"I don't go around anywhere hitting on men...if I did, I wouldn't do it in Boise, Idaho. Jiminy!"

[dajoki]

Unhappy Larry
Aug 30th 2007 | WASHINGTON, DC
A strange way to stop terrorism
AP
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9725556

When a man denies three times that he is gay, the obvious response is “Who cares?” But when the man in question is a United States senator, the television cameras circle. Larry Craig, a Republican from Idaho, felt obliged this week to assert his heterosexuality after it emerged that he had pleaded guilty to “disorderly conduct” in a lavatory at Minneapolis airport in June.

Mr Craig was arrested after apparently making advances to an undercover policeman. The police say they were investigating complaints that men were having sex with each other in the airport lavatories. An undercover officer was stationed in a cubicle. He testified that Mr Craig sat down in the cubicle next door and made gestures under the partition indicating, the officer said, that he wanted to have sex. Mr Craig denies this, and says he pleaded guilty to the lesser of two charges in the hope—mistaken, he now says—that the issue would go away.

Many of his Republican colleagues are abandoning him, either because they disapprove of infidelity (Mr Craig is married) or because they frown on homosexuality. A number of Republicans in Congress called for Mr Craig's resignation, and he was forced to give up posts on a Senate committee and Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. Democratic activists, meanwhile, gloated. Since Mr Craig has voted against allowing gay marriage, his critics call him a hypocrite.

The senator has been the subject of a nasty investigation by bloggers and a local newspaper, involving interviews with men who claim he propositioned them or had sex with them. Mr Craig denies it. He told the Idaho Statesman: “I've been in this business 27 years in the public eye, here. I don't go around anywhere hitting on men, and by God, if I did, I wouldn't do it in Boise, Idaho. Jiminy!”

Whatever happens to Mr Craig is unlikely to affect the balance of power in Washington. If he decides not to seek re-election, Idahoans will probably pick another Republican. And not all gay activists are happy with the way he has been treated. Stephen Miller, writing on a website called the Independent Gay Forum, wondered why so few on the gay left were upset that the police are carrying out sting operations to catch gay men cruising.

[POAS]

1. Jiminy???

Goodness gracious, is this how all Republicans speak now or only the bad, naughty boys?

[jobycom]

2. He's really saying "Goddamnititalltofuckinghell!"

It just comes out sounding like "Jiminy."

[YOY]

4. Hevens to Betsy! it's Rummyspeak!

n/t

[knowledgeispwr]

9. Henny Penny the sky is falling! n/t

[dajoki]

12. That's what caught my eye...

Jiminy:shrug: :rofl: :rofl:

[gasperc]

3. well one of the few

straight guys bemoaning the police sting operation. I see it as a serious erosion of civil rights. posted on it at MIliberal. I mean Craig is a hypocrite and with 300 interviews that back up the claim, Craig is insane to think he can say what he said. But it clearly demostrates the GOP's denial of all realism, ie the Iraq War. He is guilty of his own fear of being labeled gay

[EST]

5. The author betrays his bias:

"The senator has been the subject of a nasty investigation by bloggers and a local newspaper,..."

"Nasty investigation!?!"
Jeebus! Project much?

[dajoki]

20. You think they would be a little less obvious n/t

[peace13]

6. This is not about being gay to me.

It is about senators that are targets for blackmail. There has to be a reason that so many R's stand up and give an honorable speech on the floor and then proceed to vote against that which they were supporting. Voinovich does this all of the time. I have to ask myself why? How many of our Congress critters are being blackmailed by their own party or our shadow government? As far is Craig is concerned they are dropping him in hopes of filling his seat (no pun intended) with someone that will be electable. Peace, Kim

[PDJane]

7. I haven't weighed in on any of these posts.

(truthfully, I haven't read most of them.)

I'm putting my two cents in here. Gay or not gay isn't the issue. Sex or no sex isn't the issue, whether in a bathroom or on the dining room table or the bed.

The problem is, why do so many rethuglicans have these "urges" that they can't seem to control, then stand up in congress and the senate and promote values that lead to more folks being hypocrites in order to get along?

You're gay? Fine. You're not gay? Fine. You are, like most of us, somewhere in the middle? Fine. Who cares? Can we get over this fixation with sex and get on with the things that really matter?

