Makes You Wanna Go Hmmmm......

Fellow Republicans Denounce Craig's Decision



Well, not all of them.

CQ reports:

Republicans indicated Thursday that they plan to make life in the Senate uncomfortable for Larry E. Craig.

After the Idaho senator announced his determination to remain in office, fellow Republicans raised the possibility of ejecting him from committees and holding public ethics hearings.

“This gets real now,” a Republican aide said. “I think a lot of people waited — gave him the benefit of the doubt until the judge ruled.”

Craig put his colleagues in a political bind Thursday when he did an about-face and said he would stay in office for the rest of the 110th Congress despite a judge’s refusal to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea in a restroom sex sting.

“I will continue my effort to clear my name in the Senate Ethics Committee — something that is not possible if I am not serving in the Senate,” Craig said.

Republican Senate leaders plan to confer during the chamber’s Columbus Day recess about how to cope with Craig’s decision. The consultations could result in his ejection from all of his committee assignments. Craig had already relinquished his status as ranking Republican on one committee and two subcommittees.

GOP leaders had requested an Ethics Committee investigation in August, shortly after learning that Craig had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct after an undercover police officer interpreted some of Craig’s actions in a restroom as a solicitation for sex. The most extreme option available to that committee is recommending expulsion — something that hasn’t happened in the Senate since the Civil War.

“My guess is there will be” public ethics hearings, said John Ensign, R-Nev., the senator in charge of improving GOP election prospects in 2008. Republicans are defending 22 Senate seats, including several left open by retiring incumbents.

“I think it would be a mistake to put the Senate through an ethics investigation process that could potentially lead to public hearings,” Ensign said. “I think that he should do the right thing and keep his word.”

Last week, Craig backed off his earlier plan to resign as of Sept. 30, saying he wanted to remain “for now” and await the judge’s ruling on his request to retract his misdemeanor guilty plea.

Craig said Thursday he will not run for re-election next year. But having him in the Senate — and featured as the punch line of comedians’ jokes on national television — won’t help Ensign and others at the National Republican Senatorial Committee steer political attention to where they’d prefer it to be.

“This is not just an ordinary misdemeanor charge, and I think we all know that,” Ensign said. “You wouldn’t get this kind of attention here if this was an ordinary misdemeanor charge.”

Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who had been among the first to call for Craig’s resignation, said the Ethics Committee would deal with him now. “I’ll await their findings and recommendations,” said Coleman, who faces a tough re-election battle next year.

“I think most of us have made our views clear in the past that he made the right decision in stepping aside,” said John Thune, R-S.D. “It’s a distraction.”

The one public glimmer of tolerance came from Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

“Disorderly conduct is not moral turpitude, and it’s not a basis for leaving the Senate,” Specter said. “I think he makes a good point when he says he wants to clear his name in an Ethics Committee hearing.”

Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Ethics Committee, said the panel will conduct a preliminary inquiry before making any conclusions about a full investigation or possible public hearings.

“We have just begun,” she said.

Stanley M. Brand, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who represents Craig, maintained that it would be unprecedented to punish a senator “for a misdemeanor occurring outside their official duties.”

Craig pleaded guilty in August to a disorderly conduct charge arising from an incident June 11 in a restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. An undercover police officer, Sgt. Dave Karsnia, interpreted some of Craig’s bathroom-stall hand and foot motions as an invitation for sex.

On Sept. 1, with the guilty plea no longer a secret, Craig declared his intention to resign from the Senate as of Sept. 30. But Specter told Craig he had acted too hastily and should have fought the charges.

His initial decision to quit was supported by the Republican leadership.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., arrived at the Senate for a floor vote Thursday ready with a short reply to the inevitable question about the day’s developments. “That whole matter is before the Ethics Committee, so it will be dealt with, I assume, by Sen. Craig and the Ethics Committee,” he said.

