ISU Bengal

Issue date: 9/5/07 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Joe Jaszewski Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho)

For those of you that haven't picked up a newspaper, watched television, or listened to the radio in the last week and a half, Larry Craig was arrested on June 11 for lewd conduct in a men's bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. He plead guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct on Aug. 11, and the story was subsequently broke in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call on Aug. 27.
Many people have been asking what in the hell was Larry Craig thinking, especially after hearing his taped interrogation. Indeed, according to the police report, Craig made himself exponentially more of an embarrassment by not only getting arrested for allegedly soliciting anonymous homosexual sex in a men's bathroom, but by also trying to literally play a "Get out of Jail Free" card by slapping down his Senate business card and stating "What do you think about that?" to the arresting officer.
I think you're being an idiot, Larry Craig.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that to be a U.S. Senator, even from Idaho, you had to have at least a sliver of intelligence; on the other hand we did elect Bill Sali last year (Spoiler alert: look at his voting record; he's not making any wise decisions).
Regardless of its normative overtones, however, to expect enough intelligence from a U.S. Senator to not cruise for anonymous homosexual sex in an airport bathroom - and also not to swing his status around like a Louisville Slugger in an attempt to get out of the tawdry charge - is far from unreasonable.
Craig made his own bed, however, and now must sleep in it. That being said, I feel it's important that we have an open-minded, fair, and unbiased discussion about the facts regarding this case. If you find such a discussion, please let me know, because I'm way beyond that point. It's time to take the gloves off.
I could careless about whether Craig is gay or not. Honestly if you do care, you're a bigot. This is not about that. This is also not about whether or not this will hurt the "family values" image of the Republican Party, because Mark Foley and the numerous others that preceded him have made that a moot point. The Republicans can claim to be the party of "family values" all they want, but it still won't make it any truer than the democrats' claim that they care about poor people (another spoiler alert: they don't!).

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