Sure, Eric, party before country. The fact that you are celebrating the DemoRats acting like a Mafia family under Omerta rather than citizens who want to see corruption eliminated even if it hurts them tells me all I need to know about your character.

Look, if you wanna disagree with me, fine. I disagree with myself all the time, and I write these posts in order to help myself think. And I realize that not everyone likes my style.

But -- if you're going to disregard my previous post about Hsu (as well as what I think is an obvious attempt to invoke irony in this post), and instead launch into an imperious and irrelevant attack on my character, I must respectfully suggest that you suffer from the disease of taking yourself too seriously.

Yeah, I do it myself sometimes, so I'm not making a moral judgment. Not that humorlessness is immoral....

Besides, I'm too immoral to make moral judgments!

:)

Clever. Are you suggesting that R's ditch their principles because you don't like those principles, or because its tactically sound in your opinion? BTW, the most unprincipled group in the R's is the Country Clubbers who lose, lose again, and lose some more. Conservatism is about ideas, and Ideas with a Smiling Face (that is a bit of humor and confidence) will win the day. The Unprincipled already have a party, they don't need another one.

Let's see:
- Craig pled guilty.
- Skip orientation, I just don't care. He plead out on an act in a public bathroom.
- It's clear he not only did this, but he also pulled the "do you know who I am?" trick on the cop.
- Soliciting sex in a public bathroom, and then trying to intimidate the cop since he's a US Senator...while I expect occasional hypocrisy from my politicians, Craig's moves here go way beyond acceptable cynicism and hypocrisy.
- So, given that he plead out and given that he tried to intimidate the cop, explain to me, again, exactly why hopefully soon to be ex-Senator Craig deserves the loyalty of the GOP?

Craig pled and has been sentenced. There is no appeal. Craig has to stand up for himself before anyone can stand behind him. I don't care if he's gay. I do care if he's soliciting sex in a public bathroom. Last your point seems to be "We aren't crooked enough"? Yeah, we are.

Yo Eric,

Two things. First, of course Craig is guilty. Not guilty of being "gay" or "in the closet" or of "hypocritical private behavior" but guilty of being a public toilet cruising nuisance and of attempting to use his political status to avoid legal sanctions that are only for the little people. When I go to a public toilet, it's for an urgent reason and I don't want any nasty surprises in there on my way to relief. The Minnesota airport washroom was obviously a known cruise spot; that's why the police staked it out, and that's why Craig went there. It's a no-brainer.

Second, Fast Eddie Rendell. He's "waiting to see if the conviction will be upheld" because he wants to keep the money, bro. Capiche?

I think the answer lies in the cost of association. A Republican associated with Mark Foley will have it brought up every time he runs whereas a Democrat associated with Gary Stodds is safe from any mention thereof. Rendell will pay no price for defending Hsu. The lapdog media will forget it tomorrow or applaud his loyalty while befogging Mr. Hsu's activities. Any Republican with even the slightest tie to Jack Abramoff can expect it to be the subject of a hit piece the friday before every election for the rest of his life.

Tom Delay has not been convicted of any crime but his indictment by partisan hack Ronnie Earle is treated like a conviction by the Democrats and the lapdogs. Senator Craig did plead guilty. The major media smear machine is now digging desperately in its files for any picture of him with any other Republican. Pictures with Democrats will never see the light of day.

Rendell knows there will be no cost for his association with Hsu and Hillary knows if she wins the nomination this story will become old news. It is only in the primaries she would have to worry.

Defend Craig all you like. I expect idiocy from you.

I might have some minor sympathy for Larry Craig's having been caught up in public hypocrisy about sexuality had he not voted in favour of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, voted against expanding hate crimes legislation to include sexual orientation in 2000, voted the same way again in 2002 and in 2006 voted for a Constitutional ban on "same-sex marriage".

When your entire political career, your entire life, is built on a lie in order to gain the support of Families for a Better Idaho it is, frankly, absurd to ask why Republicans won't just "let him out of the closet" (sorry to speak so frankly, I do not mean to be rude). It is not the toe-tapping, it is the lies and, from my point of view, an unblemished record of calculated evil in promoting the exact culture of hypocrisy which has now chewed him up and spat him out. This is not irony, it is justice.

More important, and to quote Hugh Hewitt, the United States is at war. As a Canadian profoundly grateful for that part of America which is still sane and which is still prepared to sacrifice in defense of my liberty in the face of Dark Ages barbarism, I say the United States Senate cannot for a moment risk a red state Senate seat being ceded to the forces of defeat and retreat. Churchill said if Hitler invaded Hell he would sign a pact with the Devil himself. We are going to need this kind of thinking if we are going to avoid a thousand-year Caliphate and an end to all the hair-splitting and a start to the head-chopping.

