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Abuse of Power by Linda Chavez 
There is something more than a little bizarre with the latest Washington feeding frenzy over Sen. Larry Craig. Don't get me wrong. I think what Sen. Craig did in the men's bathroom in Minneapolis was gross and sleazy. But is it really worthy of the press attention it has received this week? I just can't imagine a Democratic member of Congress being subjected to the same treatment if the facts, as we know them so far, were identical.
Linda leads off with her first and most brilliant argument: you can search your brains from here to Alexander Hamilton. There's just no way anyone can think of any Democrat who was dogged for sexual impropriety. Can you even think of even
one Democrat who Republicans ever made a big deal about his extramarital activities?
Oh wait, she said "member of Congress" and "gay." So her argument is that, unlike those mean ol' liberals, Republicans would never make hay out of, say, hints of impropriety from Barney Frank.
How do you avoid all that persecution, Congressman?
"Um, own up to the facts and then ask for forgiveness?" Linda continues her cutting exposé:
Let's say that Senator X, a prominent Democrat, was alleged to have, on rare occasion, solicited homosexual acts in public places. He never touched anyone or exposed himself or did anything else overtly illegal or anti-social, but merely tried to engage other men he thought might be gay by making eye contact or through surreptitious hand signals or, as in Craig's case, toe-tapping.
There were never any complaints against Sen. X by heterosexual men who were offended by his overtures. And only one or two gay men had ever come forward to say he had engaged in consensual sex acts with Sen. X. Then, Sen. X gets arrested in what appears to be a questionable sting.
In other words, Craig lied... but was it really all that big of a lie if only a few people came forward to point out he was leading a double life? Of course not! Oh, and PS: he's not harrassing people who aren't gay in search of casual hook ups. What kind of weirdoes would we be if went around bothering people about their sex lives when they weren't hurting anybody else by it? Thanks for the clarification, Linda!
The sting goes down like this: Police officers are set up to hang around a public bathroom known to be a favorite cruising spot for gay men.
And here I thought the bathroom was a favorite place for peeing. Yet more proof of liberal idiocy, I guess.
Sen. X comes into the bathroom and then stands outside a stall occupied by one of the policemen, who is there to catch gay men.
....and then he stares and stares and stares for two minutes into the toilet stall where the cop is sitting. Probably Craig was only interested in recruiting the guy for a focus group on Mitt Romney's family values. And by the way, Linda, dear, the cop wasn't there to catch gay men. He was there to catch lawbreakers. If the cops wanted to catch gay men, it'd be a lot easier to drop a SWAT team on Ken Mehlman's office.
According to the actual police report, Sen. X did not overtly solicit sex or make illegal sexual contact with the police officer but merely looked through the crack of an occupied stall from a distance of three feet, then entered an adjoining stall, tapped his toes a few times, and swiped his hand along the bottom of the bathroom stall divider three times.
Now this behavior might have been annoying, even offensive...
one might even go so far as to call it "lewd."
...if the man in the other stall were there attending to bodily functions. But he wasn't. He was a police officer who was there solely to catch homosexual men soliciting others for consensual sex.
....in a place where it's illegal to solicit sex.
If Democratic Sen. X's hypothetical arrest ever made it into the papers -- doubtful, unless the senator chose to make it public -- I suspect the tone of the coverage would be rather different than Sen. Craig's treatment.
And of course those simpering sycophants in the liberal press never call the Democrats out on the hypocricy of their unrelenting war of harassment and divisiveness against the gay community. I mean, seriously, where's the hook in a story like that?
I can just imagine the Washington Post inveighing against police entrapment and homophobia and demanding that the private sex lives of politicians remain private unless their behavior involved an abuse of their official duties.
And I can just imagine Linda Chavez lurking outside my office window, black jack and brass knuckles in hand, pacing around behind the bushes, waiting for me to come walking out to my car, abusing me, hating me, dogging my every move. Stop it, Linda! Damn you, stop it!
Seriously, I imagine things like that. And don't even get me started about the paranoia Kay Bailey Hutchinson inspires in me.
Of course, it isn't just the media who are going after Sen. Craig. His fellow Republicans are piling on....
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Watch the smutty innuendo, lady!
...calling for ethics investigations and, understandably, trying to distance themselves from him. Some are even asking him to resign. This has been a disaster for Republicans, whose base is far more concerned about morality and traditional values than are most Democrats. But this is all the more reason you might expect the press to be calling for a little perspective here.
Again, her flawless logic exposes the vultures in the press and, um, Republican Congressional caucuses. Why is it such a big deal that a Republican nanny-stater like Craig is out trolling toilets for blow jobs. It's not like he doesn't oppose such things when he's on the job. So let's get a little perspective here. If you spend all day culture warring for decency and family values, aren't you entitled to unwind with a little stranger-on-stranger fluid swapping in a public restroom? Hasn't Sen. Craig built up enough "morality capital" fighting for decency that he deserves to
spend a little bit of it over on the other side? If he's only sleazy a little bit of the time, doesn't it all come out in the wash? Or at least in the dry cleaning?
A lot of people would consider what Sen. Craig did immoral. (Go figure!) Others, especially gay activists and liberals, would consider him a hypocrite because he has voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage exclusively as the legal union of one man and one woman. But immorality and hypocrisy are hardly uncommon characteristics in Washington -- or most other places for that matter.
Her argument in a nutshell:
(a) Everybody's doing it, so what the heck?
(b) It's more important to denounce immorality than to live morally.
(c) God, can't you just
imagine Democrats off doing perverted things?
(I know I sure spend time imagining that!Sen. Craig's denial that he is gay or has ever engaged in homosexual acts enrages some gay rights militants. The issue was first raised some 25 years ago when Craig stood accused, along with several other members of Congress, of having sex with congressional pages, allegations that were subsequently withdrawn.
Sen. Craig would have been better advised to remain silent on his sex life, but the media hypocrisy in this affair is at least as troubling as Sen. Craig's.
Tou-freakin'-ché, Ms Chavez! Ken Olbermann is out all there giggling around about Larry Craig's sexcapades in public men's rooms, but does he ever admit to all the tawdry sexual liaisons he himself has had in public toilets over the years? Has Katie Couric even once fessed up to her own lurid past of trolling bathrooms for illicit nookie while spending hours before the public denouncing that very same thing? Such hypocrites!
On the one hand, the media generally regards sexual orientation as a private matter...
Seriously, when was the last time the news networks ever injected sex into their routine daily reporting.
"O My Gaw-awd! Does it like even ever happen? *Tee-hee-hee*
...moreover one that is morally neutral. But because Sen. Craig is a conservative, although not someone who has had a history of gay-bashing...
Take
THAT, Tucker!
...the media have had no qualms about violating his privacy. Indeed, Craig's home newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, spent five months delving into the senator's sex life.
Sen. Craig's political career is probably over. The abuse of power, however, was not Sen. Craig's but the media's, who pick and choose whose privacy they will violate on a partisan basis.
Right on, Linda! I mean, it's gotta be either that, or Democrats
for some odd reason feel less compelled to lie about their sex lives.
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