Denial Ain't Just A River In Egypt

Politicians love to take their scandals and make them worse, and Sen. Craig's no exception.

After being caught in a compromising position in an airport restroom in June by police, Sen. Craig plead guilty-- by accident, he swears!-- and had the story buried. Yesterday, he held a Republi-conference (*) to say, basically, that he's not gay, he did nothing wrong, please leave him alone, the media is out to get him.

[*Republi-conference = press conference where you don't actually take any press questions.]

For those curious about the actual, odd incident that lead to all of this, CNN has the arrest report. And a local CBS station makes the journalistically questionable decision to, ummm, reenact the bathroom incident.

For what its worth, no conservatives are actually defending the Senator, and many have strongly called for his immediate resignation. Why the clear ethical line here, when so many other recent political transgressions have met with strong GOP defense? It could be that the Idaho governor who'd get to replace him is a Republican and thus the real political fallout is if he doesn't resign. Or, it could be that this scandal involves teh gay (ick!). Probably 70% the former, 30% the latter.

Finally, on that last point, Reason magazine's David Weigel hits the nail on the head, in regards to how conservatives don't realize that they contribute to these problems. Weigel posts an example of one of the many homophobic, grade-school jokes being posted at the National Review today, then to a followup post where the same columnist wonders why it's always Republicans nowadays caught in these sex scandals. "Yes, it's a real mystery why a conservative Republican might be less open about his sexuality than a liberal Democrat," Weigel snarks in response to that.

If America were truly tolerant to homosexuality (to the point where we'll all stop seeing gays/straights as two different classes of people), people like Larry Craig would have gotten to spend their adult lives having healthy, open relationships with men... not hiding in public restrooms. I wish our culturally conservative friends in America grasped that.

[PS- What truly warrants resignation? He tried using his Senate card to intimidate the cop.]