Respectfully yours,

Flea

Some awkward grammar there: I meant, of course, to write "when his entire political career, his entire life...". Your political career would naturally be based on great personal integrity and moral consistency.

Eric,

Just to put it in a nutshell:

- Craig is being forced out by the Republicans, not by the Democrats.

- They're putting him out to save their own political skins, because he epitomizes their hypocritical strategy of "stirring up the base" by using issues that they don't care about at all.

- Hsu is not a Congressman. He has no office to step down from.

I realize you are a Democrat, so getting real is problematic. Craig has been a life long homosexual. The woman he married, late, and her children by her first marriage, is a beard. What do you think of homosexual men, who use humans as props to further their own ends? I am sure for you, this most intimate of betrayal isn’t well, criminal.

Craig lied to his church, his wife, his voters and party. He did it knowingly and for decades. Glad to find you comfortable with that. Glad to feel that this type of manipulation is how to build a better society. I suppose you are for lawyers manipulating their clients, professors their students and doctors their patients, so long as no adjudicated crime was committed.

If Craig wanted to be gay. Fine. A lot of people are not for that. Gays and non-gays think that the topic of gay is personally and politically important. Graig knew this and knew he wouldn’t be elected and most likely not have power and prestige. So, he continuously lied. So, leaving alone the subject of his homosexuality, you are in fact quite comfortable with a political, power seeking liar. I know that for you and many, gays can only be victims and not knowing, manipulation perpetrators. That’s the leftist mantra, and no one sticks to mantra like a lefty.

Nice.

Anyways, since we live in an information society, and the economy and society depends on the quality and honesty of information, I have a question for you. Do you think it should be a crime for a person in an intimate relation to lie to their partner about their behavior? Do you think women with children should be informed that, in this case, the man is a homosexual? Or should the state enact laws forbidding punishment of such, um, ‘lifestyles’.

I'm not defending Larry Craig's idiocy in pleading guilty, although in light of the fact that there's no underlying crime, the plea makes no sense at all.

What I find amazing is that there's so much agreement on a double standard. Democrats can play around with impunity, but zero tolerance for Republicans.

Human nature being what it is (and all humans have sexual appetites to varying degrees), I'd say the Democrats have the clear advantage.

RE: "I realize you are a Democrat, so getting real is problematic"

Paul if you're talking about me, you obviously don't read this blog.

From where are you getting your information that Craig is a "lifelong homosexual" guilty of "intimate betrayal" that I don't think is criminal? How do you know what Craig is and what I might think about personal betrayal?

If he is a lifelong homosexual, then shouldn't he admit it and leave his wife? Why can't the GOP urge him to do that?

I think the GOP is out of touch with reality.

As for your charge that I am "for lawyers manipulating their clients, professors their students and doctors their patients, so long as no adjudicated crime was committed," are you kidding? I usually get that sort of putting-words-in-my-mouth stuff from leftists, but I guess some moral conservatives share the penchant for gratuitous character attacks.

For me, "gays can only be victims and not knowing, manipulation perpetrators"?

Really? Nice to know what I think about victimology. Have you read a single one of the numerous posts I've written over the years on these issues?

Last, um "question":

"Anyways, since we live in an information society, and the economy and society depends on the quality and honesty of information, I have a question for you. Do you think it should be a crime for a person in an intimate relation to lie to their partner about their behavior? Do you think women with children should be informed that, in this case, the man is a homosexual? Or should the state enact laws forbidding punishment of such, um, ?lifestyles?.

I think there are three questions there, but I will endeavor to answer:

1. I do NOT "think it should be a crime for a person in an intimate relation to lie to their partner about their behavior."

The prisons are so full of drug offenders now that if all partners were punishable for lying about their behavior, the legal system would completely collapse. As I'm not a total anarchist, I don't support that.

2. Do you think women with children should be informed that, in this case, the man is a homosexual?

I think the only way to inform "women with children" ... "that, in this case, the man is a homosexual" would be if he admits that he is, or for the Republican Party to admit it. If you think it is self-evident that he is a homosexual, well, women with children can read news accounts as well as you, can't they? Or, are you asking me whether we should appoint someone to to officially inform the "women with children"?

Nah, we have enough bureaucrats already.

3. Should the state "enact laws forbidding punishment of such, um, ?lifestyles?"

No, I don't think states need to enact "laws forbidding punishment of lifestyles." Such a law would be unconstitutionally vague. No "um'" is needed.

For the record, I've been a registered and voting Republican for years, because I oppose socialism and support the war, and I'll probably hold my nose and continue to do so. (Because the Democrats support socialism and oppose the war.)

I think the Republican Party should reconsider it's precarious position as the party of sexual morality, though. It isn't working out very well, and I don't think it should be a central focus of government.

