Idaho-mo
This guy is on a train that ends with a sweaty palm around the trigger and a bullet to the temple. I really feel bad for this guy. I can't imagine the self-loathing this man must have been dealing with for decades. Being an openly gay Republican is one thing but being a closeted one? What did he have to tell himself for years on end, that he was just researching the enemy?
"How's the despair?"
From Slate:
Same Sex
Larry Craig's anti-gay hypocrisy.
By William Saletan
Posted Thursday, Aug. 30, 2007, at 4:00 PM ET
If Larry Craig were held to the standard of sexual conduct he imposes on the U.S. armed forces, he'd be out of his job.
Fourteen years ago, in his first term as a Republican senator from Idaho, Craig helped to enact the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. It stipulates:
A member of the armed forces shall be separated from the armed forces under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Defense if one or more of the following findings is made and approved in accordance with procedures set forth in such regulations: (1) That the member has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act or acts unless there are further findings … that the member has demonstrated that—(A) such conduct is a departure from the member's usual and customary behavior; (B) such conduct, under all the circumstances, is unlikely to recur; … [and] the member does not have a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts.
The policy reappears verbatim in the U.S. Code and in regulations of the armed services. The Air Force, for instance, says any airman will be discharged if he "has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act."
According to the report filed by the officer who arrested Craig at the Minneapolis airport in June, Craig stood outside the officer's bathroom stall for two minutes, repeatedly looked at the officer "through the crack in the door," sat in the stall next to the officer, tapped his foot, and gradually "moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot … within my stall area." Craig proceeded to "swipe his hand under the stall divider for a few seconds" three times, palm up, using the hand farthest from that side of Craig's stall. Most of these gestures, the officer explained, were known pickup signals in a room known (and hence under surveillance for) public sex. When the officer took Craig outside and told him so, Craig claimed he had been reaching down with his hand to retrieve a piece of paper from the floor. The officer wrote that no such paper had been on the floor.
Two months later, Craig signed a plea agreement stating that he had "reviewed the arrest report" and that "in the restroom," he had "engaged in conduct which I knew or should have known tended to arouse alarm or resentment." Officially, the charge to which he pleaded guilty was disorderly conduct.
I feel sorry for Craig. I hate the idea of cops going into bathrooms and busting people for coded gestures of interest. I'd rather live, let live, and tell the guy waving his hand under the stall to buzz off. But that's not the standard Craig applies to others. Any gay soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine who admitted to doing what Craig has admitted would, at a minimum, lose his job for violating DADT. In fact, many have been kicked out for less.
Most people think "don't ask, don't tell" means that if you don't announce that you're gay, you can keep your job. It should mean that. But in practice, if you don't tell, the military can—and often does—investigate and interrogate you until you're forced to tell.
Margaret Witt, a major in the Air Force Reserve, is in the process of being discharged for lesbianism. How did investigators find out she was gay? An anonymous tip. They tracked down her former partner, a civilian, and got the woman to admit that she and Witt had lived together. When they interrogated Witt, she confessed. If she hadn't, they could have prosecuted her for "false official statements" and imprisoned her for five years. Last fall, a federal judge conceded that Witt had "served her country faithfully and with distinction" and "did not draw attention to her sexual orientation." Nevertheless, he concluded, she had no constitutional grounds to contest her discharge. If you don't tell, they make you tell.
Six years ago, the Army kicked out Alex Nicholson, an interrogator, under DADT. How did he disclose his homosexuality? He mentioned it in a letter to a friend—in Portuguese. A colleague found the letter, translated it, and outed him. "Nobody asked me if I was gay and I wasn't telling anyone," says Nicholson. "You would think that a private letter that you had written in a foreign language would be sufficiently safe." But you would be wrong.
Last year, the Army discharged Bleu Copas, a sergeant, from the 82nd Airborne. The basis? Anonymous e-mails. The first time superiors asked Copas whether he was gay, the context was informal, and he denied it. The next time, they put him under formal interrogation—"Have you ever engaged in homosexual activity or conduct?"—and he refused to answer. Eventually, to avoid prosecution for perjury, he gave in.
