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.
“According to the officer, Craig, in the next stall, flashed known signals of a man seeking anonymous and immediate sex.”
It’s NOT SEX it’s SODOMY, SODOMY STINKS - the stink is the aroma of homosexual love. That is why only freaks get turned on in men’s bathroom stalls.
Craig is not "guilty" of being gay
..BUT
He IS guilty of lying to the entire nation
He IS guilty of attempting to participate in a practice that can have serious public health repercussions - given the high incidence of AIDS and other STD's among promiscuous gays what more effective way to spread those diseases nationwide than trysts between travellers in hub airports?
He IS guilty of risking his wife's health
He is guilty of betraying his wife.
The lying, alone, is sufficient reason to remove him from office.
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?
JANKLOW DESERVED JAIL, BUT THEN SO DID TED KENNEDY, BARNEY FRANK, GERRY STUDDS. I DON’T WANT GOP MEMBERS GETTING “GET OUT IF JAIL FREE” CARDS, I JUST WANT THE GOP TO PRESS THE DEMS AS HARD AS THE GOP PRESSES ITS OWN MEMBERS TO RESIGN OR ACCEPT INCARCERATION.
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.
ALSO TRUE. BUT I STILL DON’T SEE HOW TAPPING A FOOT CONSTITUTES A CRIME. IF HE HAD SEEN THAT SAME COP IN THE AIRPORT BAR AND SAID “HOW ABOUT A BJ?” I DON’T THINK HE WOULD HAVE BEEN ARRESTED...SO WHY DID FOOT-TAPPING MERIT ARREST? I HAPPEN TO BELIEVE CRAIG WAS SOLICITING SEX, AND FOR THAT HE DOESN’T DESERVE TO BE IN OFFICE, BUT IF ASKING THE COP IN THE LOUNGE FOR SEX ISN’T A CRIME, WHY WERE CRAIG’S ACTION IN THE BATHROOM ONE?
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.
AMEN TO THAT. BUT THE GOP OFFICIALS RUNNING FROM THIS ARE COWARDS. THEY OUGHT TO BE POINTING OUT THE FACT THAT THE DEMS AND THEIR GAY ALLIES FAVOR REPEAL OF THE KINDS OF LAWS THAT TRIPPED-UP CRAIG; AND THE GOP, THEREFORE NEEDS TO ASK THE GAYS AND DEMS WHY THEY DON’T SUPPORT CRAIG OVER THE ACTIONS OF “FASCIST” (THEIR CHARACTERIZATION) COPS.
Maybe that's what he's going to announce over the weekend.
There was a terrible time with these guys on a rest stop near Manassas Virginia on I66. Turns out McGreevey was part of the crowd causing a serious public disturbance.
The Democrat governor of Virginia failed to send the State Police to PA to pick him up for processing in our courts. That would be former Governor Mark Warner ~ apparantly he's soft on men's room homosexual sex cruisers.
Another reason he's not going to run for the Senate ~ one of these guys is enough eh!
This is one of the saner commentaries on the Craig situation.
FWIW - I asked a gay fellow I know who works legislative issues in the Senate about his thoughts on Craig and he said he was shocked by the allegations and had never heard any rumors that Craig was a homosexual.
It's not "Love" either..
When you are right, you are right!
“Aren’t there more serious crimes cops should be stopping”?
Perhaps, but as for me, I don’t want to go in a public Restroom and have two guys giving each other Blow Jobs (or worse) in the next stall.
A major rest stop in the Houston area had to be closed because of non stop queer sexual activity in and around the restrooms. I’m sick of rump rangers dictating policy in this Country.
Given that he seems to have been unaware of the police surveillance in MSP (well covered in the deviant sex sites) I'd suggest he hadn't taken that route for a while but had caught on to heightened surveillance in ORD (Chicago) ~ which has numerous beneficial flights between BOI and DCA.
Indeed, you both are correct.
Government, at all levels, is out of control.
I cannot help but feel our vital infrastructure (people)
is rotten to the core.
Last on out please turn off the lights.
Agreed.
The dems are silent because the republicans are demonstrating nauseous behavior with this. I think the republicans are acting like jerks.
THis man pled to doing something either knowing he was offending/alarming another whether he knew it was offensive or alarming. Outrageous that a mans job, reputation and career are gone because of that.
The cop was looking for a perp and anything this man did would have been suspicious. After all he was in a mens room and his foot was out of line.
don’t they have other duties in the airport, like looking for terrorists. Who can act damned offensive and alarming and not have a damned thing done to them.
I am with you.
I have never been in an airport without a family bathroom,,one room, with a lock for people with children.
Craig should be subject to a full background investigation by the FBI and one other separate and independent agency. He should be polygraphed by both as well to determine if his conduct has subject him to extortion or blackmail compromising National Security.
There are plenty of decent folk out there who will run who will serve honorably..
Tossing Craig simply scrubs one more stain from the Twin Chamber Pots of the House and Senate.
W
good point. i don’t know what his ultimate destination was. but evidently, this was a very well known spot for cruising. perhaps the lay-over (pun intended) was intentional.
A better quote from Harry Truman: "You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog."
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.