Slate editors squabble about the Idaho senator’s bathroom arrest
Will Saletan: “Craig tapped his toes several times and moved his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly.” Is moving your foot up and down a signal of encouragement? Somebody must have a web site that explains the code.
Jacob Weisberg: Shouldn’t we stick up for the poor guy? I can’t believe it’s a crime to tap your foot on the bathroom to signal that you want to hook up, as opposed to actually having sex in the bathroom.
By the way, isn’t this what they got the LBJ aide Walter Jenkins on? Though I think it was in flagrante in that case.
June Thomas: Amen, the police are forever entrapping guys in public restrooms for peeing while gay. Or rather, peeing while wearing nice loafers.
Dickerson: I agree it seems ridiculous, but isn’t it the public nature of the thing that’s the problem? You don’t want the full blown act, as it were, happening where toddlers are being changed out of their pull-ups?
Saletan: Can someone explain the mechanics of how two people are supposed to commit a sex act in a stall where legs are visible from the knee down? Do people just walk in and not notice that four legs are in the stall?
Bill Smee: Just one of several privacy challenges that must be overcome…. At least the roller bag at the front of the stall blocks any direct walk-ins on the conjugal commode.
Dickerson: I’m a fan of someone sticking up for Craig. There’s more inappropriate airport behavior in the security pat down line.
August 29, 2007 - 03:31 PM on August 29th, 2007
Get a hotel for christs sake.
Public bathrooms are used by men and children, and is not an appropriate place to seek sex.
The Republican Sen. was busted in a sex sting by the police, who had received complaints of dirty-doings in that bathroom.
The arrest is fair.
The man pleaded guilty.
Resign now, Sen. Craig.
August 29, 2007 - 03:34 PM on August 29th, 2007
He didn’t plead guilty to a sex crime, nor was he charged with one.
August 29, 2007 - 03:38 PM on August 29th, 2007
LOL…
DISORDERLY CONDUCT…
scene of the crime?
MENS BATHROOM.
He was caught in a Sex Sting.
You just can’t spin this one.
It’s pretty bad.
(!)
August 29, 2007 - 03:45 PM on August 29th, 2007
“Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has agreed to step down as the top Republican on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee and two other subcommittees pending an investigation of his June arrest, according to a statement from GOP leaders in the Senate.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0807/CNN_Craig_stepping_down_from_committee_assignments.html
(Where’s the add-link thingy, Peejz??)
————————–
“GOP Senators Says Craig Should Resign”
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RASVHO1&show_article=1
August 29, 2007 - 03:47 PM on August 29th, 2007
Hey, even if Craig is gay, IT’S HIS OWN PERSONAL BUSINESS, right Bill Klinton? It is a PERSONAL matter. Has NOTHING to do with his job.
Or so we were repeatedly told during the Klinton Kaper.
August 29, 2007 - 03:50 PM on August 29th, 2007
unless if you’re caught having or trying to have sex in a public mens bathroom at an airport.
just a little bit different, I think.
August 29, 2007 - 04:18 PM on August 29th, 2007
4- SF, they were right to ask him to step down, and I’m glad he did. I also agree with Hoestra…the idiot pled guilty (hello you can afford a lawyer dumba**) and now they have the right to ask him to resign.
As a side note while we are on behavior…did the Democrats call for a ethics probe on Bob Filner?
Oops looks like he regrets it…
Filner, a California Democrat, faces assault and battery charges in the Aug. 19 incident in which he allegedly shoved a United Airlines employee at Dulles International Airport after refusing to leave an area reserved for airline employees.
In a statement, Filner said he “was tired after a delayed flight and frustrated by the subsequent further delay of the entire flight’s baggage.”The incident occurred as Filner was on a congressional trip to Iraq and Germany to study military service members’ transition to civilian life.
The three-sentence statement did not contest what airport police had said about the incident. “This is an episode that I regret and hope to move beyond,”he said.
Filner earlier had said news reports of the incident were “factually incorrect”and “the charges are ridiculous.â€
August 29, 2007 - 11:45 PM on August 29th, 2007
Craig should immediately switch over to the Democrite party. Then, everything will be fine. Normal.
August 30, 2007 - 12:09 AM on August 30th, 2007
7- “SF, they were right to ask him to step down, and I’m glad he did. I also agree with Hoestra:the idiot pled guilty (hello you can afford a lawyer dumba**) and now they have the right to ask him to resign.”
You’re a bit clueless at times.
Craig has been under a cloud of suspicion of his sexual orientation for 25 years, since the 1982 page scandal. Larry knew he was busted and he was trying to sweep it under the rug. Had he plead not-guilty and obtained a lawyer, it would have been national news the day after his perverse crime. I’m not really sure why it took two and a half months for this story to get tracked down and exposed, but Craig knotted his own noose here. He really had no good options. He panicked. Did you read the police report of the arresting officer?
Sorry to say this bluntly, but Larry Craig is a self-hating faggot, just like Mark Foley and Ted Haggard. Larry’s political career is toasted now, and not because he’s gay, but because he’s been exposed as a career hypocrite.
August 30, 2007 - 12:15 AM on August 30th, 2007
8- “Craig should immediately switch over to the Democrite party. Then, everything will be fine. Normal.”
Bahahahaha!! No, sorry. He’s not welcome in the Democratic Party. Our big-tent doesn’t approve of hypocritical politicians who condemn gay sex and then turn around and wants anonymous oral sex from same a sex partner in a airport restroom. No, you keep him– he meshes with the republican values.
