Wide Stance
Another week, another conservative politician arrested on a morals charge. Senator Larry Craig of Idaho has pleaded guilty to "disorderly conduct" for attempting to have sex with a police officer in an airport toilet.
Naturally, Senator Craig is a politician devoted to family values. Naturally, Naturally, he voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting gay marriage, and naturally he voted against sex education in schools and allowing people with AIDS to have expanded access to Medicare.
According to the arresting officer, Senator Craig seemed quite familiar with the various signals men use when attempting to copulate within a toilet stall. Craig claims his gestures were misinterpreted, especially the "wide stance" he uses on the john.
Craig was outed last year by blogger Mike Rogers, and was supposedly under investigation over twenty years ago for molesting congressional pages. (Rogers has also outed family-values gays like Congressman Ed Schrock and Congressman David Dreier. )
This follows my absolute favorite sex scandal of the Right, in which Rep. Bob Allen claimed he was so afraid of black men that he offered to pay one for oral sex.
Understand that I don't particularly care what people get up to in private. (Though I'm not sure whether "private" includes an airport toilet stall--- can't the Senator go to a seedy motel like other people?) I don't care if the entire Senate is gay. And I'm not in love with the practice of outing public figures.
I'm not even terribly bothered by the hypocrisy. Politicians are hypocritical because the voters are hypocrites, and in order to get elected the politicians have to say what the voters want them to, even if the voters are stupid, ignorant, bigoted, and useless.
What really bothers me is the assumption of privilege. Dozens if not hundreds of people knew about Craig's orientation, including the party insiders in his own state, and this was probably the case with Schrock and Dreier and Allen as well. Yet they all thought that because they were Privileged--- because they were white and male and politically conservative and political insiders--- that they could publically condemn people just like them, and still majestically float above the fray without being touched. Craig could dump truckloads of shit on others, but because of his assumption of privilege, he thought none of the shit would ever cling to him.
Well, kids, the shit is all over him now.
We close with Craig's endorsement of Mitt Romney.
Knowing Governor Mitt Romney is knowing someone who, first and foremost, has very strong family values. That is something I grew up with and believe in.
Sounds kind of ironic now, doesn't it?
Naturally, Senator Craig is a politician devoted to family values. Naturally, Naturally, he voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting gay marriage, and naturally he voted against sex education in schools and allowing people with AIDS to have expanded access to Medicare.
According to the arresting officer, Senator Craig seemed quite familiar with the various signals men use when attempting to copulate within a toilet stall. Craig claims his gestures were misinterpreted, especially the "wide stance" he uses on the john.
Craig was outed last year by blogger Mike Rogers, and was supposedly under investigation over twenty years ago for molesting congressional pages. (Rogers has also outed family-values gays like Congressman Ed Schrock and Congressman David Dreier. )
This follows my absolute favorite sex scandal of the Right, in which Rep. Bob Allen claimed he was so afraid of black men that he offered to pay one for oral sex.
Understand that I don't particularly care what people get up to in private. (Though I'm not sure whether "private" includes an airport toilet stall--- can't the Senator go to a seedy motel like other people?) I don't care if the entire Senate is gay. And I'm not in love with the practice of outing public figures.
I'm not even terribly bothered by the hypocrisy. Politicians are hypocritical because the voters are hypocrites, and in order to get elected the politicians have to say what the voters want them to, even if the voters are stupid, ignorant, bigoted, and useless.
What really bothers me is the assumption of privilege. Dozens if not hundreds of people knew about Craig's orientation, including the party insiders in his own state, and this was probably the case with Schrock and Dreier and Allen as well. Yet they all thought that because they were Privileged--- because they were white and male and politically conservative and political insiders--- that they could publically condemn people just like them, and still majestically float above the fray without being touched. Craig could dump truckloads of shit on others, but because of his assumption of privilege, he thought none of the shit would ever cling to him.
Well, kids, the shit is all over him now.
We close with Craig's endorsement of Mitt Romney.
Knowing Governor Mitt Romney is knowing someone who, first and foremost, has very strong family values. That is something I grew up with and believe in.
Sounds kind of ironic now, doesn't it?
posted by dubjay at 1:55 PM
4 Comments:
It seems to me the "dirty tricks" season of the 2008 election has arrived early.
The goal of the Republicans is to embarrass as many Democratic members of Congress as possible, usually via allegations of corruption, bribery and sexual misconduct.
The goal of the Democrats is to embarrass as many Republican members of Congress as possible, usually via allegations of corruption, bribery, and sexual misconduct.
The message of the replacements of the aforementioned embarrassed members of Congress will be, "I'm going to Washington to clean up this culture of corruption, bribery, and sexual misconduct!" They will later be indicted in several terms for violations of the same.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
I'm now sure how this qualifies as a campaign "dirty trick," unless you think that the Democrats somehow planted that cop in the Minneapolis airport last October in hopes of snaring any closeted gay Republican senators who happened to be wandering by.
And here's Larry Womack on this matter.
"Who needs marriage when you can have anonymous public sex?"
I recalled reading Senator Craig's name was on the same list distributed by the campaign tricksters from 2004 who exposed the Senator from Florida for being gay (and expressing WAY too much interest in congressional pages).
Guess I should have said that in my original post... D'oh!
This doesn't make Senator Craig's actions any better... I'm just surprised it took him this long to screw up.
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