GOP Is Ready to Roll Out the Klieg Lights for Craig: Threatens open ethics hearing

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: Washington Post

By Chris Cillizza And Shailagh Murray
Sunday, September 30, 2007; Page A02

Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho is a tough guy to run out of town.

Not that his Republican colleagues aren't trying. Worried that the disgraced lawmaker intends to remain in the Senate indefinitely, they are threatening to notch up the public humiliation by seeking an open ethics hearing on the restroom scandal that enveloped Craig last month.

The Senate hearing would examine the original charges in Craig's case, including the allegation of "interference with privacy," for peeping into the bathroom stall occupied by an undercover police officer. One senior Republican aide imagined "witnesses, documents, all in front of the klieg lights." The committee also could look for "a pattern of conduct" -- which means combing court records in other locales to discover whether Craig had prior arrests that haven't come to light.

The call for a public hearing is not unprecedented. In 1995, the Senate narrowly rejected holding an open forum to examine sexual misconduct allegations against Bob Packwood (R-Ore.). The Democrat who called for the open Packwood hearing? Barbara Boxer (Calif.), the current chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee.

While his lawyer was in Minnesota last week trying to persuade a judge to throw out the senator's guilty plea, Craig was a regular presence on the Senate floor, backslapping colleagues during votes and, at one point, conducting a private conversation with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has urged Craig in no uncertain terms to leave the Senate. Craig's wife, Suzanne, also made an appearance at a Senate spouses' lunch....

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/29/AR2007092901549.html?nav=hcmodule

[robinlynne]

1. as long as the dems force them to hear Vitter too! which they better.

[aquart]

3. Was Vitter arrested?

Sorry, the grounds are simply not the same.

[countmyvote4real]

5. How so? Does a public admission of guilt have loopholes?

Sen "Diapers" Vitter admitted to extramarital affairs because he was found out. He's since denied additional associations. He was seeking off-the-books straight sex.

Sen "Wide-Stance" Craig admitted to public misconduct as part of a sting operation seeking to entrap gay "misfits." (I don't know what else to call it. I'm gay, I get horny, I don't go to the airport restroom.) Anyway, he was seeking gay sex.

No doubt that the diaper-man got a lot more action than the freaking old mummy from Idaho that's not gay or dead yet.

And in spite of all of the facts, there is a double standard here.

Perhaps Vitter and Craig could negotiate some mutual bathroom/diaper agreement with the Senate ethics committee. The longer Craig stays and the longer Vitter stays, the GOP has a problem. Their party has no values that work with the rest of us.

[The Wizard]

23. Envision

Craig changing Vitter's diaper on the Senate floor.:puke:

[provis99]

11. oh yeah, the two situations are different

Craig did it with men, Vitter did it with women. To the Republican mind, that makes all the difference in going after Craig but not Vitter.

[King Coal]

20. The GOP isn't going to "tolerate" that monkey business. LOL!

[Bake]

24. Prostitution is a crime.

Whether it should be or should not be is irrelevant; it is a crime and Vitter admitted to it.

Bake

[Hulk]

9. There really do "eat their own".....

the gop is really desperate. They want this sucker OUT of there.....and they mean to torch his ass.

[Hulk]

10. Wouldn't it be funny if he "switched parties"...lol

[Thor_MN]

26. Umm... Isn't that what he was arrested for?

[aquart]

2. "Other arrests"??? Well, my word.

Who tipped them off to that possibility, I wonder? Somebody peeking in Tom DeLay's old files?

[fortyfeetunder]

4. Looks like he can't feel the heat in the kitchen yet...

Guess he truly wants to get burnt...

[NoGodsNoMasters]

6. The "Rove Revolution"

This new republican powerhouse that was established around Sept. 11th has caused sweeping fundamental changes in our government, foreign policy, economy, and so forth. The political impact of the developing republican neocon strategy largely pushed by Karl Rove along with some lesser lights. This Craig situation seems fundamental to the nature of the new neocon beast. They share some traits with the Nixon/Reagan assholes, but amplified and distorted out of all proportion. There has been much talk in the media especially with Rove's departure about the nature of this movement, insane as it may be, and what was the key to acquiring so much power so quickly, personally, I think the answer is simple. Richard Nixon resigned before the watergate thing got into full swing because he, quote "Didn't want to put the country through it." THIS is the essential difference. Nixon may have been a bastard but he was a bastard with a (very small, admittedly) measure of DIGNITY and INTEGRITY. The secret to the success of the neocon revolution has been simply this, to abandon all pretense of dignity or integrity. Hence the voter caging, outing Valerie Plame, holding meetings and not telling dems where they are, or hiding under they're desks and turning off the lights and then proceeding without the opposition, passing bills in the middle of the night,etc. Nixon knew he was caught and accepted it and walked away, this is a new breed, I've no doubt even if we impeach the lot of them they will wait until the last second and have to be forcibly dragged, kicking, scratching, biting, like demented children, all the way down. This is why Sen. craig is still there. He can't be so ignorant as to think he has any credibility, even his party dislikes him, yet he hangs on, like a petulant child, "I don't wanna!!!" These men have no honor.

