I guess that you can make a serious issue of it, but
I am too busy laughing my head off.

What is it with Republicans who cannot keep it in their
pants?

This is the age of hate crimes.  It doesn’t matter whether Craig did anything illegal or not.  What matters is intent.  According to Terrence McKelvey at http://www.missouri-dui-dwi-defense.com/states/NY, “[I]f you are arrested in a vehicle that is stopped by the side of the road and you are passed out in the front seat with the car key in the ignition, you can be convicted.” If the cop thinks you may wish to commit a crime, then that’s that.  Craig is guilty of being a fag, and being a fag in public is against the law, unless you are part of a group of fags in a parade.  Most cops, being regular blue-collar types, are especially ardent about arresting fags, whom it is OK to hate when they are acting like fags, although it is not OK to hate them when speaking at the pulpit, or when protesting at one of their parades; then they deserve police protection.

It’s all so simple, isn’t it?  The arbitrary application of the law is one of the hallmarks of a truly free society.  Fags and fag-haters alike can be arrested for entirely dissimilar reasons.

I just hope that undercover cop isn’t emotionally scarred for life.  We all know how threatening toe tapping and mild annoyance can be to a blue-collar tough.

Justin has raised a valid question about what seem to
be sting operations conducted against would-be
sex offenders. I know of one local case in which a
person’s life was ruined and his freedom taken away
because of his unrealized intention to have sex with a minor.
minor. Although I’m not sure what the punishment
should have been in this case, what was done because
of an apparent setup seems to have been
shockingly excessive.

It’s incidents with the police such as this
and the ensuing courtroom prostration that
is quickly turning more and more decent people
against our growing police state.
It’s easy to snicker until you find yourself
being entrapped or buffeted by the police.
EVERYONE is watching too much television and
losing a true perspective of what the police
are supposed to be doing, and how.

With respect to Mr. Gottfried’s comment, note that the entire MSNBC TV series “To Catch a Predator” and a similar program on FOX are based on the entrapment of rather stupid losers who “intend” to have sex with “minors”, who are not really minors, but simply create on-line personae.  The organization which provides the decoys for these stings, at least with respect to the MSNBC series, appropriately calls itself “perverted justice”.  Most of the members of this gang of police state enablers are computer geeks, some of whom consider themselves libertarians.  There was an interesting and chilling article on this entire abomination in a recent issue of Rolling Stone.

For an excellent, sound, and thoroughly enjoyable read on this topic, go to the http://www.angryharry.com/ main page and read the top story.  This guy is consistently good.

“Having read up on this ”cruising” business, “

you don’t say

According to the Wikipedia entry on Senator Craig (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Craig)
“In 1995, Craig formed a barbershop quartet called The Singing Senators with Senators Trent Lott, John Ashcroft, and James Jeffords.” Thus it is possible that the foot tapping was of a musical, rather than sexual, nature.  As for the movement of one leg so far from the other while seated, as Rosemary Woods (President Nixon’s secretary) demonstrated in 1973, it IS possible. Let us give this proponent of Constitutional Amendments the benefit of the doubt.

Let’s see.  A prominent conservative pro-family Senator gets caught soliciting gay sex in a public potty.  Maybe he should have been arrested for invincible stupidity rather than lewd behavior.

This may be the beginning of a trend.  Maybe the GOP is abandoning pretense and showing itself as a criminal gang.  It’s apparently a sissy criminal gang, though. We’ll watch for further developments such as the kind of sissy gang activity described by Joseph Wambaugh:
“serial hair-pulling and drive-by face slapping”.

You know the GOP is in trouble when their manliest partisans are Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin.

Considering the title of this story, shouldn’t this site be called Taki’s Bottom Drawer

There is something inherently funny about politicians
being caught in sex, specially if they are of the
“holier than thou” persuation.

In any case, people are being instructed all over the
networks on the proper bathroom solicitation etiquette.
I can say that I could have done very well without
learning it.  But it brings back the old days when
people could say “oral sex” and “oval office” in the
same sentence.