The Ruling

In Minnesota, District Court Judge Charles A. Porter Jr. ruled that defendants do not have an absolute right to withdraw guilty pleas because “public policy favors the finality of judgments and courts are not disposed to encourage accused persons to ‘play games’ with the courts by setting aside judgments of conviction based upon pleas made with deliberation and accepted by the court with caution.”

Craig said he decided to plead guilty only to resolve the episode without publicity in his home state. Porter clearly didn’t buy that argument.

Meanwhile..., PennLive.com reports:

The last time U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., caught a ride about Air Force One, Pennsyltucky's senior senator violated two of the cardinal rules of traveling aboard the president's airplane.

He wandered back to talk with the press and criticized then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during a July presidential visit to Philadelphia, thereby flouting the unwritten rules against hobnobbing with the press and criticizing the president or his team.

Despite his rule violations, Specter will once again be traveling in style Wednesday when he joins President Bush aboard Air Force One for Wednesday's quick flight from Washington, D.C. to Lancaster.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., will not be making the flight.

Bush will be addressing about 400 members of the Lancaster Chamber of Business and Industry in a town hall-style meeting about spending disagreements with Congress during an hour-long forum at the new Hempfield Twp. headquarters of the Jay Group Inc.

Though Specter disagrees with the president on many of the spending fights, it's protocol to invite the local lawmakers and senators for the trip. And with his approval rating hovering around 30 percent, the president can use all the friends he can get.

Besides, it's a short trip.

What's in it for Specter besides free plane rides aboard AF1?

Craig Decided Not To Seek Re-Election Before Scandal Broke

CNN reports:

Sen. Larry Craig had already decided not to seek re-election before revelations that he pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a Minnesota sex sting, two of the Idaho Republican's political advisers claimed Thursday.

Before news of his arrest became public last month, Craig told his former chief of staff and long time confidante Gregory Casey that he was not going to run for re-election in 2008, Casey told CNN.

"He and Suzanne had decided that he had been in Congress long enough, and it was time for him to go home," Casey said, referring to Craig's wife.

In a separate interview, Craig spokesman Dan Whiting also confirmed to CNN that Craig had already decided not to run for re-election, and originally planned to announce that publicly in September.

Neither Casey nor Whiting could say when that decision was made, but Whiting insisted it was "well before all of this broke."

Hmmm.

How long is "well before all this broke"? A month? Two? Before or after the arrest on June 8th?

How I long for a smart media, for journalists with a nose for news and can appreciate the wider implications of this story.

This goes to the heart of Craig's apparent retraction of his resignation, and the possibility that he's shilling for the Bush administration by providing them with a hot story to wipe General Petraeus's impending visit to Congress and the campaign Bush is waging to keep the war in Iraq going.

And, how is it that a U.S. senator was arrested for solicitation on June 8th, pleaded out on August 8th and the public doesn't learn about it until August 28th? And it wasn't a Minnesota (where the arrest was made) newspaper that broke the story, or an Idaho (Craig's home state) newspaper, but an inside-the-beltway, political insiders' publication, Roll Call. How did Roll Call learn of the arrest?

This disclosure comes as Craig's aides are trying to calm Republicans who are angry about what looked like backtracking on his decision to resign on September 30.

"Larry is not fighting to hold onto power here," said Casey, who insisted that the senator's main goal is to clear his name and reputation. "He is trying to figure out what he is doing for the rest of his life."

"There wasn't much of a notion in his mind," Whiting said. "Again, he is keeping a door open, but he is focused on clearing his name and making the transition as smooth as possible for Idaho."

Tuesday night, Whiting said "He is fighting these charges, and should he be cleared before then, he may, and I emphasize may, not resign."

Saying he "may not resign" left the impression that Craig was pushing to stay in the Senate, even after announcing his intent to resign.

That did not go over well with Republican leaders, who made it abundantly clear in public statements and private conversations that they want Craig to step down.