Four days ago, the Stockton, Calif., Record reported the recent expulsion of Randy Miller, a paratrooper who served in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne. His offense? Being in a gay bar—and rejecting a proposition from a fellow soldier, who apparently retaliated by reporting him to the Army. Like Witt, Miller admitted his homosexuality, but only under interrogation. If you don't tell, they make you tell.
Compare any of these cases to Craig's. You cohabit quietly with a same-sex partner for six years. You write a letter to a friend in Portuguese. You deny being gay but are interrogated until you give up. You're spotted in a gay bar rejecting a sexual overture. For these offenses, you lose your career, thanks to a man who stared and extended his hands and feet repeatedly into a neighboring bathroom stall.
Were Craig's gestures ambiguous? Not by his own standards. He signed off on the arrest report. Under DADT, he'd have to prove that what he did was "a departure from [his] usual and customary behavior," that it was "unlikely to recur," and that he did "not have a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts." But the Idaho Statesman reports three other incidents, from 1967 to 2004, in which Craig allegedly made similar overtures. On the Statesman's Web site, you can listen to an interview in which one of the men describes his tryst with Craig in a public bathroom. These accounts, combined with Craig's arrest report, would easily get him thrown out of the Army if he were a soldier.
Has Craig's arrest chastened him about DADT? Not a bit. Two weeks ago, in a letter to a constituent, he reiterated his support for the policy. "I don't believe the military should be a place for social experimentation," Craig wrote. "It is unacceptable to risk the lives of American soldiers and sailors merely to accommodate the sexual lifestyles of certain individuals."
Now you know why Craig is trying to withdraw his guilty plea. The cardinal rule of "don't ask, don't tell" isn't heterosexuality. It's hypocrisy. The one thing you can't do is tell the truth.
In that sense, Craig is honoring the policy in his own life. But that's the only sense. I don't think what he did should cost him his career. I'd like to cut him some slack. But first, I'd like to restore the careers of a few thousand other gay Americans who have done a lot more for their country.
William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.
Same Sex
Larry Craig's anti-gay hypocrisy.
By William Saletan
Posted Thursday, Aug. 30, 2007, at 4:00 PM ET
If Larry Craig were held to the standard of sexual conduct he imposes on the U.S. armed forces, he'd be out of his job.
Fourteen years ago, in his first term as a Republican senator from Idaho, Craig helped to enact the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. It stipulates:
A member of the armed forces shall be separated from the armed forces under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Defense if one or more of the following findings is made and approved in accordance with procedures set forth in such regulations: (1) That the member has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act or acts unless there are further findings … that the member has demonstrated that—(A) such conduct is a departure from the member's usual and customary behavior; (B) such conduct, under all the circumstances, is unlikely to recur; … [and] the member does not have a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts.
The policy reappears verbatim in the U.S. Code and in regulations of the armed services. The Air Force, for instance, says any airman will be discharged if he "has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act."
According to the report filed by the officer who arrested Craig at the Minneapolis airport in June, Craig stood outside the officer's bathroom stall for two minutes, repeatedly looked at the officer "through the crack in the door," sat in the stall next to the officer, tapped his foot, and gradually "moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot … within my stall area." Craig proceeded to "swipe his hand under the stall divider for a few seconds" three times, palm up, using the hand farthest from that side of Craig's stall. Most of these gestures, the officer explained, were known pickup signals in a room known (and hence under surveillance for) public sex. When the officer took Craig outside and told him so, Craig claimed he had been reaching down with his hand to retrieve a piece of paper from the floor. The officer wrote that no such paper had been on the floor.
Two months later, Craig signed a plea agreement stating that he had "reviewed the arrest report" and that "in the restroom," he had "engaged in conduct which I knew or should have known tended to arouse alarm or resentment." Officially, the charge to which he pleaded guilty was disorderly conduct.
