Posted on 09/04/2007 7:48:46 PM PDT by RightOnTheLeftCoast
Ben Stein: Gestapo Tactics Got Larry Craig
Tuesday, September 4, 2007 7:39 PM
Former Sen. Larry Craig didn't do anything illegal and was railroaded with "Gestapo tactics," says actor and commentator Ben Stein.
Appearing recently on Your World With Neil Cavuto program, Stein remarked: "I don't like the idea that people are sitting in the next stall from you at a public bathroom listening to whether or not you tap your foot. This is, as I said, Gestapo tactics. Gestapo, Gestapo, Gestapo. It's not America."
Stein says Craig, who was arrested June 11 by Minneapolis police and pled guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct, is a victim of "pure police entrapment and thuggery."
"The police have real work to do at the airport," Stein says. "It's an airport, hello. There are security problems at airports. Al-qaida: Are you listening? Our security people are entrapping perfectly honest U.S. senators in lavatory stalls instead of looking for you terrorists."
Stein charges that police intimidated Craig into pleading guilty to disorderly conduct after he was arrested for tapping his foot in a bathroom stall at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.
Police say foot tapping is a common overture used to signal interest in a sexual encounter. Minneapolis police had reportedly made several arrests in recent months for lewd conduct in restrooms at the airport.
"A policeman drags him off, or verbally drags him off, starts browbeating him, essentially threatens he's going to ruin his career if the guy doesn't plead guilty right away," Stein tells Cavuto. "This is Gestapo tactics in Minneapolis-St. Paul. It's not nice."
Stein adds that it was wrong for GOP stalwarts to join the drumbeat for Craig's resignation: "This is some way to treat the people who have been loyal members of your party for many years. What did he do wrong? Suppose he was soliciting for gay sex. Gay sex is not illegal in the United States, the Supreme Court has said that. If it were illegal, it would be a different story. It's not illegal. He didn't do anything illegal, they're just bludgeoning him into a confession."
The Craig scandal points out a fundamental question about the balance of political power, according to Stein.
"On trumped up charges, they bring down the legislator and change the balance of power within the United States generally," he says. "This is a really serious case of police overreaching and the victim here is Larry Craig and the Constitution of the United States."
Craig has represented Idaho in Congress for over a quarter of a century and was up for re-election next year.
Ping!
He’s right because minorities are trying to destroy the America the majority wants to have.
Yes he is.
“essentially threatens he’s going to ruin his career if the guy doesn’t plead guilty right away”
Craig didn’t plead guilty until two months after the incident.
Part of me says Craig should resign and another part of me says all the Rep Senators should go up to the mic during the one minute speeches and out themselves, even if they are not gay.
essentially threatens he's going to ruin his career if the guy doesn't plead guilty right away,"
Exactly what originally disturbed me about this whole incident. I would feel the same way if this was a democrat. I don't know Craig's voting record, and I might wish him out of office if I did. However, unlike the Dems I am not willing to trample out Constitution and wreck havoc with our system to do it.
susie
LOL that’s kinda funny!
susie
I’ve always wondered if Craig wasn’t framed. Dimocats paying for the fake investigator??
Oops.
Dimocrats paying for the fake investigator??
I’ll be watching to see who falls for the dems plan to keep this silly story in the news. Everyone screaming he was railroaded is either just making it easier for the MSM to manipulate them or intentionally helping the dems keep their hope alive.
The Senator has said he intends to retire. I’ll wait and see if he knows how to keep his word to his constituents and party. In any case, stick a fork in him, he’s done. We need learn not to let the news world control us.
Maybe he is right about the police.
But if the fool had not gone into a public restroom seeking gay sex, it never would have happened.
I expect far more of Republican senators.
We are at war, this guy is off trying to get gay sex in public?
Yeah there is a double standard, life ain’t fair.
In all the coverage and investigation was Larry Criag even read his Miranda Rights?
Inquiring minds want to know.
I heard the interrogation again tonight on Anderson Cooper 360. Left hand, right hand, palm up, palm down, whose foot touched whose, when do they get to the part about what the crime is?
Larry Craig is real victim, the victim's victim, a real poster boy for victimhood. Larry has been practicing for victimhood his entire political career. In fact, in his first years in Washington during another congressional page sex scandal, he was so anxious to play the victim, he was denying accusations of things he was NEVER accused of.
You think it's fine for men to cruise for sex in public men's rooms!?
Ben’s off his rocker and a drama queen to boot. There’s a BIIIIIIIG difference between the tactics used by the Nazi Gestapo and the arrest of a perverted 62 yr old Senator in a filthy public bathroom.
The other morning in a local club parking lot a cop approached a car and found someone asleep behind the wheel. He knocked on the window, the guy in the car jumps out and punches the cop in the noise. After the fight, you should see the mug shot, the guy is arrested and thrown in jail. Turns out he's a cop from Kingsport Tennessee. LOL, accept a cops word , not likely!
Wasn’t Larry just tapping the dirt off his shoes so that he could use the special muslim foot baths?
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