Larry Craig! Sit! Good Dog.

I have just read that Larry Craig’s lawyer is now leaving room for Craig to stay in the Senate regardless of what happens in his quest to set aside his guilty plea in the alleged Minnesota sex solicitation claim. At first Craig said that he “intended” to resign affective September 30th so that he could “fight like hell” against the injustice of his pleading guilty to a misdemeanor when he was initially charged with a sex crime and he had months to consider his options, consult with counsel before he accepted the plea arrangement he felt compelled to make.

Let’s leave aside for the time being the issue of “injustice” and how many different Republican policies have been enacted with Craig’s support simply to make sure that “justice” was never served. We could talk about illegal renditions, illegal traffic stops, racial profiling, the denial of the right of couples in love to marry, narrowing of the Fifth Amendment and the Patriot Act. We could talk about the sweet, sweet irony that Craig is now being served a big steaming plate of injustice and won’t be allowed to get up from the table until he east every bite. We could discuss the fact that at least Craig wasn’t forced into pleading guilty, that he had the right to counsel and that no one beat him until he gave a confession.

But I am not going to do that. As much as I would like to talk about those things, I am not going to go into any detail on any of them. Why?

Because I want Larry Craig to remain in the Senate. Right now Larry Craig may, possibly, be my favorite Senator. He is almost certainly higher on my appreciation list than is the semi- to fully-traitorous Dianne Feinstein although she does get some points in my book for being a vote for Harry Reid as Majority Leader. I don’t like Craig more than I like Robert Byrd, Daniel Inouye, Russ Feingold and a host of others, but I hold Craig in very high esteem nonetheless.

Again, you may ask yourselves “why?”

Because Craig is a huge problem for the Republicans. Mark Foley already exposed the seedy underbelly of closeted and hypocritical “Family Values” legislators. David Vitter has clearly demonstrated that his view of “Family Values” means “I think of prostitutes as members of my family.”

The Republican Party cannot figure out how to handle it’s philanderers, pederasts and cruisers. That fact is evident. When Foley was doing his thing, there were whispers all over Washington and Dennis Hastert did everything is his power to actively prevent himself from hearing those whispers lest he have to do something about it. Apparently, Foley even wanted to quit but he was pressured b the White House to defend his seat (when they should have been defending the seats of all those Congressional pages) so they could maintain their majority without having to reclaim an open seat. Only when it became apparent that Foley was a goner did the Republicans form some half-baked strategy to try and hold on to the seat by urging everyone to vote for Foley so they could name his replacement.

When the Vitter story broke, Republicans everywhere defended with some variation of the “let he who is without sin cast the first stone and by the way, Bill Clinton totally got blown by an intern in the Oval Office and Hillary Clinton might be a dyke so why are we even paying attention to Vitter whose own wife once said she’d cut off his prick if he ever cheated on her?”

Which leads us to Larry “Wide Stance Craig.” It isn’t surprising that, given the very conservative nature of Idaho generally and its Governor particularly, the Republicans would want Craig gone. If he leaves, they get to appoint another conservative to replace him and then, in all likelihood, face a pretty smooth reelection bid. It also isn’t surprising that the Republicans are taking lots of different, and hypocritical, views on these three legislative lotharios. With Foley they worried they couldn’t hold his seat so they ignored the whispers and never investigated the rumors. When he was exposed, they still ran a perverse campaign (although, admittedly, they had no legal choice) that was, essentially designed to re-elect him.

When Vitter was outed as an alleged whoremaster (or is a “whoremaster” a pimp, thereby making Vitter a whore enthusiast?), they rallied behind him lst he resign and be replaced by a Democratic Governor.

And now with Larry Craig they are nothing but against him. They want him gone yesterday. But Craig, apparently having grown accustomed to the life of privilege and perks, has decided that he doesn’t want to leave yet and I love it. Every day he spends in office is a day the Republican leadership has to answer questions about why they haven’t opened an ethics investigation on him. Every day with Craig is a day they have to justify having a man who, by all accounts but his own, tried to get an anonymous stranger to blow him in a public toilet. This keeps the Republican off message and destroys their credibility. If they really cared about these family values, wouldn’t they have opened up an ethics investigation, had a hearing and expelled him already? I understand that there are a lot of procedural reasons this can’t happen, but I don’t think the average voter does and I think it makes for tougher sledding for that Party.

And I am also hopeful that Craig makes it to the end of his terms and decides to run for reelection. I think the chances of him making it through a primary are quite slim, but he does have name recognition and he can point to a lot of votes, if not his own personal lifestyle, that would appear to possibly indicate a support of the values Idahoans ostensibly value. Who knows, maybe he could pull out the primary and if he were to accomplish that it would have to be a seat the Democrats would be obligated to take and that the Republicans could not take for granted.

Most likely, if he stays there will be a Republican contesting the nomination and there will be a primary battle; even in that case, I am happy because more dirty Republican laundry gets aired and more Republican resources are spent trying to drag down Craig so that the seat is safely Republican.
So, all I have to say is “Hurray for Larry Craig!” I love this man. I don’t love him like he apparently loves other men, but I am, at a minimum, one of his biggest fans.