Reply #5: Larry Craig's bathroom behavior and the right wing -- then and now [View All]

[L. Coyote]

Glenn Greenwald - Aug 28, 2007
Larry Craig's bathroom behavior and the right wing -- then and now
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/08/28/craig/


The reaction to the Larry Craig story provides one of the most vivid illustrations yet of how the right-wing movement works. Last October, just weeks before the midterm election, gay activist Mike Rogers reported that the married, GOP "family values" Senator repeatedly had sex with anonymous men in public bathrooms. His report was based on "extensive research," including interviews with several men whom Craig solicited for bathroom sex.

As Rogers argued at the time, the story was relevant -- just as the Vitter prostitute story was -- in light of Craig's frequent political exploitation of issues of sexual morality and his opposition to virtually every gay rights bill. Rogers' story, as a factual matter, seemed relatively credible, both because of his history of accurate outings and because there is no discernible reason why, if he were intent on fabricating, he would single out someone as obscure as Larry Craig, who was not even up for re-election.

Nonetheless, it is hard to overstate the intense fury that this pre-election report triggered from the Right -- not at Senator Craig for engaging in this behavior, but at Rogers for reporting it. A virtually unanimous chorus on the Right furiously insisted that nothing could be more irrelevant than whether the married family values Senator had sex with men in bathrooms (acts that are simultaneously criminal and adulterous). The same political movement that impeached Bill Clinton and which has made a living exploiting issues of private morality for political gain insisted that Rogers had reached a new and despicable low in politics even by reporting this.

This reaction was so widespread that only a fraction can be identified here for illustrative purposes. .....