Posted on 09/01/2007 10:18:20 PM PDT by smoothsailing
September 02, 2007, 0:00 a.m.
Culture of Corruption
Looking beyond “courageous” Craig assessments.
By Mark R. Levin
So, Larry Craig is gone. He solicited sex without actually soliciting sex or having sex. He pled guilty, but not to lewd behavior — to disorderly conduct (a misdemeanor). He is said to have a secret life involving same sex partners, but where are all these partners? According to one report, a guy in college believes Craig hit on him in 1967. Another says he “believes” he performed oral sex on the senator in a restroom at Union Station. He’s not 100-percent sure. If Craig has been living this secret life since 1967, you’d think others would come forward at some point. Maybe they will. So far, they haven’t. Indeed, where is all the evidence of Craig’s seedy life? Where are the photos, the video, the audio, the solid witnesses, and the rest of the evidence? And if the case against Craig in that airport restroom was so compelling, if it was so sleazy, if authorities wanted to send a message to others, why didn’t prosecutors take Craig to trial? Why let him go with a disorderly conduct misdemeanor? Were they doing him a favor? I don’t think so. They conducted a sting operation without any sting. Let me suggest not only couldn’t they make a gross misdemeanor charge stick, they would have lost the disorderly conduct charge, too. Read the statute. But the law is an ass, as they say. This is an issue of morality.
The truth is I don’t know Larry Craig. And it’s possible he is everything some say he is. But they say it without facts. Is that moral? When the news of Craig’s bathroom encounter first broke, I thought Craig must have been involved in a Pee Wee Herman moment — or something. But he didn’t even touch himself, let alone the officer in any sexually overt way. He didn’t expose himself. Hell, he was in a bathroom stall. And neither he nor the officer exchanged a single word about having sex. In fact, Craig never said a word. In the end, what we have here is a shoe touch … or was it a tap? That, along with his hand on the divider between the stalls and something or other was, we are told, code for soliciting sex. It seems to me that the officer should have taken the sting operation at least one more step, no? Wasn’t he a little premature in flashing his badge when he did?
Let’s be honest. I have no idea who Larry Craig is beyond his senatorial record, and neither do any of his outspoken critics. Even if he lives a secret life, we know nothing of it. It remains secret, if it exists.
Today some Republicans pat themselves on the back for their “courageous” stand against liberal charges of hypocrisy as they were early in their denunciation of Craig. Now, these would be the same liberals who show routinely their hypocrisy embracing Bill Clinton (accused of rape), Barney Frank (accused of allowing his home to be used for male prostitution), and the late Gerry Studds (who had sex repeatedly with a seventeen-year-old page). These Republicans fear the “culture of corruption” label the liberals have assigned them and aren’t quite sure how to respond to it. Mostly, they refuse to fire back by highlighting the numerous examples of demonstrable sleaze involving William Jefferson (alleged bribe), Alan Mollohan (alleged self-dealing), John Murtha (earmarks related to his brother), Dianne Feinstein (her husband profiting from military contracts), Hillary Clinton (Norman Hsu, et al), and, of course, the aforementioned Clinton, Frank, and Studds examples.
There is indeed a culture of corruption, and it extends well beyond any single politician. It swirls around big government. It always has and it always will. It has become institutionalized in many ways. And that culture of corruption celebrates clever word games used by unelected judges to exercise power they don’t have as they rewrite the Constitution; it demeans people of faith who speak out against the culture of corruption and for — dare I say — family values; it undermines and seeks to demoralize Americans in uniform as they fight a horrible enemy on the battlefield; it demonizes entrepreneurs and successful enterprises; it uses race, age, religion, gender, and whatever works to balkanize Americans; and so on. This is the real culture of corruption. Let’s call it what it is — modern liberalism. And its impact on our society is far worse than the disorderly-conduct misdemeanor to which Larry Craig pled guilty and for which he has now resigned.
— Mark R. Levin, a former Reagan-administration Department of Justice aide, is president of the Landmark Legal Foundation and nationally syndicated radio-talk-show host.
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National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjVhMzdiZWNmNGNjYTAyMTBmOWEyYjRhZDQ2MTY3OTE=
Mark hit the nail on the head. How quick the right is to dance for the amusement of the left.
bump
I'd say Craig got stung pretty good. The family, the job, the national news.....