I feel sorry for Craig. I hate the idea of cops going into bathrooms and busting people for coded gestures of interest. I'd rather live, let live, and tell the guy waving his hand under the stall to buzz off. But that's not the standard Craig applies to others. Any gay soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine who admitted to doing what Craig has admitted would, at a minimum, lose his job for violating DADT. In fact, many have been kicked out for less.
Most people think "don't ask, don't tell" means that if you don't announce that you're gay, you can keep your job. It should mean that. But in practice, if you don't tell, the military can—and often does—investigate and interrogate you until you're forced to tell.
Margaret Witt, a major in the Air Force Reserve, is in the process of being discharged for lesbianism. How did investigators find out she was gay? An anonymous tip. They tracked down her former partner, a civilian, and got the woman to admit that she and Witt had lived together. When they interrogated Witt, she confessed. If she hadn't, they could have prosecuted her for "false official statements" and imprisoned her for five years. Last fall, a federal judge conceded that Witt had "served her country faithfully and with distinction" and "did not draw attention to her sexual orientation." Nevertheless, he concluded, she had no constitutional grounds to contest her discharge. If you don't tell, they make you tell.
Six years ago, the Army kicked out Alex Nicholson, an interrogator, under DADT. How did he disclose his homosexuality? He mentioned it in a letter to a friend—in Portuguese. A colleague found the letter, translated it, and outed him. "Nobody asked me if I was gay and I wasn't telling anyone," says Nicholson. "You would think that a private letter that you had written in a foreign language would be sufficiently safe." But you would be wrong.
Last year, the Army discharged Bleu Copas, a sergeant, from the 82nd Airborne. The basis? Anonymous e-mails. The first time superiors asked Copas whether he was gay, the context was informal, and he denied it. The next time, they put him under formal interrogation—"Have you ever engaged in homosexual activity or conduct?"—and he refused to answer. Eventually, to avoid prosecution for perjury, he gave in.
Four days ago, the Stockton, Calif., Record reported the recent expulsion of Randy Miller, a paratrooper who served in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne. His offense? Being in a gay bar—and rejecting a proposition from a fellow soldier, who apparently retaliated by reporting him to the Army. Like Witt, Miller admitted his homosexuality, but only under interrogation. If you don't tell, they make you tell.
Compare any of these cases to Craig's. You cohabit quietly with a same-sex partner for six years. You write a letter to a friend in Portuguese. You deny being gay but are interrogated until you give up. You're spotted in a gay bar rejecting a sexual overture. For these offenses, you lose your career, thanks to a man who stared and extended his hands and feet repeatedly into a neighboring bathroom stall.
Were Craig's gestures ambiguous? Not by his own standards. He signed off on the arrest report. Under DADT, he'd have to prove that what he did was "a departure from [his] usual and customary behavior," that it was "unlikely to recur," and that he did "not have a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts." But the Idaho Statesman reports three other incidents, from 1967 to 2004, in which Craig allegedly made similar overtures. On the Statesman's Web site, you can listen to an interview in which one of the men describes his tryst with Craig in a public bathroom. These accounts, combined with Craig's arrest report, would easily get him thrown out of the Army if he were a soldier.
Has Craig's arrest chastened him about DADT? Not a bit. Two weeks ago, in a letter to a constituent, he reiterated his support for the policy. "I don't believe the military should be a place for social experimentation," Craig wrote. "It is unacceptable to risk the lives of American soldiers and sailors merely to accommodate the sexual lifestyles of certain individuals."
Now you know why Craig is trying to withdraw his guilty plea. The cardinal rule of "don't ask, don't tell" isn't heterosexuality. It's hypocrisy. The one thing you can't do is tell the truth.
In that sense, Craig is honoring the policy in his own life. But that's the only sense. I don't think what he did should cost him his career. I'd like to cut him some slack. But first, I'd like to restore the careers of a few thousand other gay Americans who have done a lot more for their country.
William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
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FilmFan720
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David Ehrenstein, who can often be a pretentious twat, writes about the Craig affair, then round-about gets the generational divide at the heart of the issue:
Our (not so) private Idahos
Sen. Larry Craig's arrest shows that 'Tearoom Trade' is alive and well despite the progress of gay rights.
