Larry Craig Needs to Disappear into the Sunset

Senator Larry Craig was largely unknown to the broader American electorate until news of his previous arrest and conviction for lewd conduct surfaced. His name had come up in the speculative buzz surrounding the Mark Foley debacle prior to the 2006 elections as a suspected Republican in the closet, but most of us either didn't hear about him or dismissed such speculation. It's almost accepted folk wisdom that Democrats are either out as being gay or write a book when they do come out, and elected Republicans for the most part prefer to remain closeted. We don't deny they exist, but we don't speculate about them.

Of course, that was before the protracted Larry Craig incidents. Now I just wish he would leave already, shut his mouth and get on with his life. An intelligent, powerful man admitted to and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was convicted. He told no one and months passed. When the news surfaced and his colleagues, especially his Republican colleagues, got a little up in arms over the sordid details, Craig backtracked. First he said he was innocent but pleaded guilty under duress and was being unfairly singled out. Then, when he got dropped from a Romney campaign post, faced censure under the dubious spectre of 'an ethics inquiry' , and pleas from others in the Senate to resign, he said he would, backed into a corner as he was by the unthinkable leaking of such publicly available information, resign. He still didn't admit guilt - so all the salacious details of an alleged solicitation in the anonymous and hygienically challenged setting of an airport restroom, came to light. Seemingly unexplainable behavior in such a setting earned excuses from Craig that the average citizen viewed as lame at best, and at worst, insulting and demeaning. Craig took up the time honored strategy of (think Bill Clinton, Mark Foley, Eddie Murphy) 'deny, deny, deny'. Except, of course, these denials now came months after the guilty plea was a legal acceptance of responsibility for an illegal activity.

Then the flip flops began. He'd resign, but first he was going to try to withdraw his guilty plea months after it was entered and months after he paid whatever fine was rendered for the alleged offense. In the normal parlance of reporting on crime and punishment, when a guilty plea has been entered and justice rendered reports don't generally sight the crime as 'alleged' any more - but in this case everyone has been careful not to cross the line and infer any impropriety actually occured. Craig was Mirandized and entered his plea not in the heat of being questioned by police immediately after his arrest, but much later. The judge who refused to reverse his plea stated as much, and cited Craig's knowledge of the process and his presumed better than average intelligence. He fell short of calling Craig's public manueverings a mockery of the judicial process - but one does have to wonder. So, with the plea withdrawal idea off the table, the public was waiting again for Craig to announce his resignation. The Governor of Idaho was waiting to name the heir apparent. The press was waiting to exhale and comment dubiously upon Craig in the wake of his resignation. No cigar, Craig moved off Plan B and onto Plan C, continue to not resign, regardless your earlier pronouncements. Today Craig came out (no pun intended) with guns blazing and told everyone that Mitt Romney threw him under the campaign bus and then ran over him again. Mitt Romney made Larry Craig a scapegoat, ruined him.

What the heck? What does Mitt Romney have to do with a men's rooom sting in Minneapolis? First it was the sting that incorrectly identified Craig as seeking sex using 'all the usual signals'. Stings are bad. They ensnare otherwise law abiding citizens, right? Poor Larry Craig happened to go into that men's bathroom to kill a little time (since he never flushed the toilet, it was just someplace he wanted to sit down and think for a while) before catching his connecting flight. How did he know this particular bathroom had lately been a den of purported anonymous men's room sexual contact that someone of his innocent 'wide stance' knew nothing about?

But, Mitt Romney? Right, I get it now. If, when the news finally broke after Craig failed to report the misdemeanor conduct to his Senate colleagues for months, and if, when all the speculation abounded about what the heck was Craig doing in this men's room, why did he plead guilty, etc. broke - if only Mitt Romney hadn't removed Craig from his campaign post - all would have gone right for Larry Craig. I think I get it now. Darn those scandalous police for purposely choosing the men's room they knew the heterosexual, non-closeted Craig was going to use, and darn them for not having their officer get up out of his stall after Craig peered in creepily for so long, and darn him for not getting up and leaving when a hand appeared to be rubbing the underside of the stall and a foot tapped his foot. Those commonplace things happen all the time in men's rooms. But, worst of all, after arresting this innocent man, explaining the charges, detailing the behavior that accounted for the basis of arrest, inviting him back to enter a plea and setting up the process of making this right after the plea was entered - darm Mitt Romney, after the news finally broke, after other Senators called for Craig to resign, after an ethics probe was called for, and after just searching his own soul and consulting with his other campaign people, for hammering that final nail and removing Craig from his campaign post. Any candidate worth his salt would want a convicted sex solicitor on his campaign, an innocent one, that is. But Mitt Romney's actions, not Larry Craig's, were the abomination here. It's bad enough that after the Mark Foley scandal the irresponsible media might lead the public to think a men's room solicitation might constitute something like homosexual behavior. It's just the sort of thing those salacious magazine mongers and cable news types would try to do. They might even drag the story out long after it was really a dead issue. The irresponsible media might make ridiculous claims, like that Romney must be a bad guy because people like Craig were on his campaign. Or, Larry Craig might make that stretch to the absurd himself.

Larry Craig, please go home. Please get out of the spotlight. Please reconcile your behavior with your life philosophy and please look in the cold light of day at the plain facts of this situation. Think about your wife and your children, today, tomorrow and for the rest of their lives. Be the man they love, warts and all, but stand up, please. Just stand up at home. Stop protesting, stop complaining. Go home and be at peace. Write a book some day, don't write a book. Just stop protesting and blaming everyone else for a situation you got yourself into and won't let any of us get out of all these long months later....