “You’re under arrest.” I said “I’ve got a plane to catch, what are you doing?”
At about that time, and I was attempting to pull away — about that time another officer came up, grabbed me by the other arm and said “if you don’t behave, we’re going to arrest you and throw you in jail.” I’ve never been arrested in my life.
I was blown away.
. . .
[The arresting officer] was trying to put words in my mouth, I refused to allow that to happen. I knew what had gone on there. Oh he said, “just plead guilty and file it in the court, pay a fine, it will go away, and I won’t call the media.” Those are pretty intimidating things.
. . .
I don’t know that I touched his foot. In the interrogation, while he attempted to get me to say things that weren’t true — none of that came up in the interrogation. That was in the report that he obviously spent an awful lot of time and put an awful lot of detail into. Sounds to me like this is an officer who was more interested in an arrest than he was in the facts.
— Larry Craig Interview with Mark Johnson, KTVB October 16, 2007
Sounds to us like this is an officer who was simply very clear in his recollection of the facts. “Craig,” Sgt. Dave Karsnia added, “would look down at his hands, ‘fidget’ with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again.”
Where the “wide stance” line comes from:
According to the arrest report prepared by Sgt. Dave Karsnia, “Craig stated … He has a wide stance when going to the bathroom and that his foot may have touched mine.” Craig never used the term “wide stance” himself. According to the transcript of the police interogation, Sgt. Karsnia asked: “Did you do anything with your feet?” and Craig replied: “Positioned them, I don’t know. I don’t know at the time. I’m a fairly wide guy.”
When the officer asked Craig about the use of his hands, Craig said that he reached down with his right hand to pick up a piece of paper that was on the floor. The officer disputed Craig’s version by saying “there was not a piece of paper on the bathroom floor, nor did Craig pick up a piece of paper.” Craig also disputed the officer’s assertion about the position of his hand, claiming that his right palm was faced down as he picked up the paper from the floor. The officer disputed Craig’s version, alleging that Craig used his left hand because his thumb “was positioned in a faceward motion.” During the interview and in the incident report, the officer commented that Craig either disagreed with what happened in the restroom or could not recall the events as they happened.
Ultimate hypocrisy: The I’m-Not-Gay Gay Republican’s guide to voting, or: a few relevant items from Larry Craig’s Senate voting record, culled from OnTheIssues.com:
Larry Craig on Civil Rights
Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)
Rated 25% by the ACLU, indicating an anti-civil rights voting record. (Dec 2002)
Rated 0% by the HRC, indicating an anti-gay-rights stance. (Dec 2006)
And Craig:
• Voted to cut off debate on the proposed 2006 Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage;
• Voted against the 1996 bill prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, which,” notes MediaMatters, “failed by one vote in the Senate.” Another way of looking at it: Larry Craig singlehandedly prevented gay and lesbian Americans from protection against being fired just because of who they are.
Fascinating, especially for someone with a 0% rating from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, “indicating opposition to church-state separation,” and a 0% rating from the Human Rights Campaign, indicating… well, indicating that a certain self-loathing (water-)closet queen — so ashamed of who and what he is that he feels the need to consign himself to seeking out sleazy, anonymous sex in public restrooms — is so bitter and jealous of every out, proud, and well-adjusted gay American that he wants to punish them all for daring to live the open and honest existence he can only dream of.
Well, that’s what it indicates to us; your mileage may vary.
(For the record, he’s no friend to women or minorities, either; Larry Craig would rather throw unwanted stem cells in the garbage than use them to save lives; doesn’t give a damn if children die without health insurance; and is a corporate-whoring warmonger who thinks the government should be able to spy on you, anytime, anywhere. Don’t believe us? Check the link.)
Fun facts:
• Until news of his arrest came out (the cover-up lasted months), Craig was U.S. Senate co-chair of the Mitt Romney for President campaign. When the toilet lid was blown open, Craig “resigned” (read: got dumped) from the campaign — and, almost simultaneously, the Romney campaign canceled a Boise whistle-stop. (Gee, coincidence? Not.)
Craig was bitter, to say the least. “I was very proud of my association with Mitt Romney,” Craig told NBC’s Matt Lauer in October, 2007. “I’d worked hard for him here in the state. I was a co-chair of his campaign on Capitol Hill. And he not only threw me under his campaign bus, he backed up and ran over me again.”
• Larry likes to make up words, such as “mug-shotted” and “criticizer”:
I went down, I was interrogated. I was fingerprinted, I was mug-shotted.