Craig is guilty by his own admission. I don't get Levin on this one.
The guy was caught illegally soliciting sex in the bathroom. No two ways about it. He pleaded guilty to it as far as I am concerned.
Cops arrest ordinary people that way everyday. Why should senators be exempt.
If senators don’t like all these laws, they shouldn’t be passing them or letting the judicial branch get unequal power.
If he had a “D” after his name...Levin wouldn’t have wasted his time writing a column.
Huh. A rare miss for the Great One.
It’s not like Mark to downplay piles and piles of circumstantial evidence like this.
Great column and Mark Levin nailed it with those few words. Those modern liberals are also hypocrites and no one will call them on it.
Pinging some of the Levin Lounge regulars to a column by TGO...
Agree. Mark’s Commentary is spot on.
I have also heard him on the subject on his talk show.
I think some folks need to reread his article to understand what is said.
I heard a gay activist say that there are 1100 changes they want in the law. If people are being arrested for signals, that’s a no brainer. A law school clerk ought to be able to get that declared unconstitutional.
If senators don’t like all these laws, they shouldn’t be passing them or letting the judicial branch get unequal power.
I don't claim to know with any certainty what was going on, but I would like to remind you that innocent people DO get caught up in stings every day... While it's rare, it does happen. In fact, just the other day there was a thread here on FR about a man who was arrested in a sting for soliciting a prostitute. He claims that he went to try to help a woman who seemed to be distressed. It was a he said/she said situation. The odd thing was that the man had his wife and daughter in the car with him at the time.
He was still arrested, his car impounded, and the wife and daughter left there at the side of the road.
Mark
Now ain't that sweet, he did nothing wrong, except expecting Republican wimps to back him up.
Oh, and have you seen the video?
The guy was wrong. He had to go. People engaging in that kind of behavior should not hold political office. It’s not a matter of wimps or guts.
This bears repeating...
"There is indeed a culture of corruption, and it extends well beyond any single politician. It swirls around big government. It always has and it always will. It has become institutionalized in many ways. And that culture of corruption celebrates clever word games used by unelected judges to exercise power they don’t have as they rewrite the Constitution; it demeans people of faith who speak out against the culture of corruption and for — dare I say — family values; it undermines and seeks to demoralize Americans in uniform as they fight a horrible enemy on the battlefield; it demonizes entrepreneurs and successful enterprises; it uses race, age, religion, gender, and whatever works to balkanize Americans; and so on. This is the real culture of corruption. Let’s call it what it is — modern liberalism. And its impact on our society is far worse than the disorderly-conduct misdemeanor to which Larry Craig pled guilty and for which he has now resigned.
There's nothing there, but you, like too damn many, just send him down the river.
It's a shame we don't stand tall, it's a shame we let the media define our decisions, it's a shame we would abandon any noble man.
There's no proof of anything here, other than Senator Craig's mistake of trying to make it go away instead of saying the whole thing is bullshit.
That's all he did wrong, and if you are honest, you will agree.
If he’d had a D by his name no one would have even heard about this. It happened months ago.
Can’t argue with that....
Having arrived at that terminal, presumably with a full bladder and/or lower intestine, why would he stand there waiting 13 minutes for a particular stall in that bathroom?
Mr. Levin, do you consider it normal behavior for a man in a public toilet stall to keep placing his foot and hand under the divider into an adjacent occupied stall?
Do you consider it normal and expected behavior for that man to slide his foot so deeply into the adjacent stall that it actually contacts the foot of the person sitting in that neighboring stall?
Mr. Levin, how is it possible for a sitting man to have his pant waist at mid-thigh and abduct his leg that far without tearing his pants?
Why would a powerful and well-to-do man who is arrested for something he didn't do waive his right to legal counsel, confess, pay a fine and submit to conditions of probation?
And why would such a man not tell his wife about all this injustice to which he was subjected?
Mr. Levin, would you trust a man who admitted guilt before a judge but subsequently denied his guilt on camera?
And Mr. Levin, are you aware that when the 1982 page boy sex scandal broke, Senator Craig was the only legislator in Congress who publicly insisted "it wasn't me" -- before anybody had even suggested that it was?
And lastly, Mr. Levin, wouldn't you agree that there is no rational explanation for all this strange behavior on Mr. Craig's part, other than his intent to initiate sexual activity in that bathroom?
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