Now, Craig's spokesman sought to be more precise in his language about Craig's intentions, telling The Associated Press "the most likely scenario, by far, is that by October there will be a new senator from Idaho."

Whiting insists to CNN what he is saying is "nothing new,"

"All along we have said that [Craig] expects to resign on September 30 and he and the staff are working towards that end to ensure the transition is as smooth as possible for Idaho," said Whiting. "I stated that he simply left a very, very small door slightly ajar."

However, the sources close to Craig concede they are now trying to be more clear that they do think Craig will resign, because they believe the impression was that Craig was trying to hold on to power.

Craig was arrested in a restroom in June at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on suspicion of making sexual advances to an undercover police officer in the next stall. He pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct charge last month.

In consultation with the Senate's GOP leadership, Craig last week agreed to leave his leadership posts on Senate committees while the Senate Ethics Committee investigates the incident.

Craig attorney Stanley Brand on Wednesday asked that the ethics committee not investigate because events were "wholly unrelated" to official duties.

But later Wednesday the Ethics Committee said it will continue its investigation.

Idaho Lawmaker Asks Craig To Be Clear

The AP reports:

Idaho's senior Republican congressman called on Sen. Larry Craig on Thursday to make it clear he will leave his seat by Sept. 30, as GOP leaders sought to remove any doubt that the embattled senator will resign within weeks.

Craig's chief spokesman said his boss had dropped virtually all notions of trying to finish his third term, which ends in early 2009. But prominent Republicans in Washington and Idaho wanted a firm deadline in hopes of putting the controversy behind them.

Craig pleaded guilty in August to disorderly conduct following a sting operation in a men's bathroom at the Minneapolis airport, but he said this week he hoped to withdraw the plea. He also hinted he was rethinking his weekend announcement that he intended to resign by month's end.

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, told The Associated Press that Craig should make his resignation unequivocal so that Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, also a Republican, can choose a replacement.

"If there is no vacancy there, he really doesn't know what to do," Simpson said. "This can't go on for very long."

Simpson said Craig "needs to make it clear that he is going to resign at the end of the month, so that Butch can make a replacement."

Craig spokesman Dan Whiting said Thursday that the senator was focused on trying to clear his name and to help Idaho prepare for a replacement. "The most likely scenario, by far, is that by October there will be a new senator from Idaho," Whiting told the AP.

The only circumstances in which Craig might try to complete his term, Whiting said, would require a prompt overturning of his conviction, as well as Senate GOP leaders' agreement to restore the committee leaderships positions they took from him this week.

Those scenarios are unlikely, Whiting said.

Republican Senate leaders welcomed Whiting's comments after a series of confusing signals from Craig's circle. A prompt resignation would enable Republicans to sidestep one of the several ethics dilemmas they face this fall, and avoid the embarrassment of dealing with a colleague who had been stripped of his committee leadership posts and urged to resign by party leaders.

It also would negate the need for a Senate ethics committee investigation, which GOP leaders had requested.

Even if Craig were to complete his term, Whiting said, he would not seek re-election in 2008.

For replacements, Otter said he was considering Lt. Gov. Jim Risch and Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, both Republicans. He also named Simpson, but Simpson said he does not want to be considered for the job.

Whiting said Craig remains intent on clearing his name, and hopes to be able to withdraw the guilty plea he entered after a police report alleged he had solicited sex from a male officer at the Minneapolis airport in June. Legal scholars say it is difficult but not impossible to have a judge reconsider a guilty plea.

Whiting said Craig also wants the Senate ethics committee to consider his arguments while he is still in office. Craig's lawyer, Stanley Brand, asked the bipartisan panel this week not to pursue a complaint because the events in Minneapolis were "wholly unrelated" to the senator's official duties.

Committee action eventually would lead the Senate down a path of dealing with "a host of minor misdemeanors and transgressions," Brand's letter said.

