If you read the transcript of the police's questioning of Craig he either has to drag this into court for all the world and or can just plead to the lesser charge, pay a fine quietly and make the flight he says he cannot miss. It reads as if his plea was on the razor's edge of coercion.
Given how this has played out politically, can you blame him for wanting to avoid the Media controversy? He's damned either way with no means of defending himself if not guilty.
In the interview he never agrees to the cop's reading of the signals, the cop doesn't even give specifics about the supposed communication sent and recieved.
There's nothing unambiguous. There was no exposure, no touching, no words exchanged, no notes nor any specific interpretation the cop gave to each foot or hand exchange.
If the cop got these signals, who was Craig saying should do what? There's no corroboration. The cop was tasked to address cottaging in the airport bathroom and was thus highly motivated to get pleas, generating "we did something" stats for the public.
Craig questions the hand the cop claimed to see. The cop said it was Craig's left running along the right-side divider. Craig appears to be right-handed.
For me this cop, having sat for 13 minutes in the stall, motivated to generate arrests, pulled out of this alleged "exchange" too early to show me cause for the arrest. The freaked out GOP mishandled this badly. It's like shooting ducks in a barrel for the Left.
Leftist activists want Craig's scalp because he voted for DOMA and they scream "hypocrisy" which is always the Democrat battle cry against the GOP.
Mitt threw his loyal supporter Craig under the bus to pander to value voters he's weak with.
The "facts" tell me this is not something to end Craig's (apparently solid) career on before voters of Idaho can have their say in the next primary election.
I’m tired of those attacking Romney for this. Romney had a volunteer on his campaign, who PLED GUILTY to disorderly conduct in the bathroom.
It’s not like he was throwing a friend out of his house because the guy picked his nose. A campaign position is not for the person holding the position, it’s for the candidate. There is NOTHING helpful to a candidate to have person who has become notorious on their staff.
Staff get removed for much less than this. They get removed for making one improper remark, making one bad comment on a web page, or sometimes even simply for having the wrong companions.
Mitt correctly called the behavior Craig pled guilty to as abhorent. He had no way to know that Craig would later claim he was coerced into a guilty plea and actually did nothing — and there’s no value in Mitt coming out NOW and retracting his statement.