Posted by Cockney Robin | "Singing Senator"
Larry E. Craig---until today, chairman of Mitt Romney's Idaho campaign---joined the roster of Republicans caught out behaving in ways seemingly at odds with their publicly expressed views. Craig was
arrested, it appears, for....well, nothing at all by British standards, but by American standards, "disorderly conduct" as follows:
[The Capital Hill newspaper] Roll Call, citing a copy of a report by airport police, said officers had been conducting a sting operation inside the men's room because of complaints of sexual activity there. The police report gives this account of the arrest:
The undercover officer was monitoring the restroom on June 11. A few minutes after noon, Craig entered and sat in the stall next to him. 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. He was then arrested.
While he was being interviewed about the incident, Craig gave police a business card showing that he is a U.S. senator. "What do you think about that?" Craig asked the officer, according to the report obtained by Roll Call.(Washington Post)
I'm actually kind of curious to know the copper's exact answer, but WaPo doesn't say.
Craig claims that his gestures---i.e, the foot-tapping and the hand-brushing--- were "misconstrued." Well, that's plausible. Maybe his cubicle was out of bog roll (toilet paper to you yanks) and he was groping around for it. Cleanliness is next to godliness after all. But he doesn't explain his actions in this fashion, perhaps because it would be indelicate. Instead, he says:
"At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct," Craig said. "I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously."(Washington Post)
Senate GOP leaders claim to be "shocked." Really? I'd think they'd be getting used to this sort of thing by now. And of course, if they're shocked it's presumably because they don't believe that the foot-tapping and air-groping were signs of derangement or a tragic lack of loo paper at a tragically inopportune moment. (Washington Post)
So what's to be inferred from this "disorderliness," so-called? I infer nothing, since the conduct described to me doesn't really prove anything, but there have certainly been past allegations on which one might wish to speculate. According to WaPo, gay activist Mike Rogers claimed in 2006 to have had sexual relations with Craig, an allegation that Craig's office dismissed as ridiculous. (Washington Post) Rogers was unhappy about Craig's opposition to gay rights. WaPo: "The conservative senator has supported an amendment to the Constitution banning same-sex marriage and voted for the Defense of Marriage Act in the 1990s. Craig, who served in the National Guard, has also spoken out against homosexuals serving in the military." (Washington Post) Hmmm.
I don't know what the real story is here and neither do you, but it's hard for me to believe that a United States Senator wouldn't understand the ramifications of pleading guilty to disorderly conduct charges in these circumstances. Was he prevaricating then or is he prevaricating now? Because it's also hard to believe that he'd plead guilty without "advice of counsel" in order to "handle" the matter "quickly and expeditiously" unless "quickly and expeditiously" translates into "so nobody finds out." After all, he knew enough about the potential consequences to try out the old maneuver of producing his business card. (Memo to politicians who didn't get the previous memo: Flashing your credentials never, ever works.)
What I mean to say is: the "misconstrued" argument sounds a little thin when you consider all the surrounding circumstances.
Craig must have realized how this circumstance might look to someone less prejudiced against him than I. He has resigned from the Romney campaign. "Craig "did not want to be a distraction," said Romney spokesman Matt Rhoades, "and we accept his decision.""(Washington Post)
At the end of the day, it's the suspicion that he's just another bleeding hypocrite in "family values" clothing that ruins him for me. Like most people, I can overlook, tolerate, or forgive the occasional peccadillo (including sexual dalliance); after all, we didn't invent sex---it was imposed on us by nature or God. It's the sort of thing I'm prepared to dismiss, except when the person who is caught out has made a career of telling other people what is (or is not) appropriate conduct in restrooms and elsewhere in the world. That's where I would draw the line.
You'd think these Republican geezers would eventually cotton on to the fact that publicly opposing the very things they secretly like best is bound to end in tears. But "reaction formation" seems to be the hallmark of the GOP. In case you're not familiar with this neurosis or neurotic adaptation, "reaction formation" occurs
when person feels an urge to do or say something and then actually does or says something that is effectively the opposite of what they really want. It also appears as a defense against a feared social punishment. If I fear that I will be criticized for something, I very visibly act in a way that shows I am personally a long way from the feared position....
A cause of Reaction Formation is when a person seeks to cover up something unacceptable by adopting an opposite stance. For example the gay person who is heterosexually promiscuous may be concealing their homosexual reality. This may be a conscious concealment but also may well occur at the subconscious level such that they do not realize the real cause of their behavior. Reaction Formation thus can turn homosexual tendencies (love men) to homophobic ones (hate men).
[Anna, I think] Freud called the exaggerated compensation that can appear in Reaction Formation ‘overboarding’ as the person is going overboard in one direction to distract from and cover up something unwanted in the other direction....[Changing Minds.Org]
Or, to put it in proper psychoanalytic lingo, "Reaction-formation" is the term Freud uses to describe the mechanism whereby the ego reacts to the impulses of the id by creating an antithetical formation that blocks repressed cathexes. For example, someone who feels homosexual desire might repress that desire by turning it into hatred for all homosexuals." [Introductory Guide to Critical Theory; links in original]
Again, hmmm. But what do I know about it, really? Nothing, that's what. The Senator didn't do anything definitive or, according to me, that should really even have got him arrested.
Whatever Craig may or may not have intended, there's no denying that a number of vocal Republicans have trouble doing in their own lives as they'd have others do in theirs. The "reaction formation" theory is really just a passing thought. Another way to frame it---the less charitable, it seems to me---is as old-fashioned hypocrisy. And it's the appearance of hypocrisy that makes Republicans of a certain stripe look so much worse than, say, Bill Clinton, when their secret preferences (as they invariably do) suddenly come tumbling out of the closet. For example, if another sort of politician had got caught illicitly signalling under the cubicle for...well, whatever, we might raise an eyebrow, but then we'd leave it there as one of those matters that is very much none of our business.
It's when we see that someone has one rule for himself and a different set for others that tolerant people become intolerant of misconduct. I'm not a religious man myself, but it's clear to me that Christ was right about most of the things he said that I can understand, and one of them was this: "Judge not, lest ye be judged." It would be a handy motto for the religious cases in Congress and elsewhere to have inscribed on the walls of wherever people like that get together or embroidered into samplers or whatever so the words are in front of them 24/7. It's one thing to live down a sex scandal; it's another to live down one's exposure as a hypocrite.
update: OTHER BLOGGER REACTIONS:
Blogging Blue has an excellent piece on this here.
LINKS!
GOP Senator Pleaded Guilty After Restroom Arrest (Washington Post)
Yeah, as I mentioned in my blog, the folks who often are the most vocal opponents of homosexuality are often the ones who are the most conflicted about their own struggles as relates to sexuality. I'm just wondering when the GOP is going to stop presenting itself as the "party of family values," considering all the Republicans that have had problems practicing what they preach.
Posted by: BlueBlogger | August 28, 2007 at 02:07 PM
What a hypocrite.
Posted by: Starrlight | August 28, 2007 at 06:57 PM