Sen. Craig Might Not Resign After All:
The AP reports:
Sen. Larry Craig is reconsidering his decision to resign after his arrest in a Minnesota airport sex sting and may still fight for his Senate seat, his spokesman said Tuesday evening.
"It's not such a foregone conclusion anymore, that the only thing he could do was resign," Sidney Smith, Craig's spokesman in Idaho's capital, told The Associated Press.
Obviously it's all a Bush ploy to take our attention away from Iraq.
In all seriousness, this statement is one of the most fascinating I have read about Craig. So much to unpack. Just to recap: you are saying that you don't believe Craign i.e. that he actually knew all along that he was gay but that he manfully, as it were, denied it so that he could pretend to be straight in order to vote anti-gay. And that's admirable? And healthy for Craig, his family etc?
Even if one assumes that Craig was in search of and fully intended to consummate something more intimate than a toe-tapping good time, what facts indicate that his conduct had ripened into a completed crime, or for that matter even an attempt, at the time of his arrest?
Did Mr. Craig voluntarily, intelligently and knowingly waive his right to counsel prior to the court's acceptance of his plea? If not, his conviction may be void and subject to collateral attack.
Larry Craig pled guilty to a crime for which he should have never been charged; David Vitter admitted to "serious sin" which likely constituted criminal conduct after he had been linked to escort services in Washington and New Orleans. Why does the Republican leadership regard Craig as more ignoble than Vitter?
One wonders what the reaction of is fellow Roman Catholic Republicans would have been if Vitter had admitted using a condom during his whoremongering.
Similarly, prostitutes and johns are busted before either has a chance to expose their genitals.
This is more or less right, although I would not use the word "anti-gay" (or anti-anything) to describe a pro-family voting record, and I also do not believe Craig identified himself as a homosexual, though I am sure that he was aware of having temptations to engage in homosexual conduct.
I am not sure if my statement is as "fascinating" as you think. Just because someone has homosexual urges does not mean that one cannot also believe that homosexuality is immoral. I would think that anyone sometimes has temptations to do something immoral. If Craig believed that homosexuality is immoral, what was he supposed to do? If anything, I would think that my position is more charitable toward homosexuals than that of social conservatives who are quick to point out hypocrisy and calling for Craig's resignation. I do believe that Craig was a hypocrite for lying to the police and the public, but not for the disgusting things he did in the bathroom. A more respectable way to handle the embarrassment would have been a Vitter-like admission of having committed a "grave sin", rather than a Clinton-like denial.
I know very few social conservatives who would argue that having homosexual proclivities is in itself immoral if one does not act on them. So, I am not sure why one would characterize Craig as "immoral" prior to the incident, unless you assume that this is something that he used to do regularly.
Also, if you think my reasoning is strange, keep in mind that you probably follow the same reasoning with respect to pedophilia. Surely you do not believe that the pedophile who openly advocates child molestation is a better, more moral or less hypocritital person than the one who understands that these urges are wrong and disgusting and who is committed to never acting on them.
I think it's time for every high-profile American to go back to famous school and be reminded of the concept of disappearing for a while, waiting till everyone forgets whatever it was again, and THEN acting as though nothing happened in the first place. The disappearing for a while is the critical bit! I mean, Michael Jackson understands this principle. How hard can it possibly be?
9.5.2007 12:35am
Except when Michael Jackson reappears everybody remembers.
Honestly, Jerry, unless you're getting paid to be a fulminating, water-carrying conservative media personality in the mold of Limbaugh or Malkin, it's difficult to imagine anyone making such a ludicrous statement and expecting to be taken seriously.
For anyone else who's actually been paying attention, it hasn't gone unnoticed that it's the Republicans who've had over three dozen scandals in 2007 so far.
"Acting like a Democrat," indeed.
No, not the bathroom incident. It's stupid to hire a high profile D.C. lawyer to handle a plea withdrawal motion in misdemeanor court in Minnesota. If Craig were smart, he'd hire someone who knows the judge and prosecutor.
In cases like this, the guy in the bad suit who spends all his time in that specific misdemeanor court is more likely to get you a good result than anyone you ship in from out of town.
By the way, there's an interesting take on this by a commentator at Lew Rockwell.
Not necessarily. Otherwise, why go on retainer? Any decent lawyer would be happy to refer a case to someone who can do it better. In fact, any decent lawyer would want to refer a potential client onto someone who can better handle the case.
I guess we'll see if your guess or my guess is right.
Or maybe he's working on his Rosanne Rosanna Danna imitation.
That is to say, strictly speaking we don't elect them to be like us or to embody some ideal or to believe anything in particular, we elect them to advance our interests in Congress.
So it could be entirely consistent for a homosexual to vote for anti-homosexual legislation without being a hypocrite - the claim is simply that if a Senator believes the people of his state want a particular law, he should vote for it regardless of his personal inclinations.
The odd thing is, a separation between a voting record and a personal life is something we frown on in senators - but we require it of judges.
Of course, this won't be the first time that someone hired a big dollar lawyer to mess up what the guy in the bad suit could have accomplished. How many criminal cases have you seen where the high profile lawyer (sometimes not an expert in criminal law) did something that made your jaw drop?
That said, sometimes the aggressive out-of-town attorney can do things that a local attorney is less likely to accomplish. (When I accomplish something like that, part of the strategy is to keep everything quiet). Depending on the procedural niceties involved, it may be necessary to do things that will offend the judge, the prosecutor, and maybe the local bar. It is usually more effective to stroke the prosecutor and judge to get this sort of thing done, but in a high profile case, it will be more difficult for them to cooperate, so it may take an out-of-town bulldog.
Of course, if it has to get ugly, Craig may offend his base even more. I hope his lawyer is a good diplomat. If he goes after judge or prosecutor, Craig may feel o.k. about it in the end, but no one else will.
Without having researched Minnesota law, I have doubts as to whether this plea comports with the "intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege" standard of Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 243, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969), and Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938), regarding waiver of the right to counsel.
This one is going to be fun to watch. Pass the popcorn, please.
Also the thing that came to my mind about this was the security risk. I had a top secret sci clearance once and my understanding was that "closet homosexuality" was a risk for a security clearance. The obvious reason is that it provides leverage for blackmail.
My apologies to Billy Martin for implying that he would aggrandize himself at the expense of his client.
That might be true for you and me. However, for a lot of people, including his consitutents, whether he is gay is very much relevant. And it is beyond doubt that it is relevant for the right wing base, upon which the Republican party rests.