Burn the witch! Burn the witch!
Poor Larry Craig. Having a solidly anti-gay congressional record wasn't enough to save him when he was caught propositioning an undercover officer in an airport men's room. When news of his arrest broke, Republicans dropped him faster than a hot gay potato.
Why was the G.O.P. so fast to take up the pitchforks and light the torches? Because Craig broke a very important Republican commandment. No, not the whole gay thing. You can be gayer than Liberace so long as you keep it on the down low and make sure to vote against bills that would let gay couples visit each other in the hospital.
No, Craig's big mistake was pleading guilty. In today's Republican Party playbook, you don't admit wrongdoing. Ever. [Note: there's a little wiggle room on this rule when it comes to heterosexual impropriety. Sen. David Vitter: testify!]
"My position is that when you plead guilty to a crime, you shouldn't serve," John McCain said on CNN. "That's not a moral stand. That's not holier-than-thou. It's just a factual situation."
"I believe that he should step down, as his conduct throughout this matter has been inappropriate for a United States senator," said Michigan's own Sen. Peter Hoekstra.
The saddest part: Craig's arrest stemmed from pretty flimsy charges. Of course, it doesn't help that Craig has a history of gay rumors circling around him.
According to the New York Times, "Mr. Craig said he regretted having pleaded guilty and had done so — almost two months after his arrest — because his judgment had been clouded by what he called a 'witch hunt' by Idaho newspaper reporters looking into his personal life."
That "witch hunt" would be an investigation by the Idaho Statesman. According to the paper, "[A man] reported having oral sex with Craig at Washington's Union Station, probably in 2004. The Statesman also spoke with a man who said Craig made a sexual advance toward him at the University of Idaho in 1967 and a man who said Craig 'cruised' him for sex in 1994 at the REI store in Boise." There was also a "1982 pre-emptive denial that he had sex with underage congressional pages."
Though Craig's record is filled with anti-gay gold stars, including voting in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act and then for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage ten years later, folks just couldn't buy it when Craig stood beside his wife a press conference and said, "I am not gay. I never have been gay." Or maybe it was the fact that he began the press conference by saying, "Thank you all for coming out today."
But hey, maybe he's not gay. Maybe he's just bi-curious. Or one of those straight-identified guys who likes to have sex with other men. Or perhaps he's just been on a career-long undercover mission for the American Family Association to expose public gay sex.
Whatever the case, Larry Craig has been crushed under Dorothy's house. And his little anti-gay record, too.
