Airport Restroom Arrest Stalls Senator Larry Craig’s Career

Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) is now the latest lawmaker to get snarled in an unpretty sex-related scandal — one that is being broadcast on the airwaves, making the lightning rounds of the Internet, being pointed to by Democrats and causing consternation among Republicans.

The Washington Post’s article draws together several strands of this story:

Sen. Larry E. Craig pleaded guilty earlier this month to misdemeanor disorderly-conduct charges stemming from his June arrest by an undercover police officer in a men’s restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, a court spokeswoman and the senator’s office said yesterday.

Craig issued a statement confirming his arrest and guilty plea, which were reported in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. But the Idaho Republican maintained that he had not engaged in any “inappropriate conduct” and that the airport police misunderstood his behavior.

(EDITOR’s Note: That link mistakenly takes you to the Roll Call piece. The Washington Post story has since been greatly updated to include earlier allegations about and denied by Craig. Here is the link to the UPDATED Washington Post piece.)

So there will be a debate, although on this one there are signs that many Republicans are not going to stand by him in what is clearly not a political incident, even given his explanation:

“At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct,” Craig said. “I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously.”

Now in his third term, Craig, 62, has been a member of Senate Republican leadership and ran unsuccessfully in 2002 to become the GOP whip, the No. 2 leadership job.

And the arrest means there’s one less Republican bigwig working for Mitt Romney:

He has been a prominent figure on gun rights and Western lands issues, and he resigned yesterday as Idaho chairman of the presidential campaign of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R).

Craig “did not want to be a distraction,” said Romney spokesman Matt Rhoades, “and we accept his decision.”

And the details? Here are a few:

Roll Call, citing a copy of a report by airport police, said that officers had been conducting a sting operation inside the men’s room because of complaints of sexual activity there. The police report gives this account of the arrest:

The undercover officer was monitoring the restroom at noon on June 11. A few minutes later, Craig entered and sat in the stall next to him. Craig began tapping his right foot, touched his right foot to the left foot of the officer in the stall next to him and brushed his hand beneath the partition between them. He was then arrested.

Here’s the part that will be quoted and become a late night TV comedians’ punchline:

While he was being interviewed about the incident, Craig gave police a business card showing that he is a U.S. senator. “What do you think about that?” Craig asked the officer, according to the report obtained by Roll Call.

It apparently didn’t prove to be a stay out of court card.

How has it been playing? There are some of the usual reactions from partisans, but it’s inaccurate and wrong to say all of the reaction is along predictable partisan (defend the member of your party; rail against the member of the opposition party) lines. Republicans are not giving him a free ride (so to speak):

Hugh Hewitt, a loyal Republican broadcaster, law professor and blogger, is demanding Craig resign:

I realize that I did not say this about Senator Vitter, but Craig’s behavior is so reckless and repulsive that an immediate exit is required….I don’t believe him. Read the statement by the arresting officer. He must think the people of Idaho are idiots. But even if I did believe him, this would make his judgment too flawed to be in the United States Senate in a time of war. He has to go.

Highly popular conservative blogger Ed Morrissey is also shaking his head (and fist). He offers an answer to Craig’s reported question about the meaning of the Senator’s business card:

We think it means you’re even more foolish than this incident would suggest. How long before Craig checks himself into rehab or finds Jesus?

The Republicans already have a 21-12 disadvantage in next year’s Senate contests. His was one of the seats the GOP hoped to hold, and his party had been pushing to keep him from retiring. I suspect they’re looking for Plan B at the moment.

Another conservative pundit, Hot Air’s Allahpundit, has a post that MUST be read in full and it makes clear Craig won’t be getting a free ride (so to speak):

If you’re wondering which party he belongs to, let me put it this way: the media will be sure to specify it in its reporting on this story.

The page at Roll Call is down due to server overload but you can read the nuts and bolts at Political Wire. He was one of the senators named by the left’s McCarthyites during the Foley uproar as being in the closet. The details from Roll Call don’t explicitly corroborate that claim, but…

Special disastrous bonus factoid: He’s up for re-election next year!

Read his entire post with the updates from dismayed conservatives on other sites.

AND HERE’S A SAMPLING OF OTHER OPINIONS FROM VARYING SITES:

–John Cole says he notices a trend in Republican scandals and rejects any suggestion that the media is any problem here. We won’t quote it since you need to read the entire post.

–Crooks and Liars’ John Amato recaps 1982 “rumors” about Craig.

