Republican Craig sexually confused & leaving/staying?

Clairvoyant??? Because guess what happened? Now Craig is saying he's not leaving even after guilty plea stands.

Larry Craig May Not Resign

| posted by Melissa McEwan | Wednesday, September 05, 2007 | permalink |

Everyone in the universe (yes, everyone!) has emailed me about the news that Larry Craig may not resign from the Senate after all. Basically, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Almostnotadouche) gave him a call and urged him to reconsider, his kids have evidently told him not to resign because that will make it look like he's admitting he's gay, and he hired Michael Vick's attorney (seriously), Billy Martin, who's saying that Craig's arrest "raises very serious constitutional questions."

As I thought the whole push for resignation by the GOP was rather ridiculous in the first place, just piling more hypocrisy on top of an incident already rich with it, I can't say I'd be disappointed if Craig didn't resign and fought the GOP machine. But it's really sad that he's obviously looking at it primarily as a way to "prove" that he's not gay.

It's not about the constitutional questions, or raising awareness about these sorts of police stings, or advocating on behalf of the gay men who are targeted by them, or pointing out the hypocrisy of his stinking party, or anything else that might be of real value. It's about a man—who has been dogged by rumors that he is gay for twenty-five years, who married, a year after a weirdass preemptive denial that he'd diddled Congressional pages, a woman with three kids he adopted and with whom he maintains a "commuter relationship," who was outed last year by Mike Rogers, and who, in the midst of an investigation by a home state newspaper into allegations he is gay, coincidentally got caught soliciting sex in an airport bathroom in Minnesota—so desperate to not be gay that he'll fight the very power structure that aids and abets and requires his shame and self-loathing to try to prove he's not queer.

This is the wrong fight for you, Senator. You're not going to find many allies on your side of the aisle, who aren't ever going to regard as evidence of your not-gayness any possible exoneration of the charges to which you pleaded guilty. You will, however, find plenty of allies if only you renounce this cockamamie charade and come out of the closet at long last—and tell them you're not leaving your job just because you're gay. Now that's a fight worth having, sir.

 

If Sen. Craig were to come out of the stall, er, closet he would be admitting to hypocrisy as well. If he choses not to resign, it will be interesting to see how his Republican colleagues handle the news.

 

Well when is he up for re-election? 08? Not being a resident of Idaho, I dont know what the coverage for this is there, but I would imagine that there are plenty of people calling for him to resign in his home state. I think it would be wise for him to resign, retire, or go work for a bunch more money in the private sector.

 

And now there's even more news. It could be a gay sex scandal wrapped around another Republican corruption scandal... look at this!

September 27, 2007
Is Larry Craig Sticking Around for Immunity from Subpoena? by emptywheel

Larry Craig's not gonna go, he says. At least not yet.

That's not that big a surprise--he had been threatening to un-resign since early in September. Though his decisions to resign and then un-resign correlate curiously with his receipt of a subpoena in the Brent Wilkes trial.

August 13: Subpoenas issued (to House members)
August 27: Roll Call busts Craig's bust
August 28: "I am not gay and I have never been gay."
September 1: Craig resigns, effective September 30
September 4: Craig says he may un-resign
September 5: Subpoenas served (to House members)
September 26: Craig says he's staying put, for now
October 2: Scheduled subpoena date for all House members subpoenaed (and probably Craig too)

Now, Craig was still in Idaho the first week of the month, so I assume he was officially served his subpoena after the House members. Though word of the Wilkes subpoenas may have surfaced by the time Craig did his resignation headfake.

Craig called himself an old friend of Duke Cunningham and claims that he was ignorant to Duke's bribing ways. But Wilkes Craig also appears to have been a clear recipient of a quid pro quo--where he supported an earmark for Wilkes in exchange for at least $43,500 in donations from Wilkes' employees. So Craig may well have some insight into "the Congressional appropriations process and how it works" that he'd rather not share under oath.

And frankly, I suspect Craig's colleagues probably don't want him to share it under oath, either. From the House Counsel's response to the subpoena, it appears that a Congressman has a good deal of immunity from subpoena (though I'm not sure if the Senate, too, has a rule that prohibits him from testifying). But it's not clear that that immunity extends to disgraced former Senators.

By prolonging his resignation, Craig may well be outlasting his Wilkes subpoena, until such a time as it gets quashed because Senator Larry Craig enjoys immunity for such things. This week, at least.

Airport Update: Paul Kiel says that the Senators haven't gotten their subpoenas yet.

Note that Kiel misses one key detail about why Inouye and Rockefeller (as well as Craig) would be subpoenaed. All three appear on a list of people whose re-election Mitch Wade believed would help MZM. So the ties between Inouye and Rockefeller and this bribery ring may well pre-date their chairmanship of Defense Appropriations and SSCI respectively.

 

Wow...this Larry Craig thing...

Isn't is just sad for this guy that he just doesn't know when to quit? Is he fooling anyone, really?

With politics being as fickle as it is, I find it hard to believe that he will have a career in the future - especially since he seems a little bit in denial.

I say - admit it, come clean, and put yourself at the mercy of your voters.

 

That would ABSOLUTELY be the right thing to do.

I'm sure the problem is that Craig knows his constituency all to well. He pandered to the ultra conservatives to stay in office and it's unlikely (snowballs chance in hell) that they would be any kinder to him than he was to all the gays he relentlessly attacked.

It's a shame everybody can't just live and let live. Trying to legislate morality dictated by the 25% of Christian ultra conservatives in the Republican Party is a slippery slope indeed... and no one knows this now better than Larry Craig.