Posted on 08/31/2007 2:04:37 PM PDT by freedomdefender
"When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state," wrote Shakespeare. Sen. Larry Craig knows today whereof the bard spoke.
Rarely has a United States senator fallen so fast from grace or been so completely abandoned.
As the nation now knows, Craig was arrested in June in an airport men's room in Minneapolis, charged with propositioning an undercover cop, who was on duty there because the place had become notorious.|
According to the officer, Craig, in the next stall, flashed known signals of a man seeking anonymous and immediate sex.
Rather than fight the charge, Craig pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct misdemeanor. This week, the story exploded and Craig is fighting what appears a losing battle for his career and reputation.
In a statement carried nationally, he declared his innocence of any allegation of immoral conduct. I did nothing wrong, I am not gay, he said again and again.
Yet it requires a suspension of disbelief to accept the complete innocence of Sen. Craig. After all, he pleaded guilty, and for years similar rumors have swirled about him. The Idaho Statesman has produced a tape of a man who claims to have had a recent sexual encounter with Craig in a men's room at Union Station in Washington, D.C.
Craig denies all and calls the Statesman investigation of his private life, going all the way back to college days, a witch hunt. In his favor, after 300 interviews, the Statesman came up with nothing solid save the Union Station allegation and the airport incident.
As ever, such episodes reveal almost as much about the accusers as about the accused. Reveling in Craig's disgrace, the liberal media not only cast the first stone, but most of them. They are mocking Craig as a family-values hypocrite who indulges privately in conduct he publicly condemns. But even assuming Craig has led a second and secret life, would that automatically make him a hypocrite, a fraud, an Elmer Gantry?
Is there no possibility a man can believe in traditional morality, yet find himself tempted to behavior that morally disgusts him? Is it impossible Craig is driven by impulses, the biblical "thorn in the flesh," of which Paul wrote, to behavior he almost cannot control?
Why else would a United States senator take the incredible risk of disgracing himself and humiliating his family, and ending his career, for a few minutes of anonymous sex in an airport men's room?
Is every alcoholic who falls off the wagon a hypocrite if he has tried to warn kids of the evil of alcohol? Many men have tried to live good lives and fallen again and again. They are called sinners.
Yet, if the charges are true, and it appears they are, Larry Craig has worse personal problems than his impending loss of office.
And how have his colleagues responded?
Republicans immediately denounced him, stripped him of all his seniority rights, and ordered an ethics committee investigation and a study of whether more immediate action should be taken.
Sens. John McCain and Norm Coleman called on him to resign. "(W)hen you plead guilty to a crime, you shouldn't serve," said McCain, adding, "That's not a moral stand."
Sorry, but the morality here is far more relevant than the admitted misdemeanor. If Craig had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for punching out an obnoxious heckler, he would not be friendless today.
The silence of most Democrats is understandable. If you belong to a party that declares homosexuality a moral lifestyle, that perhaps should be elevated to the level of matrimony, then what would Craig be guilty of, other than being horribly indiscreet?
Up to this week, Craig was one of only two senators to have come out for Mitt Romney. He headed up the Romney campaign in Idaho. He vouched for Mitt in Congress and the country.
And Mitt wasted no time throwing his Idaho chairman under the bus, adding he deserved it: "Once again, we've found people in Washington have not lived up to the level of respect and dignity that we would expect for somebody that gets elected to a position of high influence. Very disappointing. He's no longer associated with my campaign."
Larry Craig's conduct "reminds us," said Mitt, "of Mark Foley and Bill Clinton ... of the fact that people who are elected to public office continue to disappoint, and they somehow think that if they vote the right way on issues of significance or they can speak a good game, that we'll just forgive and forget."
"And frankly, it's disgusting."
That Mitt was decisive, that he was a "good butcher," as a prime minister must be, said Asquith, is undeniable. This speaks well of Mitt's executive intolerance of failures and failing. But one did not hear much here in the way of compassion for Larry Craig or his family.
Some senators, like Chris Dodd, cut Larry Craig some slack and asked that we hear him out before sentence is passed.
Count your friends when you're down, Nixon always advised.
Senator Craig IS guilty of STUPIDITY. OUR Senate Caucus (NOT the DEMOCRAT Caucus where Kennedy HOMICIDE and Dodd-Kennedy RAPE are TOLERATED) should expel STUPID Senator Craig; OUR Senate caucus does not deserve nor will it profit from STUPID Senator Craig.
Do you have sons? I have three.
