Republican errand-boy, Robert Novak, yesterday revealed that Senator Craig's bathroom peccadilloes - or other like activities - were known to his conservative colleagues in the Senate. Novak:
I have talked to several of my sources in the Senate, and this came as a surprise to me...They knew about it. They knew that he had this problem, and it was in the closet. And it was not just a homosexual relationship. It was this weird conduct. They didn't do anything about it.
Think Progress' Satyam tries to make from the statements a Mark-Foley-like cover up by Senate Republicans, but Craig's illicit bathroom lovin' - tho' icky and illegal - is a far cry from Foley's abuse of his office and universally condemned sexual proclivities. Senators may have thought - and rightly, IMHO - that what Craig did in his spare time away from the office was his own d*mn business.
Plus, if Novak is repeating rumors about Republican Senators, they're rumors the Republican Senators want us to know. What I think we're seeing is the Republican strategy for wedging Craig out, now. If it's true Craig is fighting his ouster because he's loath to admit - perhaps most of all to himself - his secret gay life, then, by golly, they're gonna make him face his sexual demons.
A Minnesota judge denied Larry Craig's attempt to ditch his "guilty" plea. Nonetheless, Craig vows to soldier on:
"I am extremely disappointed with the ruling issued today," Craig said in a statement. "I am innocent of the charges against me. I continue to work with my legal team to explore my additional legal options."
"I will continue to serve Idaho in the United States Senate..."
Who knows? Maybe Craig will run again. You have to admire the Senator's state of denial. You get the feeling he's refusing to resign because he's really refusing to admit he's gay.
If he runs, that definitely slides Idaho into a more competitive bracket.
In an already bad Senate map for the GOP, it's only getting worse. Think the RSCC is going to have ready cash for a GOP challenger to Max Baucus? Me, neither.
Larry Craig is calling a do-over. Since he's retracting the guilty plea, no doubt conservatives will come back to his defense, since he's no longer admitting his guilt of a crime.
It still leaves a giant gaping question as to why it was worse to solicit sex in a bathroom than it was for Rep. Scott Boggio to drive drunk with Rep. Elsie Arntzen in the vehicle. But I'm sure there's a sound reason in there somewhere.
Dang, it's hard to keep up with Larry Craig! First, he was going to resign. Then he was going to un-resign. The latest rumor has Craig un-resigning, then retiring. Or at least that's what Mitch McConnell thinks:
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) if Senator Craig were to run for reelection, would he have your support?
MCCONNELL: I believe he indicated this morning that he - his hope would be that if he got the matter disposed of in Minnesota that he would finish his term. I do not believe he intends to run for re-election.
[snip]
QUESTION: Does that mean he has no intention of running for re-election?
MCCONNELL: He'll have to speak for himself, but that was what I thought I heard him say, that his effort would be to complete his term under that set of circumstances.
What this means, I haven't the foggiest.
Update: WTF? The International Herald Tribune says "Craig is unlikely to finish term." At least that's what Craig's spokesman is saying.
So?Craig has resigned, un-resigned, un-resigned and retired, and now he's back to plain ol' resigning. Sheesh. I'm taking a break from this story for a little while until Senator Wide Stance makes up his mind.
Is Larry Craig going to un-resign? He is if he's cleared, he says. Yes, that's right, he's going to fight to reverse his "guilty" plea, and, if successful, he's going to run for re-election.
Where do I begin with this?
His own party hates him. The rank-and-file hates him. Not for the gay sex thing, mind you, but for being icky about it. Democrats want him to stay so Larry LaRocco has yet another advantage in the 2008 election. Kossak mcjoan: "Because what could be more fun than the prospect of Republican Larry Craig staying in the Senate race in Idaho?"
Indeed.
If Craig does manage to shuck off his guilty plea - and with the legal team he's assembled, it's very possible - do all the conservative nay-sayers back track, for political reasons? Do they buy Craig's story that he has a "wide stance"? (Still no word on why he peeks through the cracks into other men's stalls.)