— Larry Craig Interview with Mark Johnson, KTVB October 16, 2007
I’ve had criticism thrown at me. But I’ve never had the criticizer, or the investigator go out and try to question all my friends.
• In November, 2007, Mike Jones, the “male escort” whose affair with megachurch superstar Ted Haggard, claimed that Larry Craig was also a client. Of course, Craig denied the allegation — but then again, noted KESQ-TV, Haggard “originally denied Jones’ allegations of sexual relations in 2006,” too.
• By December, 2007, a total of eight gay men had “come forward since news of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s guilty plea [to] say they had sex with Craig or that he made a sexual advance or that he paid them unusual attention.”
• In September, 2007, the “infamous airport men’s room where Sen. Larry Craig was arrested is getting new stall dividers that drop nearly to the floor to make it a less inviting spot for sexual liaisons.”
• Craig used “about $23,000 in campaign money on lawyers in his ethics investigation.” It that ethical? It it even legal? Experts disagree — so it looks like it’s up to the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee to sort it all out… while they’re deciding whether or not “Craig violated Senate ethics rules by engaging in behavior that reflects poorly on the institution.”
Denial is Not a River in Egypt quote:
I am not gay; I never have been gay.
— Larry Craig Press conference August 28, 2007
More memorable quotes:
Bad boy, Bill Clinton. You’re a naughty boy The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy, a naughty boy. I’m going to speak out for the citizens of my state, who in the majority think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy.
— Larry Craig “Meet The Press” January 24, 1999
What do you think of that?
— Larry Craig, handing his Senate business card to the arresting officer
I’ve been in this business 27 years in the public eye here. I don’t go around anywhere hitting on men, and by God, if I did, I wouldn’t do it in Boise, Idaho! Jiminy!
…I made a big mistake. I didn’t seek counsel. I didn’t tell this wonderful woman sitting behind me… I didn’t tell my staff. I sought my own counsel, and I was a very bad counsel.
— Larry Craig Interview with Mark Johnson, KTVB October 16, 2007
Everything I was getting from Washington, from Republican leadership was they were going to force me out — they were going to force me to resign. That’s what I believed.
. . .
I was being all but ordered to resign. … Circumstances changed.
What it’s like, is now when we go to restaurants and do our grocery shopping, and getting our building supplies — people give me hugs. People go by Larry and say “hang in there Larry, we believe you! Keep fighting!” It’s amazing, it’s wonderful. I’ve had people that I don’t know come up to me in the store. I think people ever even recognized me, and they’d say “you’re Mrs. Craig, please I want to tell you and tell your husband to hang in there. Would you like a hug?”
— Craig’s wife, Suzanne Interview with Mark Johnson, KTVB October 16, 2007
Frankly, when I sit down and read all those e-mails, it’s therapy. And again — I need a little therapy.
— Larry Craig, on supportive emails Interview with Mark Johnson, KTVB October 16, 2007
Larry plays Nostradamus:
Idaho is going to elect a Republican to the United State Senate.
As this message is posted, I have apppeared on the Ed Schultz Show, a nationally syndicated radio program broadcast in more than 100 cities and on Sirius Satellite. On the show I have called on Senator Larry Craig to end his years of hypocrisy by leveling with Idahoans about who he really is. I am also calling upon several prominent Idaho social conservative leaders to ask them how they square their anti-gay positions with their support for this leader.
I have done extensive research into this case, including trips to the Pacific Northwest to meet with men who have say they have physical relations with the Senator. I have also met with a man here in Washington, D.C., who says the same — and that these incidents occurred in the bathrooms of Union Station. None of these men know each other, or knew that I was talking to others. They all reported similar personal characteristics about the Senator, which lead me to believe, beyond any doubt, that their stories are valid.
Larry Craig being mentioned as possibly connected to Congressional scandals is nothing new. Check out these video clips from 1982 when he preemptively denied his involvement in a Congressional sex and drug scandal. (I love what he says about unmarried people back then and how often do politicians issue preemptive denials based on rumors?)
Senator Craig has consistently relied on the support of Idaho’s “values voters,” but he has not been honest with them about his own conduct. Conservatives and liberals are both standing up and recognizing the hypocrisy of elected officials like Senator Larry Craig. The time for treating Americans one way and behaving in another is over.