By David Ehrenstein
August 30, 2007
Gentle reader, by now you've probably read more than you ever nightmared you'd want to know about the latest Republican gay-sex scandal. The revelation that Idaho Sen. Larry Craig was caught allegedly trolling for sex in a Minnesota airport men's room in June comes on the heels of Florida state Rep. Robert Allen's July restroom arrest, making it reasonable to suspect that yet another GOP bathroom bust may burst forth by the time this Op-Ed article goes to press.
But barring further white-tiled tragedy, the all-too-obvious question remains, "What in the Sam Hill is going on here?" The answer rests on what can safely be described as bipartisan grounds.
To get there, let's climb into the Wayback Machine and return to Oct. 7, 1964. That's when Walter Jenkins, one of the most senior aides in President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration, was arrested for soliciting sex in the men's room of a Washington YMCA. Being that it was three weeks before the election, LBJ suspected some kind of Republican foul play, but the GOP chose not to exploit the incident.
The Jenkins affair put "homosexuality" on the nation's front pages in a way it hadn't been since Dr. Alfred Kinsey's famous report in 1948.
Like Craig, Jenkins could well have said he "wasn't gay." But who was in 1964? Then as now, if you were wealthy and well-connected, you could enjoy what's contemporarily referred to as a "gay lifestyle" with some ease -- and a soupçon of caution. For those less well-off, danger lurked. Sodomy laws were on the books. Bars and clubs catering to the same-sex-oriented were "speakeasy" affairs often run by Mafiosi who bribed the police to stay open. When the money didn't arrive on time or in insufficient quantity, such clubs were raided.
On June 28, 1969, when New York's far-from-fashionable Stonewall Inn was raided, the patrons responded by fighting the cops. Although gays and lesbians had resisted before (often right here in Los Angeles), this Manhattan uprising served to jump-start the modern phase of the gay rights movement.
That movement, with its defiant insistence on being free to be as gay as all-get-out, quickly left the likes of Walter Jenkins and, if the cops were right, Larry Craig in the dust. They're part of a subculture within a subculture that was memorably identified by the daring sociologist Laud Humphreys in a landmark sociological study titled "Tearoom Trade."
Taking his cue from Kinsey, Humphreys was fascinated with married-with-children men who didn't self-identify as gay or bisexual, yet still sought clandestine sex with other men on the side. Humphreys, when he began his research, was one of these I'm-not-gay(s) himself, though he eventually came out.
Published in 1970, "Tearoom Trade" is full of useful information about foot tapping, shoe touching, hand signaling and all the other rituals those so inclined use to make contact with one another in such places. Clearly no media outlet should be without a copy -- especially Slate.com, whose editors revealed their cluelessness on the subject this week in a "real time conversation" rife with unintentional hilarity: "I can't believe it's a crime to tap your foot." "Can someone explain the mechanics of how two people are supposed to commit a sex act in a stall where legs are visible from the knee down?"
As for the less blinkered among us, in the age of Ellen DeGeneres, Neil Patrick Harris, "Brokeback Mountain" and the smooching gay teens on "As the World Turns," bathroom cruisers seem almost antique. Today's gays want to get married, and an airport men's room is no place to propose.
Moreover, if what you're "proposing" falls well short of marriage, there's always the Internet. Larry Craig, meet Craigslist. In short, never has the admonition "Get a room!" seemed more apropos. It's up to the I'm-not-gay(s) to discover the real freedoms fought for and won by the people they so fiercely claim they're not.
David Ehrenstein is the author of "Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928-1998."
Our (not so) private Idahos
Sen. Larry Craig's arrest shows that 'Tearoom Trade' is alive and well despite the progress of gay rights.
By David Ehrenstein
August 30, 2007
Gentle reader, by now you've probably read more than you ever nightmared you'd want to know about the latest Republican gay-sex scandal. The revelation that Idaho Sen. Larry Craig was caught allegedly trolling for sex in a Minnesota airport men's room in June comes on the heels of Florida state Rep. Robert Allen's July restroom arrest, making it reasonable to suspect that yet another GOP bathroom bust may burst forth by the time this Op-Ed article goes to press.