The best thing about it, perhaps, is to watch a prominent figure struggle with his own sexuality. It's classic closeted behavior, isn't it? He'd rather put himself and his familythrough an intense sh*tstorm, a very public trial and an election where his sexual peccadilloes will be the main story, instead of 'fessing up. He'd rather destroy everything he has rather than acknowledge his sexual tendencies.
Maybe more folks will understand how difficult it is to come out, and that maybe - just maybe -- they're part of the reason why...
Politically speaking, this is a disaster for the GOP. Does rumored anointed successor, former Lt. Gov. Jim Ritsch, primary Craig? Don't count out Bill Sali, either. It'd be just like him to step in and make homosexuality the issue of the Senate race. In any case, while the right devours itself, Larry LaRocco is working his *ss off to take the seat.
Update 2: Craig to make an announcement tomorrow from Boise, ID. AP reported that Risch is the one. Otter's people are denying that a decision has been made.
Update: What I'm hearing is that Craig is departing today -- and that Otter is appointing former Lt. Gov. Risch. GOP is saying Risch has money in the bank. That may be true, he's also got hundreds of thousands in debts from his last state race, so there's that. I was also told that he's literally the guy who pushed through a hike in the sales tax, so that might explain his 26% approval rating in Idaho. Anyways, CNN is reporting that Craig is likely to leave soon. My source (and it's a single source right now) says Risch is the guy who'll replace him. We'll see if this stuff bears out.
So, some folks want Sen. Larry Craig to resign in a flurry of outrage not heard from the right since Sen. Vitter 'fessed up to hiring prostitutes (wait, there wasn't similar outrage for a sex scandal involving illegal acts with women; color me confused).
And who knows -- it may actually reach that point. Obviously, I'd prefer otherwise. Larry Craig looks pretty vulnerable right now and heaven knows it'd be sweet to score a U.S. Senate seat in that reddest of all states. But the GOP leadership is pushing hard and Craig might give in.
Would that be the end of our hopes for the seat? Here's a hint: not necessarily.
Gov. Butch Otter would get to appoint Craig's replacement and the natural choices aren't so hot. Their short list comes from a surprisingly shallow bench.
U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson -- Simpson's a natural choice but his favorability is below 50%, he hasn't had a tough race in years, and he's only got $75k in the bank. Add to that the fact that the Club for Growth is basically pledging to primary him (probably with his colleague U.S. Rep. Bill Sali, quite possibly the stupidest man in Washington, D.C., and that's saying something) and you've got a stage set for GOP trouble.
Former Lt. Gov. Jim Risch -- Sure, it's possible, but his approval statewide is 26% and he doesn't have any dough.
Former Gov. Dirk Kempthorne -- How does a former Governor slip to a 46% approval rating? Probably by joining Mr. 25%'s administration. So even Kempthorne is far from a sure thing if he gives up his cushy job to give it a go in a Senate race.
Any of these folks, in other words, are still solid targets for a hard run by Larry LaRocco, who is out kicking ass right now.
Honestly, Idaho's going to be exciting whether Senator Wide Stance stays or goes.
Over at a loopy reactionary forest-management-related blog (vive la Internet!), on a post that uses Senator Larry Craig's bathroom hookup as an example of the "Moral Collapse of the USA," which the site then blames for the recent forest fires, or something (you gotta read it), Montana state senator Dave Lewis makes a guest appearance in the comments:
As a Republican state senator in Montana and as a human being, I am offended by Senator Craig's existence. Why oh why are most of the perverts that get caught Republicans? Are there more of them or are they just stupid? The thought of a US Senator chasing love in all the wrong places makes me think longingly of the Ayotollahs in Iran. They would just kill the turkey.
Yeah, that's it. Let's turn the United States into a fundamentalist theocracy. That'll keep our Republican Senators from blowing strangers in public bathrooms.
