Craig Resignation "Stalled"?

Update: As per Beldar in comments below, Craig isn't a lawyer - see what happens when we assume? ; ) But that doesn't change my key point, or opinion.

Great, just great. There are at least two things to learn from the Craig kerfuffle. The law in and around these types of mens room busts appears dubious, at best. It should be challenged and Craig's case might be a winner. But Craig, for all his 27 years in Congress and I assume a law degree, is an idiot. If he can't navigate the law in a reasonably astute fashion, there's little to suggest he's the type of man, or possesses the type of mind, to be making it. He needs to go.

Specter may want to carry his water, given his being part of the club. But unless he's going to volunteer to guard the stall door every time Craig has to visit the little boy's room, he should butt out. We have enough idiots in Congress already without Craig. And Specter's coming to his rescue only makes Specter look like someone who has over stayed his welcome in DC and lost touch with the average person, as well.

BOISE, Idaho - Sen. Larry Craig is reconsidering his decision to resign after his arrest in a Minnesota airport sex sting and may still fight for his Senate seat, his spokesman said Tuesday evening.

"It's not such a foregone conclusion anymore, that the only thing he could do was resign," Sidney Smith, Craig's spokesman in Idaho's capital, told The Associated Press.

Comments

[seekeronos]

To condense the way-too-long battery of thoughts I've had on this guy to a nutshell...

...if he hadn't been such a princess when Sgt. Karsnia busted him (e.g. "NO!" and "but I don't wanna leave my bag over there..."), and instead worn his best poker face and exuded the sangfroid of a man who was absolutely innocent, but played along long enough to cast doubt on the airport cops' bust... he'd have more than a fighting chance.

If he fights now, he now has not only the spurious charges, but also all of the gravity of public opinion against him, which more or less amounts to him being a pervy old queer man looking for a quickie in a men's room.

Really, he should just silently disappear into shadows, never to be heard from again, and enjoy his big fat Congressional pension check.

[Beldar]

He's a law-maker but not a lawyer. By profession, he's ostensibly a rancher.

[rwilymz]

It's not often I get to use this part of my sociology grad school.

For the record, a person who has sexual contact with those of both sexes is not queer or gay ... he or she is BISEXUAL.

The sociological definitions are:
heterosexuals have sexual contanct ONLY with those of the *opposite* sex
homosexuals have sexual contanct ONLY with those of the *same* sex
bisexuals have sexual contanct with BOTH sexes

By the numbers, homosexuals constitute 1-2% of the adult, sexually-active population; bisexuals 7-8%. Combined, they constitute 8-10% of the adult, sexually-active population.

[For the record, around 1-in-6 adults are not sexually active, either by choice, mostly, when young or -- as adults get older -- infirmity and lack of desire].

It is sloppy demography, either deliberate or by ignorance, that labels anyone who has sexual contact with those of the same sex as both "gay" and "10% of the population". That is grossly misleading. Most of those who have sexual contact with those of the same sex also have sexual contact with the opposite sex as well ... which makes them BIsexual.

And among the worst perpetrators of these sloppy demographics are the homosexual activists themselves. They see to inflate their numbers as a relative share of the population in order to lend credence to their [otherwise legitimate] quest for certain civil rights, but they do so disingenuously. And what makes it most ironic is that homosexuals, as a group, denounce bisexuals as "traitors" or "fence-sitters", as if there is one and only one choice to make between black and white.

The ex-Gov of Jersey was not "gay". He **is** BI. Craig, if he has restroom encounters, would be BI as well.

[CB]

I do think the law involved in these types of cases should be challenged. The more I think about it the less sense it makes. If approaching other adults for sex was illegal every bar & nightclub would be out of business. I think he needs to come clean about it if he wants to fight it, enough of this "I'm just a friendly guy" routine. If it was all some miscarriage of justice why didn't you tell your wife? Like-"Honey, you won't believe what happened!" That alone makes me think he was lookin for a good time in that stall.

[gil]

rwilymz

Nice informative post.

I have a question tough. What do you call a "Bi-Sexual" holier-than-thou 70+ "Conservative" Senator that is soliciting gay sex in a man's Airport bathroom?

A degenerate? A hypocrite? A very sick puppy??

The question here, is why are we calling this man a U.S. Senator.

[rwilymz]

"why are we calling this man a U.S. Senator"

The folks in Idaho liked him better than the alternative when they elected him, is my guess.