*snicker, snicker*

The problem with Senator Craig’s action, in my view anyway, is not with the act per se, but with the personal context of the individual, with reminds me of Ted Haggard’s problem.  Their hypocrisy is the problem, not their actions.  Sadly, as Mr. Gottfried notes, few seem to take offense to the “gotcha” tactics of the police in this case.

Also in the police report is a reference to Craig “fidgeting” with his fingers and peering with his clear “blue eyes” into the officer’s stall for two minutes.  Couldn’t this act alone be considered “lewd” in a public restroom?

what’s worse is how they always bring their families to these press conferences.  it’s obvious they are using their wife and kids as a shield.  of course, in ted haggards case they asked him the questions anyway.

Personally, I don’t get where the hypocrisy comes in.  I mean, you can think homosexuality is morally wrong (I do not, for what it’s worth) and vote against, say, gay marriage, on the grounds that you think it will be bad for society and still have gay tendencies or be full-blown gay yourself.  Even acting on those desires doesn’t make you a hyopcrite, just someone who doesn’t live up to his own ideals.

marc- you have to be pretty naive to be a homosexual and sell youself as a social conservative and not expect something like this and to be called a hyposcrite.

If Craig did actually beak the law, then that is the most disturbing aspect of the case.  The problem here is a purposely vague “disorderly conduct” statute that can construe virtually any conduct as violative. 

This isn’t funny. Despite our claim to being a Christian country, we’re really not.  We’re a hateful and spiteful lot who love to pile on people when they’re down like cowards.

I have never cared much for Sen. Craig.  However, I do feel he’s the object of great injustice and can’t help but feel sorry for him.  Nonetheless, my sadness is lifted a bit when I think of how disorderly his ranting would have been had it been someone else caught up in this instead of himself.

@dan stewart

I got to learn more about the subject that I ever cared
to know, but what is described as ‘disorderly conduct”
consisted of the following acts:

1) reaching with his foot under the partition to touch
the foot of the other person

2) reaching down with his hand under the partition, and
gesturing.

3) trying to make eye contact with the occupant of the
next stall.

Well, if you were to be using the toilet for its
intended purpose, and your neighbor did that, wouldn’t
that freak you out? Wouldn’t you complain to the police
and say you felt threatened? Would you call it sexual
harassment and in a place where it would be very unpleasant
to think of sex?

Yes, disorderly conduct is a fine euphemism for it.

Now let’s compare Michael Vick’s fall from grace with that of O J Simpson.

http://www.chambresdhotesbayeux.com/phi_laure2.mp3

Senator Craig unwittingly combined two American favorites:  bathroom humor, and the secret sex lives of politicians.  He should expect to have his toes stepped on!  Here’s how he could demonstrate his can-do American spirit, in the Rovian manner:  resign from the Senate, become a spokesperson for a manufacturer of bathroom fixtures, and aim for the Vice Presidential slot on a Guliani ticket.  If he raises his gaze high enough, anything is within his grasp.

Who knows what really happened with Craig...the
entire event looks suspicious to me, although I held
no admiration for this idiot before he was outed in the
newspapers.

What gets me about the big uproar over Republican
politicans get caught with their pants down is the
hypocrisy of the Democrats, especially the feminists,
who blithly defended Clinton, or the notorious reputation
of the Kennedy clan from Daddy to JFK to Senator Edward,
but get their panties in a bunch when a Republican
Congressman get’s caught with a hooker, or trying to date
Congressional pages.

The gay community isn’t much better as not so long ago a 1980’s teen dream
pop singer was making visiting men’s restrooms his
chief way of sexual expression, with nary a eyebrow
raised in the gay establishment. As if hardly NO gay
men hang out around the toliets? No...officially
‘gay’ men want to get married in a church, settle down,
get married in a church, and settle down to a life
of wedded bliss in the suburbs with a dog and three
adopted children.

Give me a break.

Like my fellow blogger and brother, Kirt, I often find myself railing against the breathtaking injustice of police/prosecutor-manufactured “crime.”

