Craig, still deserving of scrutiny and the judgment of constituents
David Kurtz at TPM covers the Craig story with reasons akin to mine, in my earlier post. But as I said, there still remains the question of his judgment in pleading guilty after two months to ponder the original arrest.
He’s suggesting he made a bad decision by skipping legal counsel. You tell me: do you think a veteran Senator would skip legal counsel, staff counsel and the personal counsel of friends and family after such an arrest? Would you? If you were close to him, as staff, friends or family, would you advise him to cop a plea?
He’s either followed bad advice or sought no advice and made a choice that’s questionable in the end. It’s that - his choices about how to deal with the arrest - that I’m calling into question. There’s nothing impeachable in it, nothing that provokes a demand for immediate resignation. But should he choose to run for re-election, voters really should ask themselves if a veteran legislator should be acting as clueless as a naive teenager arrested without any knowledge of legal recourses.
His judgment in defending himself was deficient. How will he defend his constituents or the Constitution? Also without consulting experts?
August 28th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Look, Craig is a pro-family Republican with a history of being dogged by “gay rumors”. He didn’t seek anyone’s counsel because he feared — reasonably, in my view — that it would get out, and spell the end of his career. From a political survival standpoint, it was probably the best choice. So I for one do not question his judgment on THAT point.
Of course, he has lacked judgment for decades by simply not coming out of the closet, coupled with his hypocritical stance on “family values” issues. But that was a trap he set for himself, and I have very little sympathy.
I, like many, think the rap against him — when you actually consider the totality of the evidence — is weak. He MAY been seeking a “hook-up”, but he certainly didn’t get far enough in the process to convince me that he actually DID anything “lewd”. If this had happened to Barney Frank, Frank could and would have beaten the charge, and suffered comparatively little negative publicity. But Craig postured himself as an anti-Frank, and that was his undoing.
The lesson of Senator Craig is that hypocrites not only do a disservice to their constituents, but to themselves. I condemn him for his poor judgment in trying to fool his constitutents in the first place; what we’re seeing now is simply an overdue comeuppance.
August 28th, 2007 at 11:13 am
If he’s gay - therefore a hypocrite - I agree. If he’s not, his judgment still remains poor. Did he really expect copping a plea in a public court would avoid public exposure? If so, he’s at the very least incredibly stupid. And ‘Vote For Stupid’ is a much worse campaign slogan than ‘Vote for the Ambiguously Asexual Conservative Because He Might Be Gay But Nobody’s Proved Nothing’.
I don’t rule out the possibility that he’s attracted to men but has never followed through on his proclivities. That, and asexuality remain in the realm of ‘possible’. But poor judgment is already a proven case, no matter what that truth is.
August 28th, 2007 at 11:27 am
“Did he really expect copping a plea in a public court would avoid public exposure?”
Like I said, it was the best choice. The only alternative was to plead not guilty and have it go to trial. Clearly, that would have resulted in public exposure.
Look at it this way — he almost avoided the public exposure, seeing as how it happened two months ago, and we’re only hearing about it now.
I do find it interesting, however, that NOW he claims that his guilty plea was a “mistake”. Did he think it was a “mistake”, one wonders, one month ago when it looked like his plead-guilty-to-avoid-publicity tactic was working?
That said, I agree with you: poor judgment is clearly revealed here. The only open question is whether he was he was stupid in eight different ways, or nine different ways.
August 28th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
The only danger a homosexual employee presents to his employer, be the employer Burger King, the Republican Party, the Military, or the CIA is if they have rules against employing homosexuals, keeping them in the closet, thereby making them susceptible to blackmail.
Which is why the whole “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule is ridiculous.
The fact that this guy got busted and was a proponent of this rule is just too delicious!
Whether or not he is either guilty or gay is beside the point. The genie is out of the bottle and he will never be able to shove, (ummm) prod (no) slide (still not right) it back in (or back under the bathroom stall). Being a suspected gay man is worse than being an openly gay man because he has no support. The homophobes dislike him because he might be gay and gay rights supporters will dislike him for being a hypocrite.
He’s hoisted on his own petard.
He’s got a nice pension coming to him and he will take it. He’ll probably stay to the end of his term in order to set up some nice lobbying gig, post-Senate.
Maybe he’ll get the American Standard account.
August 28th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Insofar as “gay” still means “not-God-fearing-Christian-WHITE” in Republican code, Craig still may stand a chance in Idaho, if enough of “the base” (which includes the home of “the Order” among others) still respects his
racistfamily values credentials.Foley imploded in Florida because the house of cards Karl set up included exurban women, who weren’t up on their code words, and thought “gay” meant… “gay” when used by Republicans. We’ll see if the cantankerous Craig faces that problem in the Potato State.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:32 am
He torpedoed his own case when he dropped his Senate business card on the table. That just makes people in the system mad. If he had done it to me when I was in law enforcement he would have been facing a pair of extra charges under New York law concerning misuse of power.
The other thing that isn’t obvious from most of the reporting is the staring into the stall. The footsie bit could have gotten a pass, but he stared through the crack into the stall at the other guy. That isn’t going away, and that’s the basis for the actual charge.
He should have contacted a “fixer” in DC who would have arranged the whole thing through the Repub network. There would have been some sort of “nolo contendere” plea deal with a fine and the record would would have disappeared after a year. It would have cost more and there would have been some campaign contributions involved, but the tracks would have been covered.
He decided to play “John Wayne” and got caught in the aftermath of increased scrutiny after the bridge collapse. I’m convinced that some reporter was looking for dirt about the bridge and stumbled over this in official records, which explains the timing. The reporter was nosing around and a cop spun a story to impress the reporter. The reporter checks and voila - Craig is news.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Thanks for adding the lawman’s take on it Bryan. Sounds way more reasonable than anything Craig’s said.