[DeepModem Mom]

21. You make a good point. No shame among these people --

anything goes, and no acceptance of responsibility.

[truthisfreedom]

7. Where can I donate to the Craig defense fund? I want to see this guy stay in office as long as

possible. He's the perfect poster child for the modern GOP.

[0007]

15. .....and double swell if Vitter gets to stay around

The powerful carbon-arc lamp that produces an intense light that can't run off the biggest of the big GOP cock-a-roaches.



[ProudDad]

8. Gee, I wonder why vitter isn't getting this treatment... (n/t)

[0007]

16. Vitter is a 'Straight up and down Fuck' and that will go a long way

with GOP creeps for cover. Never mind his fetish desire to wear diapers while visiting high class floozies.

[ProudDad]

30. You answered my rhetorical question...well done... (n/t)

[xchrom]

12. and what about vitter? n/t

[Frank Cannon]

13. Keep fighting, Larry!! NEVER give up!! We love & support you!!

Keep this story on the front page as long as you possibly can!

:rofl:

[TheCowsCameHome]

17. Damn right! Larry, you can beat this, just like you beat your........

....... oh, never mind.

[indypaul]

29. He now has the perfect defense

after watching the Seinfeld episode of "can you spare
a square."

[radfringe]

14. wonder how many GOPERs

are nervously tapping their foot and worried how this will all play out come Nov-09

[Thor_MN]

18. Funny thing is, if he gets his guilty plea tossed, then he gets to go to trial.

He's acting like he walks away innocent if his motion to overturn his plea succeeds. If he wins the motion, it just means that they set a trial date. No way is the prosecutor going to back away from this, it's going to be very public. Declining to prosecute a Senator when the case has seen the light of day? You better either have solid backing or alternate job plans.

[LiberalFighter]

19. I wonder how much more of a punishment Craig will get

because he pissed off the judge and prosecutor for wasting their time. Just because he is a Senator.

I wonder if Norm Coleman is interfering with the Justice system in Minnesota regarding this case?

[Beetwasher]

22. HANG IN THERE LARRY!! DON'T LET THE BASTARDS GET YA DOWN!!

[scarface2004]

25. larry larry larry larry!!!!

yehaw! foot tapper stays!!!

[Judi Lynn]

27. Doctors' TV ad spoofs arrest of Sen. Craig

Doctors' TV ad spoofs arrest of Sen. Craig
McClatchy Newspapers
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 10.02.2007
WASHINGTON — A group that's fighting childhood obesity will air a commercial in Idaho spoofing Sen. Larry Craig's arrest June 11 in a Minneapolis airport bathroom.

The ad, which already has aired in Minnesota and Washington, D.C., will appear this week on cable in Boise. It's scheduled to air on CNN between 6 p.m. and midnight Thursday and Friday.

It's paid for by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which is taking aim at subsidies in the federal farm bill. The group argues that lawmakers steer federal subsidies to big agribusinesses because the companies are major campaign donors. The subsidies support unhealthy crops and livestock that make kids fat, spokeswoman Dr. Hope Ferdowsian said.

The group's ad borrows liberally from the detailed arrest report that described how Craig, R-Idaho, got caught up in a men's room sex sting.

In the ad, a well-dressed man is seen going into a public restroom. The man loudly taps his smart-looking wingtips on the floor, apparently a signal for grabbing bundles of cash being offered from beneath the stall divider.

As the man stuffs the cash into a briefcase, a narrator says: "It's their dirty little secret. Members of Congress taking PAC money from corporations producing bacon, burgers and other fatty foods."
The products are then "dumped" in school lunch programs, the narrator says. "Companies get rich; kids get fat. Is your senator on the gravy train?"
(snip/...)

http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/204087

[MiniMe]

28. How can the repukes threaten that, they aren't in charge of the hearing

The dems are, and they would be quite stupid to go along with it. I thought that ethics committee hearings were all done behind closed doors, somebody correct me if I'm wrong on that point. If the dems go along with an open hearing, they will be raked over the coals for politicizing it. The repukes forget that they don't run things anymore.

[David Zephyr]

31. Vitter? Vittter? Vitter? Vitter? Vitter? Vitter?

Unbelievable.