A gay man, I had lots of interest in the Larry Craig story; far less in the John Edwards story. But I don’t see the double standard that my co-blogger Shaun does (be sure to check out the comments); or that Jack Shafer articulates in his Slate piece. In fact, I see Schafer stipulate the differences that count:
A cop charged Craig with a misdemeanor, and he pleaded guilty. [Emphasis mine.] There’s no denying the police blotter is always news, and there’s no denying that Craig deserved the hypocrisy scrutiny. Edwards, as far as we know, is guilty of nothing beyond running away from tabloid reporters in a Beverly Hills hotel stairway in the wee a.m. after visiting a female friend in her room. Also, all of the Enquirer’s published “evidence” of an Edwards affair comes from unnamed sources. And I should mention that an Edwards political operative, Andrew Young, claims that he is the father of Hunter’s child. (Young is married with children of his own.)
Furthermore, the fact is that the press is and will be all over the Edwards story. I bet it leads the morning shows tomorrow. These are the means and methods of the modern media machine. The press is doing the dance they always do — and indeed must do if they are to technically abide by their journalistic standards and not wholly succumb to those of the tabloid or blogger.
But I specifically take the time to write because of Shafer’s introduction of Larry Craig for comparison, and the deep, deep popular misunderstanding of the closet and the press, the notion of special privileges for gay people, and the confusion over the controversial practice of “outing” whereby gay activists make public the private facts of an individual’s intimate relationships.
You see, I do think there is a double standard I’d like to emphasize, but it’s not the one Schafer identifies. (And admittedly not relevant to this story — but then, I didn’t introduce Larry Craig into the story either!) Using the occasion of Jodie Foster’s public acknowledgment of her 14-year long obvious though unreported relationship with her lesbian partner, Chris Crain clarifies:
Here is the double standard on outing. When it comes to heterosexual celebrities, the entertainment media can’t get enough, reporting every salacious detail they can get their hands on. And when closeted celebrities are caught in scandals, they’ll jump in with gusto. But gay celebrities in happy, well-adjusted relationships — whether Ellen or Rosie or Jodie (why are they all lesbians?) — the public is told nothing about until the celebrity says OK. Even if the gay star shows up escorted in public by her partner at event after event.
The same type of double standard holds sway with closeted politicians as well, with those accused of shenanigans investigated without any regard to privacy. But it’s hands off on those with long-term relationships until they come out. Mark Foley is an example of both standards.
The alternative I have advocated for years is “equality.” Apply the same rules to gay and straight celebrities, and the same rules to gay and straight politicians. Ask about their personal lives, as they would otherwise, and report their answers, whether they lie, equivocate or refuse to answer. Then report the public facts that fit or contradict what they’ve said.
Digging deeper into their private lives is a judgment call, just as it is with straight politicians, that inevitably involves balancing the newsworthiness of the information versus how much personal privacy must be invaded to get it. It’s unthinkable that a heterosexual Hollywood celebrity of Jodie Foster would have a 14-year-relationship that went completely unreported. It’s way past time that it be unthinkable for gay celebrities, too.
It is a story with three of America’s favorite subjects — celebrity, sex and hypocrisy — but you’ll have to look awfully hard to find it.
When Senator Larry Craig was arrested for allegedly playing footsie with an undercover cop in a Minneapolis-St. Paul airport men’s room stall, the mainstream media was all over it like a bad suit. After Roll Callbroke the story last summer, it appeared in thousands of print and TV outlets and was the butt of many a late-night comedian’s jokes.
But when the National Enquirerbreathlessly reported that former presidential candidate John Edwards had visited an alleged mistress and their love child at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles on Monday night you could have heard a pin drop.
As of this morning, only the Los Angeles Times among mainstream media outlets has picked up the Enquirer story, according to a Google News search.(UPDATE: The by now familiar percolation from blogs like The Moderate Voice that are not ignoring the story is underway.)
It is possible that the Enquirer story about Edwards’ alleged linkup with Reille Hunter is false, based as it is on circumstantial evidence and unnamed sources. (And maybe Edward just likes to hang out in hotel stairwells in the wee hours.) Edwards has vehemently denied any relationship with Hunter in the past, nor is it alleged that he has committed any crime.
But my gut tells me that there is something to the Enquirer story and sooner or later that will be confirmed. The real crime here is the double standard that the mainstream media is using in an era when the lines between tabloid journalism and traditional journalism have become blurred.
