Larry Craig, liar

By Michael J.W. Stickings

No, not about not being gay, or bisexual, or bi-curious, or whatever, and, no, not about what he was really doing, or looking for, in that washroom stall in Minneapolis. (We know what he is and we know what he was looking for.) No, this time it's about using the Internet. In that NBC interview with Matt Lauer the other night, he said this:

Matt, you won’t believe this. But I don’t use the Internet. I don’t have a computer at my desk. I’ve never used the Internet. It’s just not what I do.

Oh, he uses his BlackBerry, but that's it. Incredible? Yes, without credibility. Via Think Progress, the Examiner exposes the lie.

For more, see Arlen Parsa at The Daily Background (and Shakesville).

Is that Hall of Fame, or Hall of Shame?

By J. Kingston Pierce

There just seems to be no end to the bizarre saga of Larry Craig, the Republican senior U.S. senator from Idaho who was arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport this last summer after he allegedly endeavored to solicit gay sex in a bathroom stall.

Three months later, once news of his arrest and subsequent entering of a guilty plea had surfaced, he held a press conference during which he insisted, “I am not gay,” and said--or so listeners thought--that he would relinquish his Senate seat by the end of September. Craig’s Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill, still reeling from last year’s election-tipping scandal involving congressional pages and Representative Mark Foley (R-Florida), and battered more recently by news that Louisiana’s junior U.S. senator, Republican David Vitter, had been a client of prominent “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s escort service, appeared relieved that they could dispense with the Craig mess so quickly, without public hearings. Tom DeLay, the disgraced former U.S. House majority leader from Texas, smugly declared on Chris Matthews’ Hardball show that Republicans purge their bad apples from Congress, while Democrats rally behind theirs.

Yet within days of his news conference, Craig began backtracking from an apparent willingness to leave office early. He’s since sought to convince a Minneapolis judge that he should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea, on the grounds that it was somehow entered under pressure (the judge denied Craig’s motion), and has announced that he will serve out his present Senate term. This, despite the fact that it will likely drag on for months the coverage of behavior that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky)--also rumored to be gay--has already called “unforgivable.” As the Associated Press phrases it, “Now Republicans are powerless to stop a process almost certain to do more political damage to the party in general than to a retiring senator.” (I bet Idaho’s minority Democrats are salivating at the prospect of making Craig the poster boy for their state’s GOP failures in the next election, no matter who the actual Republican nominee for his seat turns out to be.)

If all of this idiocy and hypocrisy (Craig being one of the U.S. Senate’s leading homophobes) weren’t enough to bewilder Idahoans and other Americans alike, today brought Larry Craig’s induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame. Apparently, the decision to so honor the second-term senator was made last March, well before he started demonstrating his “wide stance” in a Twin Cities john. More than a few of his constituents thought Craig’s induction into the ranks of Idaho’s renowned citizens ought to be reconsidered, among them Kootenai County Republican precinct committeeman Phil Thompson. “Maybe in 10 or 15 years we can think of this hall of fame stuff. Now is not the time,” Thompson was quoted as saying this week. “It’s a sad day to be a Republican.”

Regardless of such understandable concerns, Craig joined 11 others in Boise this evening for their joint induction into that Hall of Fame. As one reader of the Idaho Statesman newspaper put it in commenting on the event, “I have never been more ashamed to be an Idahoan.”

READ MORE: “The GOP’s Crowded Closet,” by Joe Conason (Salon).

(Cross-posted from Limbo.)

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UPDATE: See our previous posts on the Larry "Wide Stance" Craig scandal here. -- MJWS

"The exploring eyes of predatory restroom stalkers"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Speaking of Larry Craig -- which I just did -- I've been meaning over the past couple of days to comment on the most recent developments of his ignominious fall.

As the Times put it: Craig "said Thursday that he would remain in the Senate through next year despite a court ruling against him in Minnesota, where he had sought to rescind his guilty plea stemming from an undercover sex sting." Which is to say, he's flip-flopped big-time on the whole resignation thing. He won't run for re-election, but he intends to stay in the Senate until his current term is up in January 2009.