But barring further white-tiled tragedy, the all-too-obvious question remains, "What in the Sam Hill is going on here?" The answer rests on what can safely be described as bipartisan grounds.
To get there, let's climb into the Wayback Machine and return to Oct. 7, 1964. That's when Walter Jenkins, one of the most senior aides in President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration, was arrested for soliciting sex in the men's room of a Washington YMCA. Being that it was three weeks before the election, LBJ suspected some kind of Republican foul play, but the GOP chose not to exploit the incident.
The Jenkins affair put "homosexuality" on the nation's front pages in a way it hadn't been since Dr. Alfred Kinsey's famous report in 1948.
Like Craig, Jenkins could well have said he "wasn't gay." But who was in 1964? Then as now, if you were wealthy and well-connected, you could enjoy what's contemporarily referred to as a "gay lifestyle" with some ease -- and a soupçon of caution. For those less well-off, danger lurked. Sodomy laws were on the books. Bars and clubs catering to the same-sex-oriented were "speakeasy" affairs often run by Mafiosi who bribed the police to stay open. When the money didn't arrive on time or in insufficient quantity, such clubs were raided.
On June 28, 1969, when New York's far-from-fashionable Stonewall Inn was raided, the patrons responded by fighting the cops. Although gays and lesbians had resisted before (often right here in Los Angeles), this Manhattan uprising served to jump-start the modern phase of the gay rights movement.
That movement, with its defiant insistence on being free to be as gay as all-get-out, quickly left the likes of Walter Jenkins and, if the cops were right, Larry Craig in the dust. They're part of a subculture within a subculture that was memorably identified by the daring sociologist Laud Humphreys in a landmark sociological study titled "Tearoom Trade."
Taking his cue from Kinsey, Humphreys was fascinated with married-with-children men who didn't self-identify as gay or bisexual, yet still sought clandestine sex with other men on the side. Humphreys, when he began his research, was one of these I'm-not-gay(s) himself, though he eventually came out.
Published in 1970, "Tearoom Trade" is full of useful information about foot tapping, shoe touching, hand signaling and all the other rituals those so inclined use to make contact with one another in such places. Clearly no media outlet should be without a copy -- especially Slate.com, whose editors revealed their cluelessness on the subject this week in a "real time conversation" rife with unintentional hilarity: "I can't believe it's a crime to tap your foot." "Can someone explain the mechanics of how two people are supposed to commit a sex act in a stall where legs are visible from the knee down?"
As for the less blinkered among us, in the age of Ellen DeGeneres, Neil Patrick Harris, "Brokeback Mountain" and the smooching gay teens on "As the World Turns," bathroom cruisers seem almost antique. Today's gays want to get married, and an airport men's room is no place to propose.
Moreover, if what you're "proposing" falls well short of marriage, there's always the Internet. Larry Craig, meet Craigslist. In short, never has the admonition "Get a room!" seemed more apropos. It's up to the I'm-not-gay(s) to discover the real freedoms fought for and won by the people they so fiercely claim they're not.
David Ehrenstein is the author of "Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928-1998."
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
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99-1100896887
I actually feel kind of sorry for this poor creature. And he hasn't the guts to admit his sexuality, for one, which makes me pity him. He makes the most obviously transparent statements--he has a "wide stance" being the most outrageous. AND he has to find his sex with anonymous others in a public washroom a la George Michaels. It is always the most hyprocritcal who fall the farthest isn't it? Too bad he has to embroil his wife and family in his peccadilloes.
It is very obvious that this guy has been in a tea room or two.
It is very obvious that this guy has been in a tea room or two.
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OscarGuy
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So, being gay and a Republican is kinda like being a sexual predator and a priest...what a great place to hide?
But this does kinda sound like those situations where daughters and sons of ministers tend to be hellions rebelling against the very establishment they have grown up in...Except this is a little different...
Edited By OscarGuy on 1188475496
But this does kinda sound like those situations where daughters and sons of ministers tend to be hellions rebelling against the very establishment they have grown up in...Except this is a little different...