That process began in earnest with the O.J. Simpson double murder case in 1995 when The New York Times and yes, the Enquirer, committed substantial resources and did a better job, by my lights, of covering this unparalleled story of celebrity, sex and crime than anyone else.
The obvious double standard here is that Craig is an unapologetic and snarky conservative Republican who shamelessly continues to beat the family values drum despite his own dirty laundry while Edwards is a pretty boy moderate-liberal Democrat who is said to be on The Messiah’s short list as a running mate.
But there is more to it than that because sex-scandal reprobates from both parties have had tons of ink spilled on their account. Indeed, there is a second double standard here as well that Jack Shafer confronts in an article at Slate: Craig is perceived as a creepy homo and Edwards as a red-blooded hetero.
The polar opposite media response to the Craig and Edwards stories is even more glaring when you consider that political sex scandals occur with reliable frequency, although Republicans seem to have an edge for sheer tawdriness because of their holier-than-thou-ness.
To name but a few, there was Eliot Spitzer, David Vitter, James McGreevey, Jesse Jackson, Gary Hart, Wilbur Mills, Bob Packwood, Gary Condit, Mel Reynolds, Neil Goldschmidt, Brock Adams, and of course the granddaddy of all sex scandals — Grover Cleveland . . . er, Bill Clinton.
Then there is the poor besmirched wife aspect. It so happens that Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth, has incurable cancer which calls to mind Newt Gingrich, who was cheating on his cancer-stricken and about-to-be-dumped wife while he was helping bring the impeachment hammer down on Clinton.
The news media dutifully steered clear of longtime rumors about the Newtster’s dalliance much as it has been chary to address similar rumors about John McCain, including the well-documented messiness of the end of his first marriage and simultaneous affair with his present wife.
Gingrich himself finally offered a choreographed “confession” about his own indiscretions to conservative Republican televangelist James Dobson last year when he was contemplating a presidential bid. This just may have been the perfect way to close the door on a good old fashioned political sex scandal.
My mind started thinking of the infamous Senator Larry Craig, then of Conservatives, then of hypocrisy, and then of “family values and moral values”–perhaps not in that exact order.
Then, my mind somehow wandered back to the 2,000 and 2004 elections, and how, during those elections, Conservatives blanketed the electronic and printed media with messages of how our country had lost its moral compass; how Americans had lost their family and moral values; how Republicans and Conservatives–if elected–were going to re-instill those values in government, in society and anywhere else they could; how our new president would “restore honor and dignity to the White House.”
As a matter of fact, just prior to the 2004 elections a whole new class of voters was created, the “values voters,” and political analysts claim that moral values and family values trounced every other value or issue in the 2004 elections–even the economy, the Iraq war, and terrorism–and were responsible for the Republican victories that year.
Our great, fair and balanced Fox News proudly proclaimed on November 4, 2004,
“Though the airwaves preceding the election were rife with talk of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the management of the war in Iraq, job creation and even the so-called legions of angry, young voters — it turns out good old ‘family values‘ may have been the key to President Bush’s successful Election Day strategy.”
The Democrats were “doomed” until they can woo the voters who belong to this new political force, the values voters.
But wait, it is now 2008 and the presidential campaign is in full swing. It is awfully quiet out there when it comes to “good old” family values and moral values. Where are the Republicans to once again tout their moral and family values superiority and to claim such values as Conservatives-only territory?
The last time I remember a Republican presidential candidate addressing that issue was Mitt Romney back in December of 2007.
… there are signs that family values have lost their punch as a campaign issue. Most voters say family values in general are important to them, but a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds they don’t care much about candidates’ personal lives. Political analysts say voters and candidates have broader, more immediate concerns: the ongoing U.S. action in Iraq and Afghanistan, nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, the threat of terrorism and an economy that’s putting stress on low- and middle-income people.
And,
The “traditional” family — a married couple with kids — made up fewer than 22% of U.S. households last year, according to the Census, down from 40% in 1970. Roughly one-fifth of Americans have been divorced. Nearly two in five U.S. births last year were out of wedlock, more than twice as high as in 1980. More than half the country says same-sex partners should be able to marry or form civil unions.