Which is really bad news for Republicans, who correctly see Craig as a huge problem and who would prefer it if he left town, and got out of their hair, well in advance of next year's elections, but which is really good news for Democrats, who correctly see Craig as a huge problem for their opponents and who would prefer it if he stayed in town, remained in their hair, and continued to be a major embarrassment for them right through the elections, a huge reminder to voters of so much that is wrong with the Republican Party.

But let me quote in full a post by Eve Fairbanks at TNR's The Plank, which hits the main points:

Bad day for Larry Craig: His request to rescind his guilty plea in Stancegate was denied, in a withering decision that totally undermines Craig's claims that he made his guilty plea hastily. Craig spoke with the prosecuting attorney "many times" about his options and, with his plea, even included a handwritten note thanking the prosecutor for his "cooperation" (isn't that a creepy, condescending word?). But apparently Craig isn't resigning, despite this temporary setback. That noise you hear right now is the simultaneous screams of Mitch McConnell's entire leadership staff.

The funniest thing about the judge's decision, though, is the way it illuminates a point of confusion that emerged during the Craig affair: What law, exactly, governs toilet space? As it turns out, there's a bulk of precedent:

A person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in a public restroom stall. State v. Ulmer ... see also State v. Bryant ... The Ulmer court gave the following rationale: The design of the restroom here affords a user more than a modicum of privacy by virtue of the partitions that separate the urinals. When a person steps up to a urinal, the partitions and the user's body create a space in which the user would quite expect to be free from even incidental observation, let alone from the exploring eyes of predatory restroom stalkers. (my emphasis)

"Exploring eyes" is kind of poetic.

Indeed. Far more poetic than those Republicans screams.

The Craig-Haggard Connection

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There may or may not be any truth to it, but Mike Jones, the male escort with whom fundamentalist hypocrite Ted Haggard had both sexual and drug-oriented relations, is alleging that senatorial hypocrite Larry Craig, he of the wide stance, came to see him. Literally: "[H]e came to see me," in Denver, said Jones, during an interview with a Palm Springs radio station.

Unsurprisingly, the response from Craig's office is one of denial: "Mike Jones' allegations are completely false."

To be fair, though, Jones didn't offer much in the way of detail, sordid or otherwise.

So what to make of the allegation?

Mike Rogers, the blogger who has done so much to expose right-wing hypocrisy, including Craig's, called in and challenged Jones on air to back up his allegation -- and then called him on it: "You didn't sleep with Larry Craig, and I think what you're doing is, you're trying to get some juice here, Mike, for the book... If you did, you would've put out the proof."

Personally, I tend to agree with Atrios and Shakes: "This just can't be true." It's "too good to be true". And Rogers is, likely, right.

But what do I know? It might be true -- but then again, as Bernard Woolley once put it, anything might be true.

And the problem here is not just that the allegation seems incredible -- however much one might wish it were true, yet more hypocrisy on the right -- but that the alleger himself seems to lack credibility. Unless Jones can provide hard evidence, so to speak, one is right, with Rogers, to doubt the veracity of his allegation.

No matter the target, such dubious allegations are indefensible -- not to mention counter-productive to the admirable effort to expose right-wing hypocrisy wherever it may exist.

Ignorance is evidence of innocence

By Capt. Fogg

Senator Larry "restless leg" Craig: the season's biggest gift to the Stand-up comedy industry. Senator Bojangles Craig, his toes a tappin' and his lyin' lips a flappin' has got himself a lawyer to tell us all that his guilty plea was the result of stress from having been outed by an Idaho newspaper.

Billy Martin, advocate for the tap dancing Senator with the wide stance, assures us that photos of Craig in gay bars notwithstanding, a vehement denial "put to rest" all the evidence of gayness and so in order to assure everyone that he is not now and never has been a homosexual, he plead guilty to soliciting for gay sex in a toilet. Make sense? Ask a Republican like Arlen Spector.

Under Minnesota law, says Martin, a guilty plea can be overturned only if it was unknowing and unintelligent. Perhaps, if he can convince a judge that Craig is an idiot who doesn't know innocent from guilty he might have a chance. As Spector says, after all, "what Sen. Craig did was by no means intelligent."

If the "I'm not intelligent" defense works, just think of how soon we can empty the jails!

(Cross-posted at Human Voices.)

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.