— Mike Rogers
outing Larry Craig nearly eight months before Craig’s arrest and one full year before news of the arrest was made public
On Wednesday, the Spokane Spokesman-Review made the controversial decision to run a story about rumors swirling around Idaho Senator Larry Craig — a story that likely never would have seen the light of day a few short years ago. The basics of the story are as follows: Gay-rights activist Mike Rogers claimed on his blog and a syndicated radio program that confidential sources had provided him information concerning consensual homosexual relationships involving Craig. The senator responded to the story through a spokesperson, calling it ‘completely ridiculous.’
Just so we are clear… I, too, think it’s “completely ridiculous” for an anti-gay Senator to have sex in Union Station bathrooms. See, Craig’s office and I do agree on something.
I – I actually served in the House with him, and my sense tells me to just shut up. [laughter] [applause]
— Openly gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to the question: “What does your gaydar tell you about him [Craig]?” “Real Time with Bill Maher” October 20, 2006
Video:
I have a certain sympathy for closeted gay men and lesbians. I think that being so deeply ashamed of a part of yourself that’s so fundamental, and that you can do nothing to change, must be close to unbearable; and the knowledge that coming clean would involve not only admitting that you’re gay, but also that you have lied for years to people you care about, and who trust you, would only make it that much worse. But my sympathy vanishes when it comes to people who support amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage, as Craig did. There are limits to what you get to do to protect your own secrets, and being willing to permanently destroy gay men and lesbians’ chances to marry the people they love, and with whom they have found happiness, is way, way outside them.
. . .
The laws are meant to apply to everyone, Senators included. No one gets to violate laws he himself supports and then use the fact that he has been elected to high office to get himself off the hook. Being elected Senator means being given a position of trust and responsibility that you should work every day to be worthy of, not a Get Out Of Jail Free card.
All we know is, Craig’s opening line from today’s news conference at which he — again, and repeatedly — denied that he’s gay will surely make the late-night comedy rounds. Craig’s opener: “Thank you for coming out today.”
The reaction to the Larry Craig story provides one of the most vivid illustrations yet of how the right-wing movement works.
. . .
[I]t is hard to overstate the intense fury that this pre-election report triggered from the Right — not at Senator Craig for engaging in this behavior, but at [Mike] Rogers for reporting it. A virtually unanimous chorus on the Right furiously insisted that nothing could be more irrelevant than whether the married family values Senator had sex with men in bathrooms (acts that are simultaneously criminal and adulterous). The same political movement that impeached Bill Clinton and which has made a living exploiting issues of private morality for political gain insisted that Rogers had reached a new and despicable low in politics even by reporting this.
. . .
Among right-wing pundits — weeks before the election — there was nothing but support for Craig and outrage over the reporting of this story.
. . .
But now, with the election safely over, a fundamentally different view — one might say the exact opposite view — has arisen among this same political faction (and, in some cases, though not all, even among the same individuals) over the Craig bathroom sex story, one which confirmed the truth of Rogers’ October report. Michelle Malkin yesterday called Craig a “weasel,” accused him of not caring about the “dignity of his office,” and demanded that he resign. Various other right-wing blogs — noting that a GOP governor will appoint his replacement — also are calling for Craig to resign.
. . .
So revealingly, [right-wing blogger Hugh Hewitt] demanded Craig’s immediate resignation while openly acknowledging that he does not believe Sen. [David] Vitter should resign. I wonder what the difference might be? It cannot possibly be that Craig’s liaisons were with men rather than women, because the Right is completely indifferent to such considerations.
Various right-wing commentators are competing with one another to see who can express the most visceral disgust for Larry Craig’s behavior (behavior which was so irrelevant just a few months ago that it was despicable even to report it). …
. . .
They certainly don’t seem to think that Craig’s behavior is so irrelevant any more, do they? As always, it is astonishing to observe how the same human brain can accommodate those two opposite thoughts only a few months apart without even realizing that it is doing so.
. . .
What accounts for this complete shift in right-wing commentary about the Craig story? How can it possibly be that Craig’s bathroom adultery compels his resignation today, but — weeks before the last election — the same conduct was so irrelevant that the mere mention of it rendered Rogers the lowest “scumbag” in the nation? …
. . .
All of this is to say nothing of the fact that political figures like David Vitter, Mark Foley, Rush Limbaugh, and Larry Craig who relentlessly exploit private sexual morality for political gain obviously subject their own private lives to similar scrutiny.
. . .