It could also be that when comparing the major Republican presidential candidates against the major Democratic presidential candidates during this year’s elections in terms of “family values,” the Republicans do not fare as well as the Democrats. According to USA Today:
Among the Republicans, Giuliani is in his third marriage while McCain and Thompson are each in his second… Romney and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee are married to their high school sweethearts. On the Democratic side…Dennis Kucinich, 61, is in his third marriage…Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, former North Carolina senator John Edwards and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson are married to their original spouses. So is New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, despite her husband’s affair while he was president…Overall, “the Democratic candidates actually have more stable family lives than the Republicans,” says Tony Fabrizio, a GOP pollster
On Giuliani, in particular, USA Today said:
The most surprising candidate this year has been Giuliani. He remains a top GOP contender despite his longstanding support for abortion rights and his widely publicized extramarital affair with Judith Nathan — to whom he is now married — during his previous marriage. He’s even been endorsed by Pat Robertson, a leading Christian conservative who says the key issue is who can best fight terrorism.
And finally,
Americans also have seen major cultural changes become woven into society. Divorce, blended families and women in the workforce are common, and polls show most people support gay civil rights. “First we had the feminist and the sexual revolutions, and then we went through a long period where so much of politics was a backlash against those movements,” says Frances Fox Piven, a sociologist and political scientist at the City University of New York Graduate Center. “That’s kind of been worked out now. People have adjusted.”
Yes, these are all plausible explanations as to why Democrats are not being lectured as much on “values” by Republicans. But on a lazy, summer Saturday afternoon in Texas, the mind does funny things, like recalling names such as:
David Vitter, Jack Abramoff, Mark Foley, Bob Packwood, Bob Ney, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Ted Haggard, Rick Renzi, Bob Allen, and, yes, the one that got my mind wandering to begin with, the inimitable Larry Craig.
And the mind comes up with additional and interesting explanations.
A note to my gay friends and readers: This lazy afternoon’s epistle should in no way be viewed as critical of anyone’s sexual orientation. On the contrary, I find it distasteful when people cover-up their God-given sexual orientation for political purposes, and I find it morally unforgivable when people misuse their positions of power to legislate against, prosecute or punish the perfectly legal and human actions and behavior of those of their own sexual orientation.
Pressured by countless telephone calls, tens of thousands petition signatures and letters to Capitol Hill, thousands of letters to the editor, and hundreds of columns and opinion pieces (hopefully one or two of mine included therein) a sufficient number of Republican Senators have joined their Democratic colleagues to overwhelmingly–I.e. “veto proof”–pass Senator Webb’s version of the 21st Century GI Bill.
In a strong show of true support for our troops, last night, 77 U.S. Senators voted in favor of the GI bill, including my home state Senator Cornyn, who finally saw the light and did the right thing. Twenty-one other Senators–all Republicans–voted “Nay,” including the “wide stance” Senator from Idaho.
There were only two Senators absent for this important vote. One was Ted Kennedy who is recovering from brain surgery. The other, Sen. John McCain, who has fought the Webb bill tooth and nail. McCain, President Bush and a few others at first claimed, in an unbelievably misplaced penny pinching mode, that the bill “would cost too much.“ When that didn’t fly, they postulated that the bill would hurt retention–a claim that was quickly countered by a Congressional Budget Office analysis that found any possible losses in retention caused by this bill would be balanced by the increases in recruitment it would generate.
As far as the president goes–the other opponent of the more fair and generous Webb bill–according to the Washington Post:
In a 92 to 6 vote, the Senate yesterday approved unrestricted funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that allows continuation of the current military course of action through the end of President Bush’s term and beyond. In exchange for that unencumbered freedom to operate in Iraq, Bush agreed to demands by congressional Democrats to create a new higher-education benefit for veterans and their families, and to extend unemployment benefits (Emphasis mine)
After initially fighting the education provisions of the GI Bill, because they would “cost too much,“ Bush (and McCain) demanded that the education benefit be transferable to spouses and children of veterans. Democrats complied and pushed the cost of the Webb bill to $62.8 billion over 11 years.
The improved Webb GI Bill now goes to the President, attached to the 2008 war supplemental. Let’s hope that, this time, the President will truly support our troops and promptly and unequivocally (no signing statements) will sign the bill.
In “McCain: Four More Years of Mumbling?” Michael Reagan says, “…a quick look at the amazing progress in present day Iraq accomplished by the president reveals a greatness that offends liberals.”
While I agree with Michael Reagan that we definitely do not want “Four more years of mumbling,” and although I am not a “liberal,” I am offended, but–please–not by President Bush’s “greatness.” In fact let’s take a look at this president’s “greatness,” by examining what greatness is not.
“Greatness” is not taking our nation into a disastrous war based on lies, cooked intelligence, exaggerations and deception.