You have no idea the anxiety I feel about their need to use a toilet in public places. When they’re little, they go with me into the ladies’. That works for a while. Then some women start to appear uncomfortable. Then my sons start to get uncomfortable. They want to go to the men’s room. They are embarrassed in the women’s room.
So I stand outside, waiting for them. And I hope.
I thank the police BIG TIME for these stings. This is not an “individual liberty” issue. These are public bathrooms. We moms can’t go in there (understandably). Just exactly what are we supposed to do?
He was the ONLY Senator to do so.
Made him seem strange ~
You mean the gay crowd over at CREW (who work for George Soros and who knows what that old coot does).
Pat just doesn't get it. The GOP can't afford to have ANY candidates with morality problems going into the next election. Perhaps Craig is innocent, but when he admitted guilt, he can't expect people to believe he's innocent now.
The GOP has MANY problems and perversion seems to be one of them. We HAVE to clean up the party and hopefully, this will put any more adulterers, homosexual, bisexuals or pedophiles on notice that they are NOT WELCOME in the GOP and they need to resign! IF Craig does not resign, he will lose anyway, because the RATS will use this against him in the election, and against the GOP in general, so he can do himself, his family and his party a favor and step down.
Barney is a demoncRAT so isn't expected to have any morals. His behavior is accepted as normal by his party.
If Senator Craig share those standards he should just change parties.
Pat's a class wordsmith. You could do worse than rip off his stuff.
No doubt Craig should have paid off the cop the same way Ted Kennedy paid off his victim’s parents.
Well done! Thanks for posting this.
“He tapped his shoe. It’s claimed he waved his hand under the edge of the stall. It’s claimed he nudged his neighbor’s foot.
Those are crimes? “
You are right. The guy filling in for Hannity today said essentially the same thing. Not to mention the cop sort of entrapped him. Aren’t there more serious crimes cops should be stopping? Not that I condone Craig looking for men in restrooms. That is pretty sleazy. But I think if he just announces he will not run for reelection, that should be the end of it. When you compare this to other more serious crimes other members of Congress (mostly Dems, but of course some Repubs too) have committed, it looks less serious.
Of course the left screams that all Republicans are hypocrites now because supposedly we all are gung ho about family values. I know Craig’s voting record was very conservative, and he opposed same gender marriage. But was he one to preach about moral values and condemn homosexuality or speak out on other “bedroom” related issues? If not then this claim of hypocrisy is wrong too.
No doubt Craig should have paid off the cop the same way Ted Kennedy paid off his victims parents.
****
That would only show more dishonor!
In this case, it is not a "mere accusation" that will cause Lavender Larry's resignation but his voluntarily entered guilty plea and conviction. Former Governor and then Congressman Janklow was driving at a very high rate of speed and blew a stop sign, broadsiding a motorcyclist and killing him. Wasn't alcohol also involved? Should he have gotten a "get out of jail free card" for being a public official?
That having been said, we do not need GOP senators, much less those who pose as social conservatives soliciting perverted sex in public men's rooms. Or any one else doing likewise. In fact, if it were a "unisex" public restroom, we don't need straights soliciting normal sex like that either.
Craig will not be missed. Time to move on. Our mothers were right: Two wrongs don't make a right. We need not to protect our guilty but to attack the Demonratic guilty far more effectively.
I do not disagree with you, but I am not sure that the analogy works in Senator Craig's case. I am not aware that he has tried to outlaw or criminalize homosexuality.
In the eyes of the Left, Craig's "crime" is supporting traditional marriage and opposing much of the radical homosexual agenda. They say that he is a homosexual, and that a homosexual must vote for "gay marriage" if he is to avoid the hypocrite label.
However, it is quite possible for one to support traditional marriage as public policy while failing to support one's own marriage.
To put it differently, would an alcoholic be a hypocrite for voting to criminalize drunk driving? Or must he vote to decriminalize drunk driving?
Or would you rather have the cops do some light policing to keep these pukes from making it impossible to use the public restrooms for their intended purpose?
Still, Teddy set the bar pretty low. Who could complain.
Don’t forget that McGreevey was forced out.
I still don’t understand why he was flying through Minneapolis?? There are direct flights from Salt Lake City to both D.C. airports. I have talked to Craig in Idaho Falls at the airport on our way to SLC to make connections on other flights. It is a routine connection...leave SLC at about 0930 and arrive in D.C. about 2:30, non-stop. I fly A LOT and I try my darndest to avoid stop-overs and transfers...the Minneapolis route puzzles me.
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