Headline of the Day (Crazy Craig edition)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This one's awesome:

Bathroom Sex Senator Hires Vick's Lawyer

With this, Craig himself qualifies as our Craziest Republican of the Day. How so? If you're trying to resurrect your image, and overcome a guilty plea, and recant on your resignation, and convince everyone (including your wife, family, and constituents) that you weren't looking for "lewd conduct" in a public restroom (even though you played by the rules of the tearoom/cottage and seemingly knew what you were doing, tap-tapping away) -- well, if you're trying to do all that, and more, I'm not sure hiring Michael Vick's lawyer is the best move you can make.

Not that I'd equate cruising for cock in a public restroom with abusing and killing dogs, but, well, you think a U.S. senator, even one in the firm grip of self-denial, would have a bit more sense, no?

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Larry Craig = Bathroom Sex Senator.

I love that.

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Can we find out, please, if Craig is a top or a bottom? Someone must know. I'm guessing... bottom.

Michael Rogers must know, surely -- or perhaps the Idaho Statesman?

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Speaking of the Statesman, Craig's nemesis, here's our Lede of the Day: "To the dismay of fellow Republicans, Sen. Larry Craig launched a determined drive to save his seat today, vowing to stay in office if his guilty plea in a men’s room sex sting can soon be overturned."

Craig wants to clear his name, as he put it, and, according to The New York Times, he "delivered a letter to the Senate ethics committee today asking the committee to reject a complaint relating to his guilty plea in an airport sex sting operation," a move that "opens a potentially ugly battle between Mr. Craig and the Republican leadership, as Mr. Craig reconsiders his plans to resign from the Senate". The Statesman reported late today that "the ethics committee refused to set aside a complaint lodged against him".

And what is the Republican leadership saying? As Greg Sargent is reporting at TPM Election Central, Senator Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, said this today: "If [Craig] is able to get he case favorably disposed of in Minneapolis [before Sept. 20] it would be his intention to come back to the Senate, to deal with the ethics committee case that he knows he will have, and to try to finish his term."

Craig may have told McConnell he was not planning to run for re-election, however, and that could have softened the latter's position. After all, it was not so long ago that the Republican leadership was forcing Craig out of his committee assignments and many Republicans were calling for his resignation.

Hypocrisy and political expediency are everywhere, it seems.

If Craig can get off, so to speak, Republicans will act like nothing happened, nothing at all, for such is the Republican way, the way of their bigoted hypocrites: deny, deny, deny.

And pretend, to the point of utter delusion, that all is hunky-dory behind the facade of righteousness.