But seriously, it's hard to keep track of who we're battling. Let's see: we're now in a worldwide war with Islamo-fascists who want to kill us and convert us to Islamic fundamentalism because of all the easy-livin' loose values we wallow in, which we also hate, so the terrorists are on to something, actually.
Or something. You need a frickin' scorecard nowadays to keep track of conservative phobias.
Freaky jeebus! Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Maybe Larry Craig likes to blow men he meets in public bathrooms because he's creepy, and not because of Sesame Street , peanut butter cups, and pay-per-view softcore porn. H*ll, Craig's actions weren't even all that bad, historically speaking. H*ll, Craig's actions weren't even as bad as the sh*t some Republicans pulled this year!
Personally, I like America . I'd rather take my chances that softcore porn is creating David Vitters, Larry Craigs, and Jack Abramoffs than submit to a yoke of religious fundamentalism, thank you very much.
As for why the perverts "that get caught" are Republican? Well, Dave, I've got some theories...
The Idaho Statesman finally reveals what it uncovered in its investigations of Larry Craig's, er, unusual sex life. Basically it includes cruising in public bathrooms and public stores (the Boise REI!), and some allegations that Craig hit on, and might have had sex with, underage Congressional staffers.
How many Republicans are going to rush themselves out of the closet in awkward ways before the GOP finally stops trying to divide the country on these issues? Clearly, there are some deep-seeded problems.
Speaking of issues, check out this transcript of Larry Craig calling Bill Clinton "a nasty, bad, naughty boy." Too much.
(Matthew Koehler takes on Idaho's endangered Senator - promoted by Matt Singer)
Kudos to the folks at the Western Watersheds Project http://www.westernwa... for sharing with the world some interesting clips of Idaho Senator Larry Craig and Idaho Governor Butch Otter talking global warming and wildfires at recent news conference.
In the first clip here http://www.youtube.c... Senator Craig gives Governor Otter a helping hand with the politically correct term to use when talking about logging our public national forests.
And Senator Craig's profound thoughts on global warming and wildfires is worth a listen here http://www.youtube.c... .
Senator Craig is known to wax poetically about a wide range of subjects, all of which he seems to be an expert, and I've personally been at the receiving end of some of the senator's straw-grasping. Back in the fall of 2002, as the first incarnation of Bush's "Healthy Forest Initiative" was being debated, the Washington Times got hold of a rather innocent email I sent to colleagues letting them know that an NPR reporter was looking for an example of a "thinning" project that we felt would illustrate our concerns with industrial logging being done on our public lands under the guise of "fuel reduction."
The email was published in the Times' Inside the Beltway column and a day letter Senator Craig went to the Senate floor with a blown-up version of the email, which he used to not only blast all environmentalists but to also threaten to de-fund National Public Radio. If memory serves correct, Senator Craig actually used the blown-up version of my email on the floor the next day too. For the life of me, I still can't figure out how or why Senator Craig thought the email correspondence was such a "smoking gun." I mean, do republicans or logging companies or oil companies not work with media outlets on stories?
Last summer, when Senator Craig was still chairman of the Senate's Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests (before the GOP lost control of Congress), I was invited to testify at a Senate hearing reviewing implementation of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA). If you're interested, you can check out my testimony here http://energy.senate... .
Senator Craig opened the hearing with a ten minute soliloquy on wildfires, logging and forest management that contained more than a few nuggets of misinformation and gross oversimplifications. The ten senators present then spent nearly two hours blasting then Forest Service chief Dale Bosworth for the Bush administration's failure to implement fuel reduction projects using the HFRA. As was pointed out later in my testimony, in the nearly three years since the HFRA became law, the Forest Service accomplished zero acres of fuel reduction in Montana and Wyoming and 103 acres in Idaho using that tool. Hardly impressive numbers.
Unfortunately, by the time my panel testified, and was opened up to questions, the senators were all tuckered out from going round and round with the Forest Service. I found this somewhat disappointing since I would have relished the opportunity to answer any question Senator Craig would have tossed my way...and I had a few questions for the Seantor myself.