The ethics committee's leaders said Wednesday they would "continue to review" the complaint against Craig so long as he remained in office. But they noted that the committee has no jurisdiction over former senators.

An ethics committee member, who spoke Thursday on background because of confidentiality rules, said it would be virtually impossible to conduct an investigation in a few weeks, and therefore the panel will not act if Craig resigns soon.

Craig, 62, announced Saturday his intention to resign by Sept. 30, after the newspaper Roll Call published an account of his arrest and conviction. Most Senate Republican leaders praised his decision, and were alarmed by Craig's subsequent change in tone.

On Wednesday they renewed their efforts to persuade him to step aside soon. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., spoke by phone with Craig on Wednesday and later told reporters: "I thought he made the correct decision, the difficult but correct decision to resign" on Saturday. "That would still be my view today."

How Did Roll Call Get The Larry Craig Story?

Now that the two week long coverage of Michael Vick has ended, I guess this Larry Craig story will continue until he resigns from the U.S. Senate. My guess is that will happen when the White House no longer needs the media diverted from the ramped up re-surge in Iraq, and for the coming escalation of the war to include Iran (second week in September, or so I'm hearing).

We on the left are our own worst enemies.

Why isn't anybody asking how a U.S. senator gets arrested on June 11th, pleads out on August 8th, and the public only learns about it (from Roll Call, not the Idahoan, which had deep-sixed their own piece on Craig) on August 28th. The day after Alberto Gonzales, the most corrupt Attorney General since Ed Meese, steps down after months of revelations as to the crimes committed by him and this White House? That story was guaranteed to focus much needed attention on the criminal doings of the Bush administration, and yet remarkably the media's attention gets diverted again, by another Republican sex scandal.

Idaho is a solid red state. It's of no gain for Democrats. Yeah, Craig and Republicans are hypocrites, but what else is new? This isn't going to change any red staters' minds. It will reinforce for homophobes just how tawdry and disgusting they think homosexuality is, and it will reinforce for civil libertarians what a waste of public resources sting operations are.

For Chrissakes, if somebody's foot brushes against yours under a public restroom stall, 'man-up' and say, "I'm not interested, move your Goddamned foot!"

Rightwingers' chutzpah knows no bounds - talk about a 'nanny society.' Rightwingers seem to have only two responses to their homophobia: They either go into macho, 'Matthew Shepherd'-hyperdrive, or they insist that the police hold their hands and lock up pathetic men (tragic really) like Larry Craig.

This is a diversionary story, and not worth the time being given it, but count on liberal blogs to take the bait, too. This is why I say that we are our own worst enemies. We buy into stories like this, too, and listen to old video tapes of Craig (and current police audio tapes) with glee.

How did Roll Call get this story? Because that's what we should be asking.

Where There's Smoke AND Fire . . . .

. . . . Can Karl Rove Be Far Behind?



Senator Larry Craig (R.-ID) Arrested In Minnesota Airport

From RollCall.com:

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in June at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men's public restroom, according to an arrest report obtained by Roll Call Monday afternoon.
Craig's arrest occurred just after noon on June 11 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. On Aug. 8, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in the Hennepin County District Court. He paid more than $500 in fines and fees, and a 10-day jail sentence was stayed. He also was given one year of probation with the court that began on Aug. 8.

A spokesman for Craig described the incident as a "he said/he said misunderstanding," and said the office would release a fuller statement later Monday afternoon.

After he was arrested, Craig, who is married, was taken to the Airport Police Operations Center to be interviewed about the lewd conduct incident, according to the police report. At one point during the interview, Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, "What do you think about that?" the report states.

Craig was detained for approximately 45 minutes, interviewed, photographed, fingerprinted and released, and police prepared a formal complaint for interference with privacy and disorderly conduct.

According to the incident report, Sgt. Dave Karsnia was working as a plainclothes officer on June 11 investigating civilian complaints regarding sexual activity in the men’s public restroom in which Craig was arrested.