Edited By OscarGuy on 1188475496
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
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This is from the Washington Post
Foot-tapping senator insists he's not gay, by Dana Wilbank, 30 August 2007
FROM the opening line of his statement, Larry Craig was in trouble. "Thank you all very much for coming out today," the US senator began.
"Coming out" was perhaps not the best phrase for a man who had pleaded guilty to some rather un-senatorial conduct in an airport lavatory - and now stands accused in his home-state newspaper of a homosexual encounter in a railway station.
Alas for the Idaho Republican, it was not his first mistake.
No, his first mistake was on June 11, when he went into a toilet cubicle in the Minneapolis airport and, according to the arrest report, tapped his foot in a "signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct".
This was followed closely by his second mistake: handing the arresting officer his business card and asking: "What do you think about that?"
Mistake No. 3 was explaining to police that his foot touched the undercover officer's foot in the next cubicle because he has "a wide stance when going to the bathroom".
Mistake No. 4: pleading guilty on August 8 to disorderly conduct and telling nobody - not even a lawyer or his wife - before the news broke on Monday and Senator Craig's spokesman chalked it up to a "he said/he said misunderstanding".
This quartet of errors landed the senator before the television cameras on Tuesday in Boise, Idaho. Standing next to his wife, who wore sunglasses and looked as if she felt ill, the senator was almost shouting.
"Let me be clear: I am not gay. I never have been gay," he said. Evidently Senator Craig did not think this was clear enough, because moments later, he explained why he kept the arrest a secret. "I wasn't eager to share this failure, but I should have anyway - because I am not gay!"
As the Craigs departed, somebody in the crowd that had gathered called out after Senator Craig: "Hey, what if you were gay?"
The question is a reasonable one. Senator Craig didn't get into trouble for being gay; he got into trouble because he "engaged in conduct which I knew or should have known tended to arouse alarm or resentment".
"While I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct at the Minneapolis airport or anywhere else, I chose to plead guilty to a lesser charge in hopes of making it go away," he said, blaming this on his failure to hire a lawyer. "I have now retained counsel, and I am asking counsel to review this matter and to advise me on how to proceed."
Senator Craig complained of media harassment, in particular from the Idaho Statesman, which published an article on Monday that a man with ties to Republican officials had had a sexual encounter with the senator in the men's toilet in Washington's Union Station.
Twice in his statement, Senator Craig, speaking beneath sunny skies, apologised for the "cloud over Idaho" caused by his arrest. Actually, the cloud is over him, not his home state. But then, he has a wide stance.
Foot-tapping senator insists he's not gay, by Dana Wilbank, 30 August 2007
FROM the opening line of his statement, Larry Craig was in trouble. "Thank you all very much for coming out today," the US senator began.
"Coming out" was perhaps not the best phrase for a man who had pleaded guilty to some rather un-senatorial conduct in an airport lavatory - and now stands accused in his home-state newspaper of a homosexual encounter in a railway station.
Alas for the Idaho Republican, it was not his first mistake.
No, his first mistake was on June 11, when he went into a toilet cubicle in the Minneapolis airport and, according to the arrest report, tapped his foot in a "signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct".
This was followed closely by his second mistake: handing the arresting officer his business card and asking: "What do you think about that?"
Mistake No. 3 was explaining to police that his foot touched the undercover officer's foot in the next cubicle because he has "a wide stance when going to the bathroom".
Mistake No. 4: pleading guilty on August 8 to disorderly conduct and telling nobody - not even a lawyer or his wife - before the news broke on Monday and Senator Craig's spokesman chalked it up to a "he said/he said misunderstanding".
This quartet of errors landed the senator before the television cameras on Tuesday in Boise, Idaho. Standing next to his wife, who wore sunglasses and looked as if she felt ill, the senator was almost shouting.
"Let me be clear: I am not gay. I never have been gay," he said. Evidently Senator Craig did not think this was clear enough, because moments later, he explained why he kept the arrest a secret. "I wasn't eager to share this failure, but I should have anyway - because I am not gay!"