My thought is that it is not the underlying "crime", but the judgement that Craig shown during the incident and since. I think that it would do the GOP credit to turn this into a self-policing issue of competence (if also followed up by a Stevens resignation).

One thing you fail to consider it the price the parties take for standing by their miscreants. Dems get a much easier time from the MSM, giving them some leeway in dealing with these matters. Repubs get lambasted, particularly when it comes to sex scandals. Just imagine the Hsu case if he had been raising money for Giuliani. It would be front page news for months to come. Yet as a Dem fund raiser, the Hsu name will fade from memory in a couple of weeks.

"I think the Republicans could learn a thing or two about loyalty from Ed Rendell."

There's a lot of things Republicans can learn from Ed Rendell, period.

There's a reason why he wins PA by 10 and 20 percent when Kerry won it by 2.

What I find amazing is that there's so much agreement on a double standard. Democrats can play around with impunity, but zero tolerance for Republicans.

Speaking for myself, and as a foreign observer, I believe it would be difficult to hold the Democrats to a standard they do not set for themselves. Republicans often leaves themselves open to charges of hypocrisy on this and other issues which the voters understand would never trouble the conscience of a Democrat. For the same reason, we Canadians are rarely shocked when Liberal party hacks are yet again found to be engaged in corruption and fraud.

If he is a lifelong homosexual, then shouldn't he admit it and leave his wife? Why can't the GOP urge him to do that?

I should think the answer to this is obvious. A great many Republicans, particularly amongst party activists, are opposed to homosexuality however it is defined and however it is expressed running the full gamut of closeted hypocrisy to mainstream gay identity. This may be out of touch with reality but it is the reality of the Republican electorate Craig spent his life so assiduously pursuing.

I don't think that the gay part is as fatal as the gross out image of sex with a random stranger in a smelly public restroom. If Larry Craig had a similarly gross incident with a female undercover officer at a public park restroom and he also literally used the Senator card, he'd still be in trouble.

Larry Craig has been in Washington DC for more than 26 years. 10 in the House and 16 plus change in the Senate. 20 or more years in Washington DC seems to result in an arrogant, the rules don't apply to me, attitude at the center of most recent political scandals. It's time for Craig to quit and let someone else represent Idaho.

Interesting. First, can we assume that Craig is guilty [of something, I've yet to hear an explanation of what crime he committed that wouldn't be perfectly legal in the airport bar] because he pled guilty? Listening to the police interview I got the distinct impression that he was being given a choice between pleading guilty, paying a small fine and being on his way -- 'no calls to the press or anything like that' -- and maintaining his innocence, being jailed and having his photo staring out through the bars on the 6 o'clock news.

The case could be made that this was nothing more than a police set up and shakedown. Pleading guilty and paying the fine might be the coward's way out, but I wouldn't be too quick to judge him guilty of anything beyond cowardice.

That party loyalty thing cuts both ways too: Is Craig resigning because he now feels himself unfit to hold the office, or because he has become a liability to his party, whether through any fault of his own or not? For sure there is a media double standard, the Republicans know this and, thus, anyone defending Craig is likely to be thrown from the bus right along with him [don't push, I'll jump], not just because the press won't let this pass easily, but because to some social conservatives one touch of that pink tarbrush means he's an unredeemable pervert forever.

I agree that Craig was an idiot for pleading guilty and I agree that his colleagues are abject cowards for not defending him, but I think the fault ultimately lies not with the Jimmy Carter Republicans but with the Pat Robertson Republicans, for whom one glimpse of pink panties is like a shot of ankle to an Islamist, and to the minions of the left who are all too happy to villianize and victimize teh ghey when it suits their purposes.

Why should Ed give the money back? He got 40 grand as a laydown for future favors. He's not running for anymore political offices, so he doesn't lose politically by hanging on to it, and he won't have to worry about Hsu knocking on his door, hat in hand later.

It's money for nothing.

Funny how Gay activists are so welcoming to lifelong heterosexuals who are looking for some quick anonymous gay sex in the bathroom, but get downright furious if you call a same sex pedophile gay...

I do appreciate the comments, including those which are critical of me. However, for record-keeping purposes (and perhaps my own peace of mind) I like to know whether I am being criticized from the right or from the left, and when Dexter Westbrook said "Defend Craig all you like. I expect idiocy from you" I didn't have much to go on.

Finally, I learned eventually that Westbrook is a leftie journalist who likes to call bloggers names:

http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/237348.php

I guess it's nice that morons like you, Confederate Yankee, have platforms to spew your gibberish.

Dexter, it would be nice for you to have clued me in. Being held to answer to a general charge of "idiocy" is unreasonable without something more specific.