Republicans were distancing themselves yesterday from Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) faster than if Craig had been screaming “We need a stronger inheritance tax!!!”

A monitoring of conservative talk radio shows yesterday found that some hosts were in the ironic position of telling irate listeners defending Craig — who pleaded guilty after being arrested for allegedly making sexual advances in an airport men’s room — that an innocent person doesn’t usually plead guilty but instead usually fights an unjust allegation.

Some callers broke with Craig. Others suggested he had been set up, by cops lying in wait looking for a chance to nail him.

One host who is a lawyer seemed disgusted with Craig and reminded listeners about the fact that Craig had pleaded guilty and that the facts of the case don’t look good for him.

But then he rattled off — almost as if he had to — the names of Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton, Barney Frank and other Democrats caught in sex scandals.

It was a new twist on the “But under Clinton….!!!” mantra that is repeated on talk radio shows, by White House press spokesmen and on weblogs when criticism is aimed at Republicans or the White House. Only this time, the host seemed truly half-hearted making it.

(And there are differences: Craig has blown his career due to an encounter with a stranger in a men’s room. Clinton’s indiscretion involved an intern working on his staff.)

On the internet, many conservative bloggers were emphatic in stating their feeling that the GOP had had enough of sex scandals and that for the good of the party and Idaho’s voters Craig should resign ASAP. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald wrote a piece noting that many conservatives had strongly defended Craig about allegations last year and are now deserting him. Meanwhile, editors of the competing webmagazine Slate were reportedly deeply split over the Craig story, its significance and its merits.

Craig committed perhaps the gravest error a public official under fire can make: he attacked his local paper that had been investigating him, thus framing it in a way so the newspaper now will be obligated to investigate him even more thoroughly.

Remember the last person who said to a newspaper: “Follow me around! See if you find anything?” The name: Senator Gary Hart.

Craig’s words that will spur his newspaper (and others) to look into every aspect of his life:

He also cited “stress” caused by a Boise newspaper’s investigation of his personal life “and the rumors it has fueled all around Idaho.” The Idaho Statesman, “without a shred of truth or evidence,” has pursued “this witch hunt,” Craig said.

“Witch hunt” implies its not a valid search. And the paper’s response?

“We didn’t print anything until the senator pleaded guilty,” said the managing editor of the Idaho Statesman, Bill Manny. “Our story outlined what we’ve done, and it speaks for itself.”

THIS PAGE on the Idaho Statesman site shows that the paper has lots of stories (at the bottom) related to the arrest. Prediction: It’ll probably have a lot more now.

If so, new revelations will come at a terrible time. According to the New York Times, Republicans are asking “What’s next?”:

Just when Republicans thought things could not get any worse, Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho confirmed that he had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct after an undercover police officer accused him of soliciting sex in June in a Minneapolis airport restroom. On Tuesday, Mr. Craig, 62, held a news conference to defend himself, calling the guilty plea “a mistake” and declaring, “I am not gay” — even as the Senate Republican leadership asked for an Ethics Committee review.

It was a bizarre spectacle, and only the latest in a string of accusations of sexual foibles and financial misdeeds that have landed Republicans in the political equivalent of purgatory, the realm of late-night comic television.

Forget Mark Foley of Florida, who quit the House last year after exchanging sexually explicit e-mail messages with under-age male pages, or Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist whose dealings with the old Republican Congress landed him in prison. They are old news, replaced by a fresh crop of scandal-plagued Republicans, men like Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, whose phone number turned up on the list of the so-called D.C. Madam, or Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska and Representative Rick Renzi of Arizona, both caught up in F.B.I. corruption investigations.

It is enough to make a self-respecting Republican want to tear his hair out in frustration, especially as the party is trying to defend an unpopular war, contain the power of the new Democratic majority on Capitol Hill and generate some enthusiasm among voters heading toward the presidential election in 2008.

“The real question for Republicans in Washington is how low can you go, because we are approaching a level of ridiculousness,” said [Republican strategist Scott] Reed, sounding exasperated in an interview on Tuesday morning. “You can’t make this stuff up. And the impact this is having on the grass-roots around the country is devastating. Republicans think the governing class in Washington are a bunch of buffoons who have total disregard for the principles of the party, the law of the land and the future of the country.”

And it could not have come at a worse time.

President George W. Bush had finally parted company with controversial Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, but that story had barely begun to simmer down when news of the Craig story broke.

Gonzales’ resignation could be seen as having two possible impacts if the news cycle had been uncluttered: it would underscore Gonzales’ failure as an Attorney General (and Bush’s as a manager for selecting and standing by him), but it also would likely have helped Bush since he finally was going to have a Gonzales-free administration (and the Democrats would not have a political punching bag anymore).

But the Craig story is a story with “legs” — a journalistic gift that keeps on giving. It would normally spark follow-up stories and die down. But Craig’s calling the story a ‘witch hunt” means his local newspaper and other papers will be looking for new follow ups and revelations.

A news cycle that could have been dominated by at least a partial perception that Bush had accepted Gonzales’ resignation was now dominated by what Americans love: a good, old-fashioned sex scandal, complete with a powerful bigwig who denies it and reportedly tried to use his clout to convince the police officer (by showing him his U.S. Senator card). Even Bush’s appointment of a new Attorney General won’t spark more interest in some parts of the U.S. public.

UPDATE: But is there a NEW scandal that will take some news attention away from this? One involving a big Democratic fund-raiser?

The story isn’t full out yet but it sounds as if now the Democrats will be getting some negative publicity as well.