Back in October, scads of right-wing pundits pretended that Craig’s bathroom behavior was irrelevant to them not because they actually believed that (as their commentary now demonstrates), but only because they were petrified that the revelation of his behavior in October would harm Republican electoral prospects. It is just conclusively clear that so many of them insisted to their readers something they obviously did not believe — that nothing could be less relevant than whether Larry Craig commits adultery with anonymous men in bathrooms and the only grotesque immorality is from those who report such matters.
Today, with the election safely over, that exact same behavior makes Craig a scumbag who should resign. Who would ever listen to anyone who engages in such patently duplicitous advocacy? Shouldn’t all the people who were depicting Mike Rogers as Satan’s spawn for reporting something so clearly irrelevant as Senator Craig’s bathroom sex be condemning with equal vigor their comrades who, today, cite that same bathroom sex as a ground for mocking Craig and even demanding that he resign from the Senate? How can it possibly be that Mike Rogers was despicable slime for reporting on Craig’s bathroom behavior without its being true that Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt and Mark Steyn are all despicable slime for demanding that he resign based on the same behavior?
I saw some far-right blog yesterday complain, pre-emptively, that Dems are going to raise a fuss about all of this, and try to argue that a few isolated examples amount to a rampant sex problem among conservatives. The same blogger argued that Dems will conveniently overlook sex scandals involving Bill Clinton, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, Henry Cisneros, and Barney Frank.
It’s not an entirely unreasonable argument. Neither party has a monopoly on virtue or vice, and while it seems that the right is having an unlucky streak when it comes to sex scandals, I think it’s probably unfair to argue that conservatives’ problems are unique.
. . .
If we were to go back over the last few decades and do a tally on which side — left or right — had more high-profile sex scandals, I have a hunch it’d be about even. The difference, however, is that only one side claims the moral high-ground, holds itself out as the arbiter of virtue, is quick to judge moral/sexual failings in others, and wants desperately to use the power of the state to regulate (and ban) some of the behavior they personally engage in.
. . .
Conservatives are demoralized because their leaders keep getting caught in sex scandals? Perhaps, if they stopped trying to use sex as a culture-war weapon, these revelations wouldn’t be so damaging. Indeed, perhaps if the right would give up on demonizing gays, then men like Craig wouldn’t be forced to go into men’s rooms looking for sex partners in the first place.
I don’t want the right to feel dispirited because of these scandals; I want them to give up. Give up on using gays as a wedge issue. Give up on abstinence-only policies that don’t work. Give up on constitutional amendments regarding personal behavior. Give up on holding up the GOP up as the authority on what should and shouldn’t be allowed in bedrooms.
Or don’t. Go ahead and continue to embrace hypocrisy. Keep hiding your head in your hands every time a Larry Craig gets caught. Continue to argue that it’s not at all odd that your presidential front-runner is a thrice-married adulterer.
I find the whole Larry Craig thing quite sad. It’s sad for his family, for his constituents, but mostly, sad for Craig.
Craig hates himself, and that is sad, no matter how you slice it. His explanations for the events in Minnesota are so ridiculous, they defy logic and credibility, even in Idaho.
Yep, that’s right Senator Craig, you heard me right, I want to thank you. You see, you have just shown millions of parents who have gay and lesbian children why they absolutely, positively MUST encourage their children to come out and proudly be who they are. You have also confirmed why all parents should not only accept their gay and lesbian children but embrace and love their gay and lesbian children just exactly as they are.
And Senator Craig, you have done a marvelous job of showing millions of parents just how toxic and harmful the closet is and why all parents need to encourage their gay and lesbian children to come out into the sunshine and proudly celebrate who they are. I mean after all, no truly good and loving parent would ever wish upon their beloved child the pitiful, tortured, hypocritical, and pathetic existence you have endured for decades.
But that is not all you have done for the gay and lesbian community Senator. In addition to all of the above, you have also confirmed for the many parents like me who have embraced their gay and lesbian children from the start what great gifts unconditional love and acceptance are for our children. Could there be any greater family or Christian value than that Senator?
If Larry Craig were held to the standard of sexual conduct he imposes on the U.S. armed forces, he’d be out of his job.
Fourteen years ago, in his first term as a Republican senator from Idaho, Craig helped to enact the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
. . .
Were Craig’s gestures ambiguous? Not by his own standards. He signed off on the arrest report. Under DADT, he’d have to prove that what he did was “a departure from [his] usual and customary behavior,” that it was “unlikely to recur,” and that he did “not have a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts.” But the Idaho Statesman reports three other incidents, from 1967 to 2004, in which Craig allegedly made similar overtures. On the Statesman’s Web site, you can listen to an interview in which one of the men describes his tryst with Craig in a public bathroom. These accounts, combined with Craig’s arrest report, would easily get him thrown out of the Army if he were a soldier.
