Senator Craig Blames Idaho Paper for His Legal and Political Problems

NEW YORK In a statement to the press late this afternoon, Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho blamed the Idaho Statesman of Boise for his legal and political troubles stemming from his arrest in a sex-related matter at an airport men's room in Minnesota in June.

He denounced the longstanding probes by the Statesman -- he called it a "witch hunt" -- for inspiring him to plead guilty to the offense even though he said he was actually innocent. He said he had been "viciously harassed" by the newspaper. "I am not gay," he said twice. "I love my wife."

The Statesman had looked into allegations about Craig but did not run a lengthy report until today -- the day after his arrest in June became public. But Craig pointed to today's story, and suggested that the paper's probes and the "rumors" they produced had caused him to want to put the matter behind him -- so he pleaded guilty to the men's room charge and told no one about it. "In June, I overreacted and made a poor decision," he said.

Craig also said he would not step down as senator and still planned to serve his state in Washington, and walked away without answering questions from the media...."

All sniping of Craig aside (I definitely think he was trying to do something), shouldn’t someone have to do more than hand/foot signals under a stall to be arrested for lewd conduct? I’m all for getting rid of perverts, but doesn’t there have to be some kind of agreement, like an exchange of money or a verbal commitment, or engagement in some kind of sexual behavior? Shouldn’t the officer have been recording the exchange? This whole setup seems unfair to me.

Yesterday on the local radio, some disk jockeys were doing "research" and asking gay drag queen guest speakers if there was some sort of public restroom code used by gays.

"Yes", was the answer. If you tap, I forget if it was the right foot or the left foot, in the bathroom stall, you are advertising, "I want gay sex and I want it NOW!"

"I did not know that", replied the disk jockey. Neither did I.

Learn something new every day.

So, all of you are hereby warned.

If you are in a stall in a public restroom doing what you are supposed to be doing on a toilet, do not ..... repeat ...DO NOT ..... plug your iPod into your earphones and start listening to that really catchy tune you always tap your foot to.

How do you know I was able to keep a straight face while I posted that?

The biggest problem with any story is that Craig hasn’t explained what he was doing sitting in a stall for minutes without pulling down his pants.

If he had pulled his pants down, then he wouldn’t be able to spread his feet wide.

If he didn’t pull his pants down, he wouldn’t be able to use the bathroom. And it’s really hard to come up with an innocent explanation of why he would sit on a toilet with his pants on for minutes, playing footsie with the guy next door.

Still, if he keeps up the denial, and resigns, he can probably live out his life with everybody close to him “choosing” to believe he wasn’t doing anything. Denial is a strong emotion, and so long as he leaves public office I’m not going to take that away from him, it’s between him and his loved ones.

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