“Greatness” is not mismanaging such war at the expense of over 4,000 of our finest and bravest
“Greatness” is not Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, torture, waterboarding, black prisons and extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, the end of habeas corpus, kangaroo courts, warrantless NSA wiretapping on Americans…
“Greatness” is not Walter Reed, the Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch lies, neglecting our veterans, outing a CIA operative.
“Greatness” is not Katrina, the firing of U.S. Attorneys, the Terry Schivo “case.”
“Greatness” is not, “Osama Bin Laden, where are you?”, “Heckuva job, Brownie,” “We don’t torture,”
“Greatness” is not Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Paul Bremer, Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, Doug Feith, John Bolton, Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, Tom Delay, Mark Foley, Larry Craig, David Vitter, Halliburton, Blackwater…
“Greatness” is not a vast increase in our budget deficit; an increase of over 60 percent in our national debt; attempts to privatize social security; pillaging Medicare, Medicaid, and children’s health care; declaring war on stem cell research, efforts to mitigate global warming, evolution science, abstinence programs; swift boating your political opponents.
“Greatness” is not the failure to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations; the failure to bring a modicum of peace and stability to the Middle East.
“Greatness” is not using signing statements (more than 150 of them) to obey and implement only those parts of the law one likes.
“Greatness” is not corruption, nepotism,cronyism, Dick Cheney’s secretive Energy Task Force, lost White House emails, ignoring subpoenas, stonewalling, subverting justice.
“Greatness” is not Recession, an economy in tatters, mounting fiscal deficits, tax relief only for the wealthy…
“Greatness” is not promising to “restore honor and integrity to the White House,” and doing just the opposite.
“Greatness” is not diminishing the image of and respect for our country abroad
“Greatness” is not, to begin with, getting selected by the Supreme Court with a little bit of help from Katherine Harris and “dimpled chads.”
Sorry, Michael, but this kind of greatness offends not only “liberals,” but every American.
This Guest Voice post is by Watching America translator Dorian de Wind, who is also a retired U.S. Air Force officer. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of TMV and its writers.
From the Frying Pan into the Fire, and Back to the Showers–at Home
by Dorian de Wind
Political scandals–there are so many of them these days-seem to have a very short shelf life, perhaps with the exception of those involving the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. These are kept alive forever on the now-famous “endless loop” by the righteous media.
One of those scandals rapidly fading from most people’s memories is Idaho Senator Larry Craig’s “episode” in that men’s restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport almost a year ago now.
Somehow, that incident and its repercussions must have still been fresh on my mind when I was taking a shower at our fitness center recently.
Let me explain.
As a 68-year-old senior–straight, I should add–I am in dire need of some kind of physical activity to stay fit. So I do various stretching exercises while in the shower at home. One of these exercises involves standing tip-toe and stretching and rotating each arm in a circular motion high above my head.
After joining our local fitness center, I saw no reason for not continuing these exercises at the center while taking a shower after my swimming and steam room routine.
During one of my first exercise sessions there, I happened to glance at the opaque-glass separation between my shower and the adjoining one and saw the silhouette of another shower taker. I froze in mid-exercise when it suddenly dawned on me that my neighbor could surely see my hand and arm waving motions. Remembering the Larry Craig episode and not wanting my waving to be misconstrued, I instantly stopped my exercise and slinked out of the shower and eventually out of the center.
On my way home, I mulled the whole incident over and for an instant–just an instant–I felt a pang of pity for the senator. What if his gestures in that airport restroom had been misconstrued?
Just for an instant, because then I remembered the anti-gay words and anti-gay legislative initiatives by the senator from Idaho, and my compassion for him–gay or not gay–quickly evaporated.
On the way home, I concluded that the showers at the center were not the right place for my exercises.
Missing my exercise routine, however, I decided a few days later that the steam room at the fitness center would be a good place for resuming my stretching exercises–but only when I found myself alone there.
It was all going well until the other morning. That is when two concerned fellow fitness center enthusiasts, who had discerned my strenuous arm-waving through the thick clouds of steam, rushed into the steam room, ready to rescue me and to summon all kinds of medical assistance. After somewhat oafishly explaining that everything was OK, I decided that the steam room was not the right venue for my stretching exercises either.
So, it’s back to the showers for me now–the ones at home.
And it’s back to the other stories for the media—you know, the stories that keep on endlessly looping, and giving endless hope to Republicans.
Dorian de Wind is a retired U.S. Air Force Officer, born in Ecuador and educated in The Netherlands. He has a bachelor’s degree from of Texas A&M University and a master’s degree from the University of Southern Mississippi. Dorian has written opinion pieces and travel and other articles for the Austin American-Statesman and for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. He also translates Dutch press articles for watchingamerica.com.