Somewhere, somehow, sex, desperation, violence and hypocrisy got all jumbled together in the make up of these folks, and that's just pathetic. Why are they running the country? This macho swaggering is, as it has always been, posturing. Behind it all, we have these warped teenagers who figure that bullying is OK. That's sick and sad.

[Rydz777]

8. I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm not gay, and I'm not from

Idaho, but I'm a bit amazed that tapping your foot in the stall of a men's room in Minneapolis and wiggling your fingers under the partition is "disorderly conduct." Maybe I'm just naive.

[Fresh_Start]

10. "By God, I wouldn't do it in Boise, Idaho!"

didn't know he was accused of doing it in Boise.
I thought he was accused of doing it in Minneapolis and Washington DC.

[kestrel91316]

11. ".......if I did, I wouldn't do it in Boise, Idaho......."

"Now, Minneapolis, that's another thing entirely."

[plusfiftyfive]

13. Exactly

Minneapolis, and DC, according to Craig.... is like Vegas.."what happens here, stays here"! The naive Senator Craig, without benefit of legal counsel, thought pleading "guilty" in MN to "disorderly conduct" and paying a fine, with suspended 10-day sentence, would not be discovered, would not become information his family and friends and colleagues in the US Senate an the Republican party and the international press would ever know about. After all, there were no court appearances, no photo-ops for the press. Just write a $500 check and sign the damn guilty form and ship it back to the court. Shove it under the rug.

This is a typical type of Repugnantan thinking, like banning the showing of flag-draped caskets, the type of thinking Republican lawmakers do, to keep the people they represent in the dark about the real world, the real economic (oil company ) forces that keep us in Iraq four years after "Mission Accomplished". This is the real "modus operandi" of the rich Republicans: hide from the facts and twist the reality for the American people. In this way, Larry Craig is no different than most Republicans in elected office. If they get caught, they go to rehab, or, as in Vitter's case "apologize" to the voters. Then they think they are free to carry on. Bush, Cheney, Rove, Gonzales, and Rumsfeld STILL haven't taken responsibility for THEIR mistakes. The beat goes on!

[Laughing Mirror]

14. What was plainclothes Sgt Karsnia doing all the time Craig was tapping and swiping under the stall?

We'll never have any idea unless Craig gives a truthful version of the events rather than the story he's concocted.

Why did he pick out Karsnia, for example? Could there have been a mutual nod? Could they have made eye contact outside the toilets?

[plusfiftyfive]

15. You might want to read the his report.

It's available on line.

This whole transaction took all of 10 minutes.

The police officer was assigned a job, and he seems to have done it well. IMO

Hey, I'm all in favor of full rights for gay people, I'm also in favor of equal marriage rights for them. Public anonymous sex does NOT equate to gay rights, in my opinion. It's a public health issue, it's an issue similar to sharing dirty needles by IV drug users. I would rather have this activity minimized with respectful police activity, than allowed to flourish in public places. We have enough AIDS cases without adding to them, IMO. Anonymous sex in men's bathrooms is NOT a right I see defined in the US Constitution.

[Laughing Mirror]

16. It was the police report from the officer's point of view

Now if Craig were to write a similar truthful report it might be interesting comparing the two.

Maybe there's video.

[plusfiftyfive]

17. Larry Craig has rights

And he chose to "write" a check, as a way of exercising his rights. That's one of his "rights".

Now, as I read more on this issue, day by day, I see there are some other instances of this happening in DC. We will soon be hearing from the participants, I am willing to bet! As a matter of fact, I bet the Republicans themselves are seeking out "corroborating stories" to confront Craig with, as a way of forcing him to leave office.

If there's video, which there well may be, (since it looks as though the report of the officer was VERY detailed)...I bet the police are not revealing that they have cameras at that location to the general public, so that they can sting more of these guys in the future.

Simple as that.

[Laughing Mirror]

18. The question I am asking is what was Sgt Karsnia doing while Craig was cruising him?

Taking notes?

Why was Craig so persistent for 10 minutes if there were no signs of encouragement from the other party? You'd think after a couple of minutes he'd have given up and tapped somewhere else.

[loudsue]

19. "I wouldn't do it in Boise, Idaho".....um...you were arrested in Minnesota!

Duh?

:kick:

[Hieronymus]

21. "If I did" .. reminiscent of OJs book.