Has Craig’s arrest chastened him about DADT? Not a bit. Two weeks ago, in a letter to a constituent, he reiterated his support for the policy. “I don’t believe the military should be a place for social experimentation,” Craig wrote. “It is unacceptable to risk the lives of American soldiers and sailors merely to accommodate the sexual lifestyles of certain individuals.”
Now you know why Craig is trying to withdraw his guilty plea. The cardinal rule of “don’t ask, don’t tell” isn’t heterosexuality. It’s hypocrisy. The one thing you can’t do is tell the truth.
In that sense, Craig is honoring the policy in his own life. But that’s the only sense. I don’t think what he did should cost him his career. I’d like to cut him some slack. But first, I’d like to restore the careers of a few thousand other gay Americans who have done a lot more for their country.
“I did nothing wrong,” said Larry Craig at the start of his long national nightmare as America’s favorite running, or perhaps sitting, gag. That’s the truth. Justice lovers of all sexual persuasions must rally to save the Idaho senator before he is forced to prematurely evacuate his seat.
. . .
Not only did the senator do nothing wrong, but in scandal he has proved the national treasure that he never was in his salad days as a pork-seeking party hack. In the past month he has served as an invaluable human Geiger counter for hypocrisy on the left and right alike. He has been an unexpected boon not just to the nation’s double-entendre comedy industry but to the imploding Republican Party. Gays, not all of them closeted, may be among the last minority groups with some representation in the increasingly monochromatic G.O.P. If it is to muster even a rainbow-lite coalition for 2008, it could use Larry Craig in the trenches.
Mr. Craig has a particularly hard case to make because he signed a guilty plea, which he now wants to withdraw — something courts rarely allow. He claims he signed in “a state of intense anxiety,” in an attempt to keep news of the arrest from getting out. To succeed, he will have to show that he suffered a “manifest injustice.”
It is an odd claim for him to make. Mr. Craig has consistently voted for President Bush’s judicial nominees, helping the far right to fill the federal courts with judges who are strikingly unmoved by claims of injustice. These Bush judges are not merely legal conservatives — they have been on a hard-driving campaign to weaken or undo protections that are basic to the American system of justice.
Sen. Larry Craig resigned from the Senate. He said he’d like to spend more time not being gay.
— David Letterman September, 2007
I mean, obviously there are natural disasters — the Teton Dam, some of the fires that we went through this summer — but nothing that seems so controlled at one time, then out of control — the landscape changed every day.
— Idaho Governor Butch Otter,
engaging in hyperbolic comparison of “out of control” nature of Craig fiasco to that of natural disasters
Mark Johnson: We gave folks an opportunity on our website to ask questions — and boy did they submit the questions. Many of them you’ve answered here tonight. Mark from Boise… not this Mark from Boise — had one that I think you might find interesting. Mark writes “You are accused of a sex crime without physically committing one. Would you support legislation that protects citizens from police entrapment in restrooms and other public places.
Sen. Larry Craig: Mark, I’d have to take a very serious look at that. I’ve not only heard from Mark — I’ve heard from a lot of citizens and e-mailers. They’ve felt they got entrapped, they felt they got profiled. The worst thing in a free society is to have law enforcement profiling people because they look a certain way, therefore they must be. That is just wrong. I’ve always opposed it — and I’ll continue to oppose it. If legislation like that comes along, I’ll take a very serious look at it. I’m innocent, I’ve been through it. It’s not a very pleasant experience. It’s changed my life, it’s changed my family’s life, it may have changed the political life in Idaho, I don’t know. But, it is the question — a very important one.
So, if someone proposes such legislation to protect citizens from profiling — doesn’t sound like he’s ready to take up activist arms and do it himself — how many of Larry’s GOP colleagues do you think are going to co-sign it? A bill that protects busts of people for “looking a certain way” (guess this time he couldn’t squeak out “gay”) when caught up in a public restroom sex sting? These stings focus almost exclusively on gay men cruising in these public facilities — an issue right there that probably has Republicans squirming.
Yesterday, Sen. Larry Craig announced that he is not going to step down because he is still able to work effectively with his fellow senators. Sen. Craig’s exact quote was, “No one reaches across the aisle like I do.”
— Conan O’Brien October, 2007
Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Craig:
For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant;
Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.
