Posted by Cockney Robin |
Poor Larry Craig. He didn't even really do anything all that bloody specific,
as far as I can tell and yet he's already been forced to resign from
three committees. "The officer said in his arrest report that Craig
began tapping his
right foot, touched his right foot to the left foot of the officer and
brushed his hand beneath the partition between them. The senator was
then arrested" (Washington Post). Actually, there was a bit more to it than that, according to the arresting rozzer: evidently this Craig also eyeballed him through the crack in the door of the cubicle. Maybe he was just checking to see if it was occupied?
A day after pleading guilty, he's been removed as ranking member of one committee and two subcommittees. Yep, if you've made a career pandering to the nation's homophobes, you'd better keep your tapping feet and your groping hands inside your own cubicle when you go to the gents' toilet, or you'll end up being arrested in a sex sting operation and people will accuse you of the sort of lewd conduct you've spent your lifetime fighting. And your political prospects? Well and truly over.
This is not a decision we take lightly, but we believe this is in the best interest of the Senate until this situation is resolved by the Ethics Committee," [Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell and four other Republican leaders said in a joint statement. Yesterday, they released a statement calling for the Ethics Committee to conduct a full investigation into Craig's June arrest in a police sting at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport conducted after complaints of lewd conduct in the men's restroom.
Craig had served as the ranking member on the Veterans Affairs Committee, as well as the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee's Interior subcommittee and a public lands subcommittee of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Western lands issues are critical to his state, and Craig has made them the hallmark of his career (WaPo).
In similar vein, Republican candidate John McCain (R-Ariz), Norm Coleman
(R-Minn), and Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich) called for him to resign.
There's no room in the U.S. Congress for even the suspicion of the
appearance of lewdness (so-called), at least "lewdness" of the "Adam loves Steve" genre, even if the person charged with it has been doing an adequate, good, or heckuva job.
I still say there's a chance Craig might have been groping for the loo paper---haven't we all been there?---and was too embarrassed, being American, to admit to a hygiene emergency. I'd feel sorry for the poor bugger---sorry!---sod----sorry!---pillock (obviously, we Brits secretly think all sexual preferences, functions, and parts are fundamentally ludicrous) if he hadn't helped lead the charge against gay Americans who just want the right to be treated like non-gay ones.
And I suppose getting arrested in a sting operation and pleading
guilty to "lewd" conduct is
fairly discreditable. And maybe the worst of it is that his career is
going up the spout---sorry! I mean, around the U-bend---on such a stupid
basis. I mean, come on, all the poor geezer did was to make a gesture
interpreted by a rozzer who was conducting an airport sting operation
as suggestive, am I right?
But looking to the right and to the left, I can't see anyone but me
showing him any pity or suggesting that maybe people are overreacting.
By removing his ranking member status a day after Craig publicly defended himself at a news conference--where he asserted that he is "not gay" and was the victim of a "witch hunt" by an Idaho newspaper--demonstrated how emphatically Republicans were trying to separate themselves from Craig (WaPo).
In Idaho, support is evidently thin on the ground:
Idahoans have elected Craig in three landslide votes. But in the Boise area Wednesday -- where a day earlier he had gone before TV cameras to declare "I am not gay" -- supporters were suddenly difficult to find.
"He should resign right now. Right now," said George Radford, 86, rapping his knuckles on the counter of the Sunrise Cafe in the nearby town of Meridian.
"Absolutely," Ed Holm said from the next stool. "Don't put his family through it."
Both men voted for Craig but said his course is clear.
"He pled guilty to a lesser charge because he knew he was guilty of the more serious charge," Radford said.
"I'm disappointed," said Holm, a mechanic. "I really am, because he has done a heck of a job for Idaho."(WaPo)
Disappointed in him for what specifically? Disappointed why? Because he got arrested or because of what he got arrested for?
In the hours after Craig's defiant statement, ABC affiliate KIVI-TV solicited viewers' reactions on its Web site. By the early news, it had not received one expression of support.
"It's because it's a lying thing," said Karsten Roberts, nursing a drink at a punk-rock bar in downtown Boise. "You're representing your constituents, and you shouldn't lie to them. I don't think it comes down to being gay, straight, lesbian or bi."...Dean Mayes Jr., an insurance agent born and raised in Meridian, slowly shook his head when asked if a senator could announce his homosexuality and survive electorally. "I don't think so," Mayes said. "Pretty conservative state. I think it would cause him considerable problems."(WaPo)
Oh yes, of course; if he'd just been honest about his alleged or putative preferences, the tolerant and intelligent people of Idaho would have overlooked them and elected him anyway. That's what you're thinking, right? But actually, maybe it isn't all that clear:
Yet Idaho voters in 1994 defeated an anti-gay initiative that Colorado had passed two years earlier, a measure that would have prevented civil rights protections for gay men and lesbians and would have banned books that depicted homosexuality favorably.
"Idaho has an intriguing history that way, and an intriguing set of politics," said Nicole LeFavour, a Democrat elected twice to the Idaho assembly while openly a lesbian. "We have a very libertarian, kind of live-and-let-live, streak out there."
LeFavour, who represents a liberal district of Boise, said her experience "has been surprisingly positive." But she said that Craig lost the opportunity for understanding when he repudiated his guilty plea before the cameras Tuesday. (WaPo)
And so maybe that's why there's so little sympathy for the local hero now that he's turned out to have feet of clay.
As for those in the GOP demanding his bollocks on a platter, they are probably just very tired of allegations like this one that the GOP---despite the high polish of its whited sepulchres---is "the party of perverts."