–Prairie Weather sees another issue:

Pathetic. And there’s feel of entrapment to the story. Whatever the case, I wish our culture were a little more grownup about people’s sexuality. The Larry Craig incident makes me sad for a variety of reasons as well as irritated at Republican duplicity and hypocrisy. How much better if Larry Craig had been stopped for harrassment, gender of the victim left unstated. But it’s a hypocritical society in which we still live — all of us, Democrats as well as Republicans. We can’t seem to stop pointing and giggling when it comes to sexual issues. Are we going to get over it anytime soon? And move on to the important stuff? Or are we stuck here?

–The Republican megablog Powerline:

Thanks to Senator Larry Craig (R-ID), I now know which men’s room to avoid at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport….Contacted by Roll Call for comment, a spokesman for Senator Craig described the incident as a “he said/he said misunderstanding.” Sergeant Karnia said Craig engaged in disorderly conduct. Senator Craig pleaded guilty. At the moment Senator Craig isn’t speaking for himself. When he does get around to speaking for himself again, he’ll be able to clear up the misunderstanding, whatever it might be.

–Booman gets a bit more analytical, siting this quote from the news report:“Craig stated “that he has a wide stance when going to the bathroom and that his foot may have touched mine,” the report states. Craig also told the arresting officer that he reached down with his right hand to pick up a piece of paper that was on the floor. “It should be noted that there was not a piece of paper on the bathroom floor, nor did Craig pick up a piece of paper,” the arresting officer said in the report.” So Booman writes this:

That’s a whole lot of code that I knew nothing about. But Larry has certainly earned a new nickname: Wide Stance Craig.

Sen. Craig is listed as the third most conservative senator by Progressive Punch. He has voted for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

He says he takes a wide stance when he takes a crap. If his wife believes him, I’ll be shocked.

--MoJo Blog:

Republicans are taking the public sex racket to a national level.

Not content to let Florida State Rep. Bob Allen have all the fun, Senator Larry Craig of Idaho was arrested in a public restroom for propositioning a male undercover police officer. This is somehow all old hat: Craig was arrested in June, plead guilty on August 8, paid a small fee, dodged jail time, and was given a year of probation. Craig’s staff dismissed the incident as a simple — love this — “he said/he said misunderstanding.”

But wait a minute. Any time a man (or a woman) makes his (or her) name and career by being holier-than-Democrats, the blogosphere has a right to some schadenfreude.

–Right Wing Nuthouse (a blog that is misnamed):

The conduct doesn’t seem lewd to me and the whole story reeks of something very fishy. But the fact is, the Senator pled guilty and probably thought that it would stay out of the papers if he didn’t make a fuss.

The point really isn’t whether he’s guilty or innocent. The point is that this sort of thing becomes a huge issue because of the way the party talks about gays and the way many GOP stalwarts like Reverends Robertson and Dobson talk about sex. The perception that Republicans are a bunch of bigoted blue noses stuck in the 19th century with Victorian sensibilities about the bedroom turns off a lot of voters – especially the young.

–Jawa Report:

Turns out that Sen. Craig voted for cloture on amnesty. Whoops. Like a lot of conservative/libertarian types, I might be willing to look the other way on a little public pervitude once in a while, but public pervitude + total abandonment of national sovereignty and the rule of law is just a little too much for me to take. If Sen. Craig “goes down” over this (as I suspect he might,) I won’t be shedding any tears.

–Caffeinated Politics notes that “he was also working in Congress to deny basic rights and fairness to gay Americans that have normal lives. You know, the kind that would never have sex with a conservative Republican anywhere….let alone in a bathroom.”

–Iowa Independent:

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is scrubbing his campaign of anything scented with the increasingly foul presence of one U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.

–The Grumpy Forester:

Idaho – indeed, most of the Pacific Northwest – has been suffering from a Republican Scandal Gap. Maybe it’s because, aside from Idaho, the Northwest hasn’t recently had very many Republicans who mattered enough for us to care….

….Thankfully, though, Larry Craig has stepped up to the plate for both the state of my birth and the entire region. The only scandals that really matter are those that involve improper money or racy sex. We have fallen way behind up here in the upper left corner of the map where Abramoff and D.C. madams don’t seem to have a great deal of market…er…um…penetration, and the memory of that remarkable Packwood Senate censure debate of 15 or so years ago has lost its currency, so it’s good to see that there are stalwarts of our own who, at least in the eyes of the Minnesota judicial system, will do their best to get us in the show and steal a bit of thunder from all those current and former midwestern, Louisianan, and San Diego Congressmen, Floridian state legislators, and all the others who have been stealing all those ‘sleaze’ headlines…