Posted on 09/11/2007 8:37:30 AM PDT by shrinkermd
Under pressure from a newspaper investigation, Sen. Larry Craig "panicked" and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport men's room, according to court papers filed Monday. The plea constitutes a "manifest injustice" and should be set aside, his lawyers say.
The 50-page filing in Hennepin County District Court said Craig feared his arrest in the airport sting would prompt the Idaho Statesman to publish a story examining his sexual orientation. The Republican, who has represented Idaho in the U.S. Senate for 17 years, "felt compelled to grasp the lifeline offered to him by the police officer, namely that if he were to submit to an interview and plead guilty, then none of the officer's allegations would be made public," the filing said.
Craig pleaded guilty by mail to disorderly conduct in August following his arrest in June. A police report alleged that Craig had solicited sex from police Sgt. Dave Karsnia, which the senator has denied.
If a judge had spoken with Craig, "the court would have quickly concluded that, faced with the pressure of an aggressive interrogation and the consequences of public embarrassment, Senator Craig panicked," the petition said.
Craig's lawyers also argued that the evidence is insufficient to support a guilty plea to disorderly conduct, defined by state law as "offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct or ... offensive, obscene, or abusive language tending reasonably to arouse alarm, anger or resentment in others."
Karsnia merely observed "several ambiguous -- but legal -- hand and foot gestures," the petition said.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
That kind of mental thought has no place in the U.S. Senate.
CRAIG’S A ‘MO
WE ALL KNOW
GO AWAY GO
(is that a haiku?)
Larry...please...go...away...
Regardless of ANYTHING else (did, didn't, illegal, not illegal, thrown under the bus or not, etc.), such poor judgement (allowing himself to be stampeded) and seeming ease with which he could have been subject to blackmail, makes him unfit for duty as a member of our government. That being said, there are plenty of other Congresscritters/Senators with poor judgement and bad/criminal behavior who are unfit for office and who need to GO.
Was it gay panic?
So what. Craig is done — and we don’t want him back.
Your right...when is that pathetic phone sex maniac who love whores, Vetter leaving Senate? He will be used against us next year too. I wish he would quietly go away.
Just something us commonsensniks always knew. Gays are disturbed in some way.
Craig didn’t do anything wrong, but he was fixin to.
Watta pansy.
Haiku are five syllables to the first line, seven to the second, five to the third.
So no, it’s not. :)
He’s a poofter... of course he panicked!
This ego maniac would rather see another loss of seats to leftwingnuts, at a moment when the leftwingnuts proposals echo bin Laden and company, almost exactly, rather than resign.
He should be ejected from the GOP immediately for that alone.
We can’t afford this closet queens bullshit much longer.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
A person who doesn’t have sense enough to hire an attorney has no business writing this nations laws.
The newspapers witch-hunt was atrocious.
Full of innuendo and "allegation".
Ridiculous. If I was Craig, I would have pled guilty to disorderly too in order to keep the newspaper from having their celebrations.
Unfortunately, this is what happened anyway...due to a cop leaking info which he promised he wouldn't.
this guy is a complete moron. if he just shut up and retired people would just forget about him. He is keeping himself on the news, in the papers, as the punchline of jokes on David Letterman etc etc
this guy is a complete moron. if he just shut up and retired people would just forget about him. He is keeping himself on the news, in the papers, as the punchline of jokes on David Letterman etc etc
Good grief -- it took 50 pages for these attorneys to say that he pleaded when he shouldn't have? Guess they are getting paid by the word.
If Craig had nothing to hide from an investigation of his sexual orientation, why the heck did he panic? It is not as if his sexual orientation hasn't been in question ever since the 1960s. He has never denied being bi-sexual anyway, which is probably the case.
This one is ...
Larry Craig’s not gay
or so he much likes to say
so what go away
As to why he was terrified about being accused as a homosexual one need only read the comments on this thread to understand he had a valid reason to be fearful.
That said, it is the usual case that personal, sexual relationships are not a subject of public discourse unless they interfere with the job or are of legal import. That is an unspoken societal rule.
Species sameness—that is heterosexuality—is a strong cultural value. Those that transgress this are seen more with disgust and fear. “Homodisgustia” rather than homophobia seems to be the dominant theme even on this thread. This may be a deep-seated biological reaction rather than a culturally determined feeling.
As to homosexual marriage—the thrust here from homosexuals is to dominate and change the perception of the general culture. They believe, either overtly or covertly, that “marriage” equals normality. This is a form of denial common in all forms of mental disorders and aberrant or rare social actions. Broadly, speaking, homosexuality is statistically rare and does not result in procreation or the use of the sexual organs as required for species continuation; hence, homosexuality is not normal since statistical rarety and biological aim result in the judgement of "abnormality."
All that said, there is no reason to either resent or punish homosexual behavior. The exceptions are power arangements—children and wards—and culturally defined illegalities that include public decorum.
As to public decorum, defecating in public, urinating in public or having intercourse in public are strongly prohibited in Western societies.
How nice. If I get the chance I'll watch the case on court TV. In the meantime, he has nothing to do with Republican politics any more now that we know he's a pervert. He needs to just go away.
It’s as plain as the nose on one’s face:
Craig pleaded guilty in hopes that would bury the story and no one would be the wiser. When the story broke it was apparent he’d bet wrong.
Now he wants a do-over.
If he won’t go willingly, the folks in Idaho need to start a recall....now!
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