As I and my colleagues have said before, they'd be less likely to have to endure this sort of recurring humiliation if they didn't try to sell themselves as the party of the righteous. It doesn't seem to occur to them that perhaps they could avoid humiliation by showing a bit of humility? Just a passing thought. As my personal hero John Prescott (Blair's Deputy Prime Minister) once said, "I'm not a religious man meself, but I always thought Christianity was meant to be a religion of compassion and tolerance and I'm seeing precious little of that" from his fellow Republicans.
I personally would feel better about the GOP, of course, if their attitude was more along the lines of "Gay? So what?," but of course, having sold themselves to the wingnut contingent of the American Right, they can't do the just and tolerant and humane thing without being hoist on their on petard. (Insert your own joke here). Which makes them all seem madly time- or self-serving and/or mildly deranged to this old Brit.
I'd feel better about the Democrats if some of them were leaping to Craig's defence. Why isn't anyone anywhere pointing out that perhaps his conduct---at least as reported so far---sufficiently definitive to earn him this retribution? Oh yes, I forgot: It's the hypocrisy, stupid.
BLOGGER REACTIONS TO THE CRAIG STORY:
Since I wrote this piece earlier today, The Crux has weighed in with her own take on the gay-bashing element of the current Republican response. [Sen. Craig's Bathroom Blunder: GOP Compassionately Eats its Own]
David Louis Edelman also shows a certain welcome attention to certain troubling aspects of the pillorying of Craig.:
I’m convinced that 60% of this whole scandal has to do with public disgust at male homosexuality. It’s a quick opportunity to score some political points because most Americans are really queasy about gay male sex. Gut check time: if you walked in on Carmen Electra and Angelina Jolie engaging in hanky-panky in a public bathroom stall, would you storm out of there looking for a cop and demand that they be publicly humiliated and dragged through the mud? [Be Vewwy Vewwy Quiet, It’s Gay Hunting Season]
While I'm guessing that some blokes would respond, "Hell, YEAH!", I know what he means and so do you. And you know he's right.
And there's also this:
If 60% of this scandal is motivated by public disgust with male homosexuality, then what’s the other 40%? I’ll allow that 20% of the impetus for pushing this story is purely morality. The remaining 20%? Why, a witch hunt against conservative Republicans who have supported the war and President Bush’s über-conservative policies. And I say this as someone who opposed the war from the start and who has vocally opposed Bush’s agenda for years now. I’ve still got a John Kerry 2004 sticker on my car, fer Chrissake.
Here’s an idea: let’s vote Republicans like Larry Craig out of office because they support the war and because they support discrimination against gays. Are the Democrats really proud of the fact that they’re holding a majority in both houses of Congress because of silly sex scandals, because George Allen once said the word “macaca,” and because Joe Lieberman refuses to officially join the GOP?...
Putting aside the sexual aspect of this case, what do we have? Not much. We have the potential intimidation factor of Craig throwing his Senatorial business card on the table and saying “What do you think of that?” Okay, this bothers me. But one statement is a pretty thin reed to hang an entire ethics case on, and you know that no sane jury would convict someone based on that evidence alone.
We have the hypocrisy factor. Definitely worthy of consideration that a senator who’s supported so many anti-gay policies over the years is himself gay. But again, I don’t think hypocrisy is all that great of a sin.
We have the supposed other instances of homosexual behavior. If you read the accusations, they’re all pretty flimsy. Craig followed some dude around in a store for half an hour? Some random guy claims he had sex with someone that looked like Larry Craig, but didn’t even get his name? Involvement in the page scandal would be a big deal if there was any evidence out there to support it. But all these things added up to so little that the Idaho Statesman wisely decided to kill the story until the guilty plea for disorderly conduct came up.
None of these accusations hold a candle to the fact that, you know, Senator Larry Craig supported anti-gay policies in the first place. Whether he’s straight, gay, bi, dom, sub, switch, decaffeinated, or unleaded is pretty irrelevant as far as I’m concerned. I’d just as soon not know.
I’m not suggesting we nominate Larry Craig for Senator of the Year or give him the Congressional Medal of Honor. I’m just saying, please America, stop it with the silly sex scandals. Larry Craig’s guilty plea for disorderly conduct should be a page 3 story at best, and the guy should be allowed to quietly step down from his committee leadership posts and then just not run for re-election.
Well said, David Louis Edelman! Well said.
RELATED BN-POLITICS POSTS
- Hypocrisy Bites: a Few Simple Rules for Imperfect Politicians (Updated)
- It's The Hypocrisy, Stupid (Part 2). Another GOP Senator Embarrasses Himself and Others.
- It's Not the Sin; It's the Hypocrisy: Some Highly Germane Words on the Subject from Christ and Dostoevsky.
- Senator Vitter: Ensnared.
LINKS!
Washington Post: GOP Senate Leaders Strip Craig of Committee Assignments (WaPo)
GOP Senator Pleaded Guilty After Restroom Arrest (Washington Post)
Hey Robin,
Karma can be a bitch when the time to pay the piper for such staggering hypocrisy rolls around. It just boggles the mind that holier-than-thou Christian leaders are so often involved in sick, sick, behavior. Just look at the history and current events of the Vatican and Papacy. See the patterns here?
Notice that Larry Craig was nabbed on June, 11th?
http://sevenstarhand.blogspot.com/2006/11/eleven-roars-loudly.html
Notice the pattern of pivotal events repeatedly occurring on number 11 days during recent years? How many unlikely coincidences are necessary before more people discern a strong pattern in the noise?
Here is Wisdom !!
http://sevenstarhand.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Seven Star Hand | August 30, 2007 at 11:32 AM