THANKS TO LARRY CRAIG, for providing an opportunity for easy sex jokes.
UPDATES: Speaking of jokes — and redundancy — I see that Glenn Greenwald has a “remarkably boring and windy post” accusing me of hypocrisy over the Larry Craig affair. No. Craig got himself in trouble here; what I was objecting to in the past were organized Democratic efforts to out gay Republicans for political gain. That’s hardly the same thing. If Glenn Greenwald were to find himself in similar trouble I would shed no more tears than I have for Craig; if I felt that GOP operatives had arranged the story to discredit Greenwald, I’d regard it as a dirty political trick.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Background from Michael Demmons.
MORE: A useful post from Dale Carpenter: “It’s hard to work up much sympathy for Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho). He had a perfect legislative score from traditional-values groups, a zero rating from gay civil-rights groups, supported the Federal Marriage Amendment, and refused even to commit to non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in hiring for his own Senate staff. But what exactly was criminal about his conduct in that Minneapolis airport bathroom? . . . At most, Craig was inviting another adult to engage in some kind of sexual behavior in a public place. I’m not a Minnesota criminal lawyer, but I don’t think asking a stranger for sex in a public place, while vulgar and rude under many circumstances, would by itself be a crime under state law. At any rate, Craig wasn’t charged with that.” And more from Josh Marshall.
Ed Morrissey wonders where the crime is, too. “How does foot-tapping and hand-swiping amount to disorderly conduct? . . . Let’s put it another way. Take Craig out of the equation and replace him with Generic Suspect. What crime got committed?” Of course, that’s a question that Craig could have raised, had he not chosen to plead guilty.
Plus, a problem with Craig’s story.
And some thoughts about sex offsets, mentioned here in an earlier post.
STILL MORE: More on Greenwald here. And some rather sharp thoughts about political hypocrisy here.