Airport police previously had made numerous arrests in the men’s restroom of the Northstar Crossing in the Lindbergh Terminal in connection with sexual activity.

Karsnia entered the bathroom at noon that day and about 13 minutes after taking a seat in a stall, he stated he could see “an older white male with grey hair standing outside my stall.”

The man, who lingered in front of the stall for two minutes, was later identified as Craig.

“I could see Craig look through the crack in the door from his position. Craig would look down at his hands, ‘fidget’ with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again. Craig would repeat this cycle for about two minutes,” the report states.

Craig then entered the stall next to Karsnia’s and placed his roller bag against the front of the stall door.

“My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall,” Karsnia stated in his report. “From my seated position, I could observe the shoes and ankles of Craig seated to the left of me.”

Craig was wearing dress pants with black dress shoes.

“At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area,” the report states.

Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that “I could ... see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider.”

Karsnia then held his police identification down by the floor so that Craig could see it.

“With my left hand near the floor, I pointed towards the exit. Craig responded, ‘No!’ I again pointed towards the exit. Craig exited the stall with his roller bags without flushing the toilet. ... Craig said he would not go. I told Craig that he was under arrest, he had to go, and that I didn’t want to make a scene. Craig then left the restroom.”

In a recorded interview after his arrest, Craig “either disagreed with me or ‘didn’t recall’ the events as they happened,” the report states.

Craig stated “that he has a wide stance when going to the bathroom and that his foot may have touched mine,” the report states. Craig also told the arresting officer that he reached down with his right hand to pick up a piece of paper that was on the floor.

“It should be noted that there was not a piece of paper on the bathroom floor, nor did Craig pick up a piece of paper,” the arresting officer said in the report.

On Aug. 8, the day he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in the Minnesota court, Craig appeared via satellite at a ceremony that took place in Idaho in which former Idaho federal Judge Randy Smith was invested into his new position as a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

If this is how men are getting arrested in Minnesota for public lewdity, I think it's bullshit.

But what I want to know is how does a U.S. Senator get arrested in June, plead guilty on August 8th, and the public doesn't hear about it until August 27th?

On a day (and probably the rest of a week) when the news cycles would have been filled with "Gonzales Resigns; What's Bush Going To Do Now?", it's going to be 24/7 of "Larry Craig: Is He Or Isn't He?" stories.

Last week, speculation abounded about Karl Rove's departure from the White House, and what it would mean for Republicans in the 2008 without Karl Rove running Republican dirty tricks campaigns from the White House. I think we now see that a Karl Rove outside of the public eye is a worse nightmare.

From Mike Rogers at BlogActive.com during the Mark Foley-House Page program scandal last year:

I have called on Senator Larry Craig to end his years of hypocrisy by leveling with Idahoans about who he really is. I am also calling upon several prominent Idaho social conservative leaders to ask them how they square their anti-gay positions with their support for this leader.

I have done extensive research into this case, including trips to the Pacific Northwest to meet with men who have say they have physical relations with the Senator. I have also met with a man here in Washington, D.C., who says the same -- and that these incidents occurred in the bathrooms of Union Station. None of these men know each other, or knew that I was talking to others. They all reported similar personal characteristics about the Senator, which lead me to believe, beyond any doubt, that their stories are valid.

Larry Craig being mentioned as possibly connected to Congressional scandals is nothing new. Check out these video clips from 1982 when he preemptively denied his involvement in a Congressional sex and drug scandal. (I love what he says about unmarried people back then and how often do politicians issue preemptive denials based on rumors?):

Why does it matter?

Senator Larry Craig has a long history of supporting anti-gay legislation. He voted no on adding sexual orientation to the definition of hate crimes, and expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. He's opposed ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, that would benefit gay and lesbian people by prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. He voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and supports a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

Congressman Barney Frank about Larry Craig on Real Time with Bill Maher:

Craig is up for reelection in 2008.