Posted on 08/31/2007 10:55:09 AM PDT by RatherBiased.com
The Larry Craig kerfuffle has led to some interesting reversals. Many have argued that Craig was hypocritical for being gay (though he denies it) and voting for the Defense of Marriage Act which made it so that gay marriage in one state would not have to mean gay marriage in another. I don't think that's a persuasive argument since there are plenty of openly gay people who do not support gay marriage.
Unquestionably one group of people has been hypocritical here. Not the Republicans or the Democrats. The most hypocritical group in all this has been the self-described mainstream (actually liberal) media. In her column today, Linda Chavez is right on the money:
There is something more than a little bizarre with the latest Washington feeding frenzy over Sen. Larry Craig. Don't get me wrong. I think what Sen. Craig did in the men's bathroom in Minneapolis was gross and sleazy. But is it really worthy of the press attention it has received this week? I just can't imagine a Democratic member of Congress being subjected to the same treatment if the facts, as we know them so far, were identical. [...]
If Democratic Sen. X's hypothetical arrest ever made it into the papers — doubtful, unless the senator chose to make it public — I suspect the tone of the coverage would be rather different than Sen. Craig's treatment.
I can just imagine the Washington Post inveighing against police entrapment and homophobia and demanding that the private sex lives of politicians remain private unless their behavior involved an abuse of their official duties.
Of course, it isn't just the media who are going after Sen. Craig. His fellow Republicans are piling on, calling for ethics investigations and, understandably, trying to distance themselves from him. Some are even asking him to resign. This has been a disaster for Republicans, whose base is far more concerned about morality and traditional values than are most Democrats. But this is all the more reason you might expect the press to be calling for a little perspective here. [...]
On the one hand, the media generally regards sexual orientation as a private matter, moreover one that is morally neutral. But because Sen. Craig is a conservative, although not someone who has had a history of gay-bashing, the media have had no qualms about violating his privacy. Indeed, Craig's home newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, spent five months delving into the senator's sex life.
Sen. Craig's political career is probably over. The abuse of power, however, was not Sen. Craig's but the media's, who pick and choose whose privacy they will violate on a partisan basis.
This is not merely a hypothetical. The same liberal elite who are today denouncing the "deviant" Larry Craig were also the same ones who excused the aberrant sexual behavior of former president Bill Clinton. How many times were we subjected to self-righteous harangues about how investigations into whether Clinton solicited sex from subordinates (thereby cheating on his wife) were intrusions into his "personal life?"
Where were today's guardians of moral and political rectitude back in 1969 when Democrat Ted Kennedy drove a car off a bridge with Mary Jo Kopechne in it? Where were the liberal media outcries to kick Democrat Barney Frank out of the Congress when he solicited a gay prostitute who in turn set up shop in his apartment?
This litany could go on and on. The point remains: Democratic sexual indiscretions are OK while Republicans' are not. This double standard should not exist in a media that is as fair as it pretends to be.
Last night on Larry King, some commentator gleefully declared that Craig ought to be careful because such stress could lead to suicide. They are really low.
Chris Matthews called him a “sexual deviant”. Will those who got Dr. Laura kicked off of tv move to “Stop Chris Matthews” too?
And, on Anderson Cooper 360 another commentator stated that Craig should immediately resign because he is now a convicted criminal and the law prohibits convicted criminals from serving in the Senate. Guess he forgot Ted Kennedy.
“But because Sen. Craig is a conservative”
Well, I guess he may be more conservative than the Hildebeeste, but then, so was Trotsky.
Why would the dems not jump all over this? They should, and we should yank his sorry ass out of the senate.
"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
As bizarre and unjust as it might seem, I don't believe Kennedy was ever convicted of a criminal offense. This IS Massachusetts, after all.
“Sen. Edward M. Kennedy pleads guilty to leaving scene of fatal accident at Chappaquiddick, Mass. (July 18), in which Mary Jo Kopechne was drowned—gets two-month suspended sentence.”
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005251.html
I thought Kennedy got a “leaving the scene of an accident charge”. Probably a fine and probation at most. But republicans never go after Kennedy or any other democrat as far as I can tell. William Jefferson is still in congress. But if a republican isn’t Jesus, we toss him overboard, and give the dems what they want.
Ted Kennedy has no convictions.
What all this goes to show is that conservatives care about morals, liberals don’t, and the media understand this and pander to it.
“Larry has got to go, that much is sure, but I do wonder about the police officer who arrested Larry based on innuendo. I listened to the audio tape last night, and I think that this is a cop with an ax to grind. Is the LEO a homosexual who doesn’t approve of Republican Senators? If nothing else, the tape makes Larry sound like he’s having a meltdown and the cop seem like a self-righteous, pompous jerk. Basically, Larry was found guilty of shoe touching.
That is not right, at all.”
Then Senator Craig should have stood his ground and pleaded not guilty and had his day in court. When you cut and run, you suffer the consequences.
Yeah, cops trying to make a bust can be boorish, arrogant, and self-righteous.
???It had escaped my notice that Craig had pleaded to a felony?
There’s a customary and much nastier undercurrent to this that hasn’t played out in the MSM just yet but is going on in liberal blogs all over, and it is this - a self-congratulatory chuckling at how easy it is to manipulate conservatives into eating one of their own. It’s as if holding their own politicians to no standards of behavior is somehow smart and sophisticated. These are also people who are indignant that there is a ruling elite that considers itself above the law and yet they put them in that position.
Larry Craig also plead guilty to a misdemeanor, not a felony:
Sen. Larry E. Craig pleaded guilty earlier this month to misdemeanor disorderly-conduct charges stemming from his June arrest by an undercover police officer in a men’s restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, a court spokeswoman and the senator’s office said yesterday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/27/AR2007082701235_pf.html
Not true:
1969: Kennedy pleads guilty over car crash
Senator Edward Kennedy has pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of a crime and has been sentenced to a two-month suspended jail sentence.
The verdict follows a tragic car accident on the island of Chappaquiddick, east of Martha’s Vineyard, a week ago in which 29-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne was drowned.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/25/newsid_2763000/2763525.stm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.