In one of those telling front page-back page juxtapositions, the headline news about Eliot Spitzer overwhelms a government study showing that one out of every four American teenage girls is infected with a sexually transmitted disease.
After seven years of a federal government promoting abstinence only, both stories are reminders that the gap between what Americans say in public and do in private has morphed into a chasm of hypocrisy.
As righteous Republicans enjoy the spectacle of a Democratic governor joining the ranks of Larry Craig, David Vitter et al, little attention is being paid to the alarming news about teenagers who don’t know or don’t care enough to protect themselves from infections that can lead to serious disease.
Read the rest of this entry.
While out riding my trail bike this morning I encountered a Little Green Man who was anxious to quiz an Earthling about the Eliot Spitzer scandal.
Q: Why is this such a big deal?
A: Because people love to see politicians get tripped up, especially other politicians.
Q: On my planet everyone pays for sex.
A: Hmm. Interesting.
Q: So your leaders punish people for paying for sex?
A: Sometimes, although in this instance Spitzer inadvertently led the government to a prostitution ring because of his alleged involvement in some suspicious financial transactions.
Q: Should Spitzer resign as New York state governor?
A: Yes, but not for the reason you might think.
Q: Huh?
A: He ought to resign because he’s an arch hypocrite since he prosecuted several people for operating prostitution rings when he was state attorney general.
Q: With all the problems you Earthlings seem to have, what business is it of anyone’s what Spitzer or anyone else does privately with other consenting adults?
A: You’re on to something there.
Q: So he paid $1,000 to be a superdelegate?
A: No, no, no. He paid $1,000 to have sex with a prostitute. A superdelegate is a Democratic Party bigwig who gets a free ride to the national convention and a free vote.
Q: So Hillary Clinton’s not his friend anymore?
A: No.
Q: But didn’t her husband have sex with . . . ?
A: Let’s skip that, okay?
Q: It’s kind of funny that The New York Times is playing the story so big after it was chided for a story implying that John McCain had sex with a lobbyist.
A: Well, even The Times knows that sex sells, although it should be noted that it’s unusual that the feds should go public with the sex angle since Spitzer has not been charged with doing anything wrong in connection with that.
Q: Republicans seem especially gleeful that Spitzer has been snared.
A: Correct.
Q: Why?
A: Because Republicans by birthright can be hypocritical when it comes to stuff like sex. Why else would Larry Craig still be in the U.S. Senate?
February 16th, 2008 by SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist
For someone whose handlers said they didn’t expect to win any more February primaries, Hillary Clinton is campaigning in Wisconsin like her life depends on it. Which politically speaking, it does.
Despite numerous promises to take the high road after his mudslinging backfired in South Carolina, Bill Clinton is at it again, assailing Barack Obama because he wasn’t a part of “any of the good things” that happened in the 1990s. Being a civil rights attorney, community organizer and Illinois state senator apparently are bad things.
Having dissed him in the past for not being conservative enough, Senator James Inhofe, R-Stone Age, and former Representative Tom DeLay, R-Disgraced, are now endorsing John McCain’s candidacy and DeLay is even stumping for him.
Another Texas Republican, Representative Ted Poe, full of himself after House Democrats refused to pass the FISA bill before the Protect America Act expired, overlooked the fact that he and his fellow GOPers could have extended the PAA before rushing home for a 12-day recess in hyperbolically noting that “there is probably joy throughout the terrorist cells throughout the world that the United States Congress did not do its duty today.”
After backing Senator Larry “Toe Tap” Craig and then not backing him and then backing him, the Idaho Republican Party has been struck deaf and dumb in the wake of a Senate Ethics Committee rebuke of Craig for his behavior after he was caught in an airport bathroom sex sting.
Speaking of deaf and dumb, Representative John Lewis and his staff aren’t returning calls following a bombshell report that the civil rights pioneer planned to dump Mrs. Clinton and cast his precious superdelegate vote for Obama.
Senator Joseph Lieberman yet again revealed himself to be a closet fascist in explaining why his fellow Democrats are a bunch of mewling sheep and he is a self-righteous pimp for George Bush in voting against a measure to ban torture: “We have to allow the president to allow the toughest measures to be used when there is an imminent threat to our country. . . . It’s not like we’re burning people with hot coals.”
After trying to pin all kinds of dirt on Obama without much success, his detractors have finally hit paydirt: They claim that he was a lousy Harvard Law Review president because the volume he edited has been the least cited in 20 years. A few more skeletons like this one and the guy will be toast.
