Posted by The Crux |
Yesterday, I enjoyed hurling evidence of hypocrisy at the growing list of Republican politicians who strike family-values poses to appeal to ordinary folks who have real family values. When are they gonna learn? Pretense doesn't work for long.
Today, BN-Politics' Cockney Robin reminded me of the more human aspect of Craig's situation:
"All the poor geezer did was to make a gesture interpreted by a rozzer [Brit-speak for cop, I think] 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."
Good point. Sen. Craig is a fellow human being, and he's drowning in humiliation -- not privately but in front of his family, friends, community members, and the nation. And there's nothing he can do to reverse this. People have committed suicide over less upheaval.
Making matters worse, the political party to which Craig has been loyal (perhaps to the point of self-betrayal) has turned on him the way black widows post-coitally turn on their mates. (I'm sure there's a compassion-based motive here.)
Mercury Rising (citing Salon) pointed out some egregious, party-level hypocrisy that I hadn't considered:
"Joan Walsh and Glenn Greenwald point up the extreme hypocrisy in the GOP’s rallying around (the heterosexual horndog Senator and fan of illicit sex) David Vitter even as they now condemn (the homo/bisexual horndog Senator and fan of illicit sex) Larry Craig.
"As Greenwald states, it’s not just Vitter’s heteroness that protects him: It’s that if he resigned now, it would be a Democratic governor picking his replacement, whereas Idaho’s current governor is a Republican."
Where's all the compassion that so-called conservatives have been trumpeting about over the last few years?
And what if Sen. Craig really isn't gay? Jon Swift points out how weak the evidence is:
"For months The Idaho Statesman investigated rumors that Craig was gay, but withheld publication of the article until he pleaded guilty to seeming to be gay, which apparently is a crime in Minnesota. According to the officer who arrested him in a restroom at the Minneapolis airport, Craig used gay "code" to signal that he wanted a sexual liaison, tapping his foot and fidgeting with his hands and touched the officer's foot with his foot, which Craig attributed to having a "wide stance." In Minneapolis one doesn't actually have to proposition someone to have sex in a bathroom to be arrested, one just has to give off certain signals that can be decoded according to a gay handbook the police have apparently obtained.
"Of course, seeming to be gay is not the same as actually being gay, despite what the Minneapolis police department believes."
Sen. Craig should consider toughing it out in the Senate until his term expires -- simply so that his former-allies will feel real consequences of their habitual hypocrisy. He'd be doing our nation a favor.
Related BN-Politics' Posts:
* It's the Hypocrisy, Stupid (Part 3)....
* Hypocrisy Bites: a Few Simple Rules for Imperfect Politicians
Yeah. I started off giggling when it came out because I just thought it was funny as could be, but in the end I pity Craig and am slightly ashamed of myself for not doing so in the beginning.
And I am definitely struck by the hypocrisy of almost everyone involved in the sturm und drang, from the gay activists who use such scandals to destroy the previously closeted, to the Democrats screaming for blood over a picayune "sin" that would go unremarked in one of their own, to the GOP clamoring for a piece of flesh in the feeding frenzy, one to wave around without showing a single sign of loyalty to a fallen comrade.
In a sane world we'd all get a laugh out of it, and Craig would be re-elected, with a more human side showing. As Barney Frank was.
Posted by: Tully | August 30, 2007 at 06:20 PM
You're not alone: I too enjoyed pointing out the hypocrisy.
This time, though, the Dems aren't actually being hypocritical, because they didn't go around gay-bashing or family-values-posing in the first place. How could they do the latter, after President Clinton?
Posted by: The Crux | August 30, 2007 at 06:29 PM