Senator Craig - I apologize in advance

Ok, I can't resist. What do people think of Larry Craig's arrest for ostensibly soliciting sex in a men's room? He's denying he did anything wrong.

Tuesday, in his first public statement on the arrest, the Idaho Republican said he did nothing "inappropriate."

"Let me be clear: I am not gay and never have been," said Craig, who has aligned himself with conservative groups who oppose gay rights.

However, I don't think he has plausible deniability here. From the police account:

A police officer who arrested him June 11 said Craig peered through a crack in a restroom stall door for two minutes and made gestures suggesting to the officer he wanted to engage in "lewd conduct."

Craig's blue eyes were clearly visible through the crack in the door, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport police Sgt. Dave Karsnia wrote in the report he filed.

"Craig would look down at his hands, 'fidget' with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again," Karsnia wrote in documents accompanying the arrest report.

Craig said the officer misinterpreted his actions.

Misinterpreted? Maybe Craig was hoping Karsnia could "spare a square"?

It gets worse when you hear about what he might have been up to in 1982.

The officer wrote he was on a plainclothes detail in the restroom because of citizen complaints and arrests for sexual activity there.

Karsnia wrote that when the person occupying the stall beside him left, Craig entered it and blocked the door with his rolling suitcase.

"My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall," the officer said in his report.

The senator then tapped his right foot, "a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct," Karsnia wrote, and Craig ran his left hand several times underneath the partition dividing the stalls.

"The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot, which was within my stall area," the officer's report said.

When the police interviewed him later, the senator said that "he has a wide stance when going to the bathroom" and that was why his foot may have touched the officer's, the report said.

Craig also told police that he had reached down to the floor to pick up a piece of paper, the officer wrote.

"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," Karsnia wrote.

"During the interview, Craig either disagreed with me or 'didn't recall' the events as they happened."

After Craig ran his hand underneath the partition wall three times, Karsnia held his police identification down by the floor so the senator could see it, the report said.

"With my left hand near the floor, I pointed towards the exit. Craig responded, 'No!'

"I again pointed towards the exit. Craig exited the stall with his roller bags without flushing the toilet," Karsnia wrote.

Oops, he forgot to flush. Well, without evidence of a BM can he really claim he was reaching under the partition and spreading his feet into the next stall for the sake of straining? I don't believe a word of this.

It seems the Republicans just can't win on this issue. It turns out in 1982 he was implicated in a homosexual page scandal:

Which is a reminder of the Mark Foley incident. In addition you have Florida State Rep Bob Allen soliciting gay sex and using racism to cover it up. You've got the head of the Young Republican National Federation being accused of taking advantage of a sleeping colleague (again for a second time). Gosh, who else. Ted Haggard. One of our local Baptist screamers was recently arrested while cross-dressing at a car wash and soliciting sex for money. I'm beginning to think that we're seeing an epidemic of reaction formation from the Republicans.

This stuff is so pathetic. But being hypocrites, they're asking for abuse when they get caught doing this stuff.

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I think that his denial yesterday will go down as one of the worst public denials ever.

He did nothing but harm to himself with that obvious grouping of lies and distortion.

It was pure entertainment.

He is NOT gay! Not that there is anything wrong with that.

It turns out, the American criminal justice system works perfectly UNLESS you're a rich white man.

Did he assert that he's never engaged in non-heterosexual activities?

Even that may not say much since there's the broad, vague range of heterosexuals activities; one person's ickiness-sodomy-fetish is another's raison d'etre, but the clip they kept on showing is him saying, "I'm not gay, nor have I ever been gay." Although his wife did pointedly keep her distance as they walked away.

So my question is this -- and it came up during the previous Ted bashing...How much gayness does it take to be defined gay? Just a smidge? A lot? If you're bi, does that make you by "definition" gay? One poorly selected BJ? One handjob? One massaging of the prostate? Three instances? Five? Out of potentially 1000s of encounters is there a percentage threshold that needs to be reached? What if a previously gay person has a single hetero relationship; does that make them straight?

Because it seems that in many cases "gayness" is a political pejorative more than a sexual orientation.

Craig exited the stall with his roller bags without flushing the toilet

Leaving the stall without flushing ought to constitute a crime in itself.

By Tegumai Bopsul… (not verified) on 29 Aug 2007 #permalink

I think it quite possible that he was telling the truth when he said that he is not gay, and never was. (Though I'm sure he was being deliberately misleading.)

However, I would sure like to see a reporter ask him if he is bi-sexual.

In the first report I read Craig mentioned that he plead guilty without consulting legal counsel (IIRC his wording was something like "maybe it was a dumb thing to do"). WTF? Why does a man who looks like he can afford an attorney (and probably knows a few personally) skip over that part? But then this seems to be SOP for this guy, at least when it comes to damage control.

I haven't seen any other blog latch onto this bit of bizarreness. Perhaps Mark could ask Chris to comment on this important legal angle...

By The Mac Doktor (not verified) on 29 Aug 2007 #permalink

Not only did he not flush, he probably didn't wash his hands either.

It is convenient that when questioned, he conveniently seemed to "forget."