One of Hillary Clinton’s more reliable punch lines is that “Speeches don’t put food on the table.” True enough, unless you’re the Clintons and your husband’s speechifying has been one of the principal sources of income for your campaign.
In the spirit of the holiday season, I am inviting nominations for the “Top Ten Fibs of 2007″. There are two categories in the competition: “Presidential Candidates” and “Best of the Rest.” Post your nominations in the comments section or use the “Contact the Fact Checker” form. Also feel free to cast a non-binding vote for your favorite fib. The deadline is Friday, Dec. 28. A panel of crack Fact Checkers will select the Top Five Fibs in each category and post them online on Monday, December 31. We will also make a Geppetto truth-telling award in the “Presidential Candidates” category.
To kick the competition off, here are some early nominations (in no particular order):
Washington’s Walking Embarrassment is still sitting proudly in his Senate seat and, along with his Idaho colleague, Michael Crapo, is blocking President Bush’s nomination of Michael Sullivan to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
According to the Editorial Board blog of the New York Times, “Mr. Crapo’s spokesman said his boss is hearing from gun owners and dealers with ‘concerns about ATF policies regarding gun sales and even ownership.’ It may be, he said, ‘that the federal government is getting a little too aggressive with people who haven’t done anything wrong.’
“It’s a remarkable claim to make in a month in which a young gunman in Nebraska shot 11 people, killing eight of them, at an Omaha shopping mall, and another killed four young people in two attacks on religious organizations in Colorado, before taking his own life.
“The Colorado gunman, according to the Denver Post, spent a year buying guns and ammunition…and all of his purchases were within the law. When a large shipment of ammunition was sent to a post office box owned by the gunman, the authorities were alerted, the paper reports–and specifically determined that he had a legal right to receive it.”
Awaiting action by the Senate Ethics Committee on his little Minneapolis men’s room misunderstanding, Sen. Craig is maintaining the record that earned him an A+ from the National Rifle Association. The voters who saw him inducted into Idaho’s Hall of Fame this fall must be proud.
The male escort responsible for the downfall of Christian evangelist leader Ted Haggard is now alleging that embattled Senator Larry Craig also came to see him.
While promoting his new book during a radio interview with KNWQ-AM in Palm Springs Wednesday night, Mike Jones hesitated from making the allegation on the air.
Management for the radio station says Jones told them he would reveal something about Idaho Senator Larry Craig on the “Bulldog Bill Feingold Show.”
While he hesitated doing so on the air, a NewsChannel 3 camera was rolling when he made the accusation during a commercial break.
Feingold asked whether the Senator had seen Jones in a hotel room.
Jones responded, “No, he came to see me.”
Jones then added, “His travel records to Denver have been documented. That’s what I wanted to say.”
NewsChannel 3 asked Senator Craig’s office to comment on the allegations that Craig came to Denver to see Jones, who calls himself a gay escort.
Craig’s office said in response, “Mike Jones’ allegations are completely false.”
An allegation that will prove to be true? Or an allegation made to capitalize on a big story? No matter what, it remains an allegation.
But the case of Craig and the GOP is starting to resemble the classic comedy movie, “What About Bob.”
In that film, a psychiatrist played by Richard Dreyfus can’t get rid of his patient, played by Murray. Each time he thinks it’s over and he’s gotten rid of him, he shows up. And as the patient gets stronger, the psychiatrist gets weaker.
In case you’ve been on Mars — or visiting the Minneapolis airport restroom where Craig was arrested which has become a big tourist attraction (are pay toilets in its future?) — Craig, who pleaded guilty to disorderly bathroom conduct, had first said he would resign. But then he changed his mind about resigning and said he would wait to see what happened in his effort to try to get his guilty plea withdrawn. The judge said no so now Craig changed his mind about resigning if he lost in court and says he’ll stick out it out for the remainder of his term.
“As I continued to work for Idaho over the past three weeks here in the Senate, I have seen that it is possible for me to work here effectively,” Craig said in a statement. “I will continue my effort to clear my name in the Senate Ethics Committee - something that is not possible if I am not serving in the Senate.”
…..”I believe the best thing for him to do is keep his word,” said Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
“It’s embarrassing for the Senate, it’s embarrassing for his party,” Ensign said.
Other GOP senators agreed. “He ought to keep his word,” said Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. And Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota said, “I thought the original decision was the right thing to do.”