To a large degree, all politicians at that level [and nearly all at every other level leading up to national office] are "holier-than-thou" in whichever partisan ideology they espouse. They all claim to know better than us how best to do things, and m/l tell us to shut our mouthes, stand in line like good little lemmings and be governed, dammit!

Conservative, liberal -- all are self-righteous and hypocritical; it's part of the job description. Age is irrelevant. But like I read somewhere else, probably here, if trolling for sex in public was a crime then the vast majority of healthy adults of either sex would be criminals. The guy wants to get or give a hummer? big deal. He wants to do it in a public restroom? somewhat unsanitary, but whatever. Wants to do it as a Senator? ... why does it matter?

This "wanting to" goes on at night clubs in the rich and toney Beverly Hills on an hourly basis. Other big cities, ditto. In small towns, it goes on in bowling alleys, and country line dancing bars. Wuptifrigging doo. People troll every fucking day.

If the trolling actually results in sexual contact, ... that's a different matter. And only if that sexual contact occurs in what could reasonably be considered a legitimately public venue, observable to outsiders not wishing to observe ... THAT is when the actual crime has occured.

Trolling for sex?

Or public sex?

One I can't support; the other I can't understand why it matters.

...and frankly, since it appears that most of the criticism is coming from his partisan opponents who largely hold the "liberal" views that certain things are nothing more than "personal choice", I find that much of the criticism of his hypocrisy is ... hypocrisy.

Which is kinda ironic.

If the guy is a poor legislator, that's one thing. Even good legislators are holier-than-thou hypocrites. But to jump all over a legislator for "personal choice" by those who [putatively] support "personal choice" ... I dunno. The words "holier-than-thou hypocrite" leap irresistably to mind for some reason.

Now, if the bulk of this criticism is coming from within the ranks of his own party, which officially does not support "personal choice" in such matters, that's different. That'd be more along the lines of throwing babies [grandpas, whatever] out with bath water.

In either event, I just can't understand the durm und strang.

[gil]

rwilymz

I have the feeling that the people in Idaho will have a say if the "Senator" continues his term in office.
The picture you try to paint of an America so permissive where is no big deal for a 70+ year old man to go soliciting gay sex in public bathrooms is quite a strech if I might say so.
I have lived a long life myself and never encountered a man, let along a 70+ Senator having gay sex in bathrooms.
Trust me it ain't normal. Not in America, and not in Amsterdam.

Actually some one should ask the good old "Senator" what kind of enhancement product he is using. At his age we would not want the paramedics to find an old half necked "Senator" with a hard-on and a hearth attack to boot in a public man's bathroom.

Let me put it this way. The event does not help the credibility of the GOP on the issue of "family values"... Let's just agree to that. OH, and one more thing, some one please refer the man to a good Psychiatrist.

[rwilymz]

"I have the feeling that the people in Idaho will have a say if the "Senator" continues his term in office."

I have a feeling you're right. I have that feeling because I'm well aware that most folks react with emotion-du-jour rather than academic analysis to the events which shock their system. That's human nature.

"I have lived a long life myself and never encountered a man, let along a 70+ Senator having gay sex in bathrooms."

That may be. I'd suggest it's because you aren't aware of it more than anything else. See Laud Humphreys, and "the tearoom trade". Public restrooms have been used since the advent of public restrooms for same-sex [almost always anonymous] rendezvouses.

There's a whole series of signals in the trolling that are innocent enough to those who don't know to recognize them.

"The event does not help the credibility of the GOP on the issue of "family values"... Let's just agree to that."

Ah, but that's the predicament [and it's why I find American politics far too superficial in its partisan polarization to lend much credence]: Should "the party" pitch out a guy who espouses 95% of the platform for being 5% contrarian? or should "the party" take what it can get and understand that 95% is a helluva lot?

The Democrats had the same choice a while back on the anti-choice Congresshole from Ohio. "Oh! how *dare* a Democrat use his 5% contrarianism on **abortion rights**!!!"

Abortion rights is sacred cow to Democrats -- even though only 1-in-6 Americans supports the strict "all abortions all the time" philosophy the Democratic platform espouses, and "family values" [read: strict heterosexual congress waiting until marriage] is sacred cow to Republicans.

Yeehah.

Meanwhile ... in the real world ... 99.999% of We The People have lives that do not conform to the narrow and clinical depictions of notional partisanship. But since it's the only game in town, let's all line up and choose between black and white as our team colors...

Lunacy.