Many Christians, especially, have a huge moral blind spot when it comes to the grievous sinfulness of fabricating occasions of sin--as in “To Catch a Predator” or the lurid luring of Craig et al.--in order to dispense what only a total cynic or moral illiterate would call justice.

These media-driven, police-state practices are nothing short of rigged human game hunts for the sole purpose of bagging and mounting political trophies.

Oh, we laughed at Bill Clinton long enough, don’t worry.

But at least there was no bathroom humor involved.

Of course all kinds of gays cruise the bathrooms and
do all those things, and some of them are celebrities,
but a celebrity is not the same as a legislator who are
supposed to pass wise laws to guide our conduct.

We must have higher standards for our legislators that
we have for our celebrities. God forbid us that we take
Paris Hilton as a model of behavior.

Since almost everyone in our society is either on the take, on the make, or both, expect two books (both ghost-written) to quickly appear on the best-seller lists:  one, an autobiography, by the redoubtable Officer Karsnia explaining how he bagged more than forty male admirers just by “being there”; and the second, a tell-all, by the Senator’s wife, who uses her story as an opportunity to clean up and clear out.  Books, T.V. appearances, product endorsements...celebrities are being created, and we should study the process with the same fascination that we study the cosmos.  Furthermore, the process is just beginning.  If you visit the Google news page (http://news.google.com/) you will see almost 2,400 articles on various aspects of the story, more than on any other news item of the past week.

Adriana, you may think what Craig did falls under “sexual harrassment,” but he was clearly responding to the acceptance of an invitation by the undercover cop, who “moved [his] foot up and down slowly.” In other words, the undercover cop, who was specifically in the bathroom to look for lewd conduct, “recognized [foot tapping] as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct” and responded in kind to Craig’s advances.  When someone responds positively to sexual advances, that can hardly be called “sexual harrassment,” unless you are a graduate of women’s studies.  This is dangerously close to entrapment, if it does not fit the definition entirely.  But what does entrapment matter in a police state?

This whole sordid affair not only opens up the immense problems created by government interference in daily life, it also is a lesson in the free market.  The vast majority of people in this world would like a little more privacy when using “public” restrooms.  Why not follow the example of Little America off I-80 in Wyoming?  The bathroom stalls there are not only clean, each toilet is it’s own room, with walls that reach the ceiling and floor, and full doors.  No foot tapping, no suspicion, no “harrassment” to deal with.

I don’t think he committed a crime and should not have been arrested. But I do think that he has demonstrated that he is not possessed of sufficient wisdom to hold a responsible position. He should have the sense to know that he is a public person, and he displays very little understanding of the justice system that he writes lasw for. One can only hope that he will at least think a little more carefully before putting new laws on the books.

brmerrick has a good point:  Why don’t bathroom stalls have floor to ceiling walls?  You’d think that of all possible rooms or compartments, they would be first to have them?

The Gay Old Party never ceases to amuse me with their hypocrisy.

Larry Craig should immediately resign from the Senate.

One must be on the lookout for subtle signs of these “cruisers.” For example, once in a rest area on the outskirts of Detroit, a guy peered over the top of my stall door and asked, “Can I come in?” Another time, as I ate breakfast in a seating area at an “oasis” built over a tollway, a guy approached my table, rested his fists on the table, and asked, “Do you wanna blow job”? I’m not sure, but I think these characters may have been engaged in cruising.

What has not been reported: Had the cop that arrested Senator Craig done this before? Did the paper that printed all the anonymous reports of Craig’s sexual behavior have a record of bashing anti-gay activitist? Was the Senator’s down fall the result of a gay agenda? On the other side, what was Senator doing in that bathroom? Was he changing planes? Were all the other stalls occupied?

Davis11
Ocean Beach, Ca.

What if Craig was practicing his tap-dance steps and was waving his hand-looking for some applause, or other appreciation.
These holier than thou jackasses make me mad as hell. Hypocritical bastard, he truly is.