(“Keeping his word”? Isn’t that asking Craig to do something politicians don’t do? )
The betting now is that GOPers will try to force Craig out via Senate Ethics Committee hearings, but that vote can’t lead to his expulsion — only censure – and there are no signs Craig intends to leave before he intends to leave.
Meanwhile, Craig’s decision to dig in his heels (versus tapping his foot three times which got him into trouble at the airport) has thrown the GOP in Idaho into a state of dismay:
“A lot of Republicans in Idaho think they need to sit down on a good shrink’s couch right now,” said Tracy Lotz, a vice-chairman of the state Republican Party until last year. “We’re in shock.”
Unaccustomed to political relevance, Idaho has endured more than a month of political parody - and that was before Craig provided new material by saying he would stay in office, after all.
Some profess a respect for Craig for showing an indigenous “moxie” in telling off the national Republicans who tried to force him out, and some insist he has done nothing wrong. Yet it is also clear from interviews with people across the state that Craig has lost considerable support as he attempts to finish out his term.
Many people say his repeated revision of his plans to serve and not serve has served only himself and has ruined his credibility.
“He’s using politics, and that’s not really what his roots are,” said Jim Warren, superintendent of the Midvale School District, where Craig, 62, attended a one-room schoolhouse until he was in the seventh grade. “People here really pride themselves on keeping their word.”
Right now the outlook is for Craig to remain with his name still in the headlines as the committee hearings unfold. Craig might also be expected to take some strong political stand or make some comments that help him be more known again as a Republican politician versus someone who hurriedly left a stall without flushing when a police credential was flashed at him.
One theory is that Craig and his associates believe he has nothing to lose if he stays. His state will surely vote for a Republican to succeed him, no matter whether it’s one who is appointed or one who follows him after his term. And, the theory goes, the jokes have run their course.
Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has changed his mind about resigning and will remain in the Senate through next year. His decision comes on the same day a Minnesota judge ruled Craig could not withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct in a men’s restroom at a Minnesota airport.
Craig had previously said he would resign if he could not withdraw his guilty plea and take the matter to a full trial.
If he came out as a gay man in public next Thursday (and then resigned for his toilet stall scandal) he might be able to do some good not only for himself but also for a lot of frightened young men.
If Republicans follow through on their threats, some time this month six United States Senators will gather in a hearing room to study and debate urgent questions about a men’s room stall in the Minneapolis-St. Paul air terminal.
Ending the war in Iraq, starting one in Iran and health care for poor children will have to wait while the Senate Ethics Committee considers charges against Larry Craig, brought by the Republican leadership to embarrass him into resigning his seat, as he had promised to by the end of September but now shows no sign of doing.
Senators would publicly examine such weighty matters as the original allegation against Craig of “interference with privacy” for peeping into the stall occupied by an undercover police officer as well as witnesses and documents.
The committee could also spend time looking for “a pattern of conduct” by combing court records elsewhere to find out if Craig has had prior arrests.
To unsophisticated taxpayers, this may look like burning down the barn to get rid of a field mouse, but Senate leaders will do anything to keep the place squeaky clean.
September 26th, 2007 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
It sounds like Senator Larry Craig’s attempt to revoke his guilty plea in his men’s room scandal case is momentarily stalled:
A Minnesota judge said on Wednesday he would make no immediate decision on Sen. Larry Craig’s bid to take back the guilty plea he made after a sex-sting arrest, leaving the Idaho Republican’s future in the Senate uncertain.
Judge Charles Porter of Hennepin County District Court adjourned the case until at least next week after Craig’s lawyers argued he panicked and was rushed into pleading guilty after an undercover officer arrested him in an airport men’s room.
Craig had said he would resign from the Senate on Sunday but might reconsider if he could take back the plea and try to clear his name.
Republicans seem to be on a roll with scandals and wish they could flush the whole incident down the toilet. But that seems unlikely: because the judge has not yet ruled so Craig reportedly will turn the other cheek and not resign yet: Read the rest of this entry »
September 12th, 2007 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Larry Craig has apparently gotten his court date in Minnesota. His case is scheduled four days before his first proffered resignation date, September 30th. He’s going to apply to wind the world-clock backward, to take back time.
It’ll be interesting to see how the judge will rule… Senator Craig’s new plea before the court may inadvertently help the cases of the other 41 men arrested for soliciting sex in men’s rooms in the Minneapolis airport police operation that day. If it is ruled that ‘injustice’ has been done to Craig on the evidence offered, and the other men have similar evidences against them, Larry Craig may become ‘the hero of the bathroom brigades’ at least at the Minnesota airport.