As the Craigs departed, somebody in the crowd that had gathered called out after Senator Craig: "Hey, what if you were gay?"
The question is a reasonable one. Senator Craig didn't get into trouble for being gay; he got into trouble because he "engaged in conduct which I knew or should have known tended to arouse alarm or resentment".
"While I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct at the Minneapolis airport or anywhere else, I chose to plead guilty to a lesser charge in hopes of making it go away," he said, blaming this on his failure to hire a lawyer. "I have now retained counsel, and I am asking counsel to review this matter and to advise me on how to proceed."
Senator Craig complained of media harassment, in particular from the Idaho Statesman, which published an article on Monday that a man with ties to Republican officials had had a sexual encounter with the senator in the men's toilet in Washington's Union Station.
Twice in his statement, Senator Craig, speaking beneath sunny skies, apologised for the "cloud over Idaho" caused by his arrest. Actually, the cloud is over him, not his home state. But then, he has a wide stance.
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
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Sonic Youth
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This is how Chris Matthews, supposedly a liberal, opened his show last night:
"The big story tonight, dirty politics. Idaho senator Larry Craig, cultural warrior of the right, stands naked tonight, exposed as both a sexual deviant and a world-class hypocrite."
What's worse? The imagery this summons up, or the use of the word "deviant"?
"The big story tonight, dirty politics. Idaho senator Larry Craig, cultural warrior of the right, stands naked tonight, exposed as both a sexual deviant and a world-class hypocrite."
What's worse? The imagery this summons up, or the use of the word "deviant"?
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Win Butler
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If I felt a little sympathy for Craig yesterday, I truly feel sympathy for him today.
No, Damien, I disagree with all those comparisons. A Jewish guard (and I assume you mean a ghetto guard, becuase the SS would never allow a Jew to guard a labor camp) would not willingly take his orders from the Nazis, and would work as a guard for his own survival, and to beneifit his family. I doubt even Hannah Arendt would call the guards quislings. Maybe the better comparison is the concentration camp kapos, or the Jews who gave up other Jews to the SS for an extra loaf of bread and a promise that their children wouldn't be taken from them, and even that's not an apt comparison. They were persecuted and they couldn't hide their racial identity, so they did whatever they could to survive. I'm sure Jesse Helms' African American staff members truly believe they are a credit to their race. But Craig and others like him feel they have to hide who they really are, or they haven't come to terms with it, and they live a lie out of fear of discovery. And they're hypocrites, but no I don't think they deserve the brunt of anger. It's the tyrannical right-wing Republican culture that has terrified them into hiding. Let them suffer instead, all of them.
Right now, the repugs are setting up an ethics investigation for Craig and calling on him to resign. Why didn't they do that for the senator who was discovered a few months ago to be a regular customer for the D.C. madam? It's that sort of double standard that's going to create more miserable Larry Craigs.
No, Damien, I disagree with all those comparisons. A Jewish guard (and I assume you mean a ghetto guard, becuase the SS would never allow a Jew to guard a labor camp) would not willingly take his orders from the Nazis, and would work as a guard for his own survival, and to beneifit his family. I doubt even Hannah Arendt would call the guards quislings. Maybe the better comparison is the concentration camp kapos, or the Jews who gave up other Jews to the SS for an extra loaf of bread and a promise that their children wouldn't be taken from them, and even that's not an apt comparison. They were persecuted and they couldn't hide their racial identity, so they did whatever they could to survive. I'm sure Jesse Helms' African American staff members truly believe they are a credit to their race. But Craig and others like him feel they have to hide who they really are, or they haven't come to terms with it, and they live a lie out of fear of discovery. And they're hypocrites, but no I don't think they deserve the brunt of anger. It's the tyrannical right-wing Republican culture that has terrified them into hiding. Let them suffer instead, all of them.
Right now, the repugs are setting up an ethics investigation for Craig and calling on him to resign. Why didn't they do that for the senator who was discovered a few months ago to be a regular customer for the D.C. madam? It's that sort of double standard that's going to create more miserable Larry Craigs.
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Win Butler