August 30, 2007 - 06:12 AM on August 30th, 2007
TT….yeah, I know you guys don’t tolerate this kind of thing but it’s okay to leave a young lady, drunk at the bottom of a lake. We get it. Really, we get it.
August 30, 2007 - 06:13 AM on August 30th, 2007
9- Has been under a cloud of suspicion hih? Where are the victims of his advances? Mike and John brought this up last fall during Foley-gate, but have yet to bring a person forward.
Yes I read the report of the arresting police officer hence I said Craig should have hired an attorney. There was no crime..well except for arguing with the cop, and even that would have been tossed. Had the idiot gotten an attorney, there never would have been any charges cause there was no case.
Sadly TT, it will be because of homoseuality if his career is toast. People equate gay with deviant, but the gay mafia doesn’t seem to take notice of that.
August 30, 2007 - 06:15 AM on August 30th, 2007
11- ouch!
/
August 30, 2007 - 06:26 AM on August 30th, 2007
10, tofu, thanks for admitting you on the left are closed minded bigots.
August 30, 2007 - 06:29 AM on August 30th, 2007
Tofu and SFL,
When are you going to demand DEMOCRATS WHO ARE ACCUSED OF CRIMES TO STEP DOWN? When are you going to demand Democrats convicted of or pled to crimes resign and leave politics as you do for Republicans. You can start with Bubba.
August 30, 2007 - 06:56 AM on August 30th, 2007
15. This is something you’ll never get from them PCD. They live the double standard and their hypocrisy is beginning to be noticed.
August 30, 2007 - 07:10 AM on August 30th, 2007
16, I’m just holding up the mirror to them, BonBon. Maybe they’ll see their ugly selves, especially Tofu, and change.
August 30, 2007 - 07:01 PM on August 30th, 2007
I’m not excusing Craig, but isn’t it a little starnge that someone could be charged with lewd conduct for tapping their shoe on the floor?
I thought a lewd act actually had to occur. This is kind of like arresting someone for cocaine posession because their nose is running. Yes, a runny nose is a sign of cocaine abuse, but don’t they actually have to have some cocaine to be guilty of posession?
I guess since we have already started down the slippery slope with the “hate” thought crimes, it isn’t too much more of a stretch to start arresting people because they were thinking of other crimes.
Welcome to the Alice in Wonderland world of Liberalism. Where everything is upside down.
August 30, 2007 - 07:32 PM on August 30th, 2007
18- Robert, thanks to this, my dad is afraid he too could be arrested…
No doubt the man is an idiot for not hiring an attorney,but I listed to the tapes as well and come on! This would have beentossed and he would have been apologised to.
August 30, 2007 - 09:26 PM on August 30th, 2007
It’s a curiosity to me as well. I listened to the tape this evening. They ran it in full on Hannity and Colmes. I think his biggest mistake was not hiring a lawyer BUT having said that this man is from Idaho. Farmland and country living don’t always make people wise in the sophisticated ways of city life. It was a foolish and naive mistake.
August 31, 2007 - 05:58 AM on August 31st, 2007
18,19,20, Gang, this is Minne-so-cold. Liberal run the place and don’t care what the law is.
August 31, 2007 - 09:12 AM on August 31st, 2007
Well the lesson for sure is next time you enter a stall in a public restroom:
1. Do NOT take a wide stance (keep your feet together as you are sitting down).
2. Do NOT think of any catchy tunes, whistle, or allow any music whatsoever to enter your consciousness. It might cause you to unknowingly tap your foot.
3. You might make the folloowing announcement, loud enough so anyone present can hear: “For the record, I am minding my own business. I have no interest whatsoever in any activity other than the one I am currently engaged in. I am not concerned with the agenda of anyone else in here, of whatever nature, in fact I do not even care whether any other stall is occupied.”
Is that a sufficient legal disclaimer?
August 31, 2007 - 10:48 AM on August 31st, 2007
From CNN:
“Several well-placed GOP sources in Washington and Idaho have told CNN that embattled Republican Sen. Larry Craig is likely to resign soon, possibly as early as Friday.”
August 31, 2007 - 11:57 AM on August 31st, 2007
ANonymous sources. They all could be Democrats in CNN’s newsroom for all we know or care, SFL.
August 31, 2007 - 12:19 PM on August 31st, 2007
Surrrrre….keep telling yourself that.
As your party loses yet another seat in congress.
tsk-tsk.
and you had so much power three, four years ago.
what happened to your once mighty party? why is is so weak now?
August 31, 2007 - 12:31 PM on August 31st, 2007
SFL, you are a real donkey. YOU lied to the public and you will get punished for the lies.
September 1, 2007 - 12:13 PM on September 1st, 2007
Federal Judge Edward Nottingham is also a Republican. AP has reported that Judge Nottingham said that he was too drunk to remember how he spent $3,000 at a strip club on 9/5/05 and that the manager of the Diamond Cabaret in Denver said that Judge Nottingham visited the strip club on multiple occasions. His wife apparently found only one receipt for one visit to the strip club so it is unknown who paid for the other occasions. According to the 9 News of Denver coverage, the judge’s ex wife also said there were credit card receipts for multiple payments by the Judge for visits to an Internet site that includes pornographic pictures and also offers introductions to local women wanting sex today