There’s another hero, a comic book one, who used a similar tactic of ‘turning back time’ to a more ‘acceptable’ place and space. I love the stories of Superman and all the other modern mythic archetypes that flow out of the pens of so many gifted thinkers … And, there’s an old Superman movie with a leitmotif similar to that which Senator Craig is undertaking.
In the story, near the very end, Lois Lane is killed. Superman, flies into space and using his super-human strength, turns the world backward on its axis in order to make time stop, to push back time in retreat to a previous moment when Lois was still alive… so this time she could be saved.
Senator Craig is going to plead to the court on the basis that he accepted an involuntary guilty plea which constitutes manifest injustice. As some say in the backwoods where I grew up, He’s agonna try to undo that deed that he done did.
My expert in the field, Jill Kuraitis, the Boise Idaho publisher of New West, writes about how the outcome for Senator Craig, might not be as swift as it was for Superman and Lois Lane:
Craig will make his case for a reversal of his guilty plea in an airport sex sting. But it’s unknown if the judge will rule that same day, so Craig’s self-imposed deadline may pass without a resolution of his case.
Superman aside, who says the Senators Specter and Craig have not been inadvertently caught up in an anti-hero moment as well… with Senator Specter doing an Abbot and Costello joke setup…
Senator Arlen Specter, one of Sen. Craig’s only defenders, said [about manifest injustice], “and that is defined that a plea can be withdrawn if it was not intelligently made,†Specter said. “And what Senator Craig did was by no means intelligent.”
Although much has been bandied about privately about Senator Craig being charged with ‘lewd conduct,’ that appears not to be true. He’d apparently pleaded guilty to misdemeanor ‘disorderly conduct,’ a throw down from the misdemeanor charge of “interference with privacy…” which has more nuances to it legally than what the three words appear to convey.
Kuraitis also cites two case she thinks might have impact on Sen. Craig’s new application to the court: “State of Minnesota vs. Michelle Kim Gibson-Webb “reversed in part†a plea agreement, but the facts and details are very different from Craig’s case. And Jeffrey Allen Vernlund vs. State of Minnesota reversed a DUI guilty plea.”
She continues, “D.C. Republicans are white-hot with fury at Craig, a Senate staffer told NewWest.Net/Boise. “He’s like those trick birthday candles that won’t blow out,†she said. “Of all the times for a Republican senator to break ranks and fall out of formation, this wasn’t a good choice.â€
“Trick birthday candles,” and the old Superman trick, being accused of trying to pull off a trick… lots of tricks, lots and lots of tricks eddying in this story. In mythos, the trickster is an archetypal character who is filled with rampant appetites. The trickster is magical and useful and also unconscious and out of control and often makes more messes than successes. The trickster is funny in many ways, for it is so human. They try to wiggle out of any corner they painted themselves into.
But, can a trickster turn back the world, slice and dice Time to his desires? When the trickster is near, anything can happen. But in many images of the Trickster since time out of mind, he is shown walking off a cliff into thin air, accompanied by a little white dog at his side, sometimes with an umbrella over his head, and all the while smiling and looking up into the sunshine. Instead of looking down, and being aware of what his shoes are touching.
Craig: I Will Not Blow This Job
Idaho Senator Withdraws Resignation
Less than one week after announcing his intention to resign from office, embattled Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) changed course today, telling reporters in Washington, “I will not blow this job.â€
Over the past few days, there had been whispers in Republican circles that Sen. Craig had, in the words of one of the Idaho senator’s associates, “pulled out too early.â€
“At the end of the day, Larry does not want to blow this job,†the associate said. “He will do whatever it takes to win back the support of his constituents, even if it means getting down on his knees.â€
Another associate of Sen. Craig’s agreed that the Idaho senator announced his intention to vacate his Senate seat too hastily: “I think Larry now feels that to leave office on September 30 would be a premature evacuation.â€
Jefferson aficionados know the Man of the Millennium only penned one book in his lifetime, Notes on the State of Virginia. Many of Jefferson’s observations in that volume still hold fascination today, and we recommend it to you.
For our part, with a bow to the Rotunda and a nod to Monticello, we will offer, from time to time, tidbits and comments in the Jeffersonian mold on the emerging campaign of 2008. Instead of our usual essays focused on one subject, we will range more widely on unconnected topics.
While out riding my trail bike this morning I encountered a Little Green Man who was anxious to quiz an Earthling about the Eliot Spitzer scandal.
