This would be my speech:
Good afternoon, citizens of Idaho. Good afternoon, friends.
I have an important announcement to make, although it is not the announcement many of you think it will be. I am here to announce to you that yes, I did attempt to solicit sex in that bathroom, and that no, I am not going to resign. I made a mistake. I have some personal issues that are my business, and my business alone, and I will work to resolve them.
I am sorry if I embarrassed you, but I fail to see how a personal transgression somehow makes me unable to fulfill my duties in the Senate. I will not run again in 2008, but let me be clear- I will not resign.
As to my ‘alleged’ friends in the Senate and elsewhere in Washington, let me extend a large and erect middle finger to each and everyone of you. To all of you who came to me privately as a friend over the past few days and told me it was best for the nation and Idaho if I resign, but who did not have the courage to stand up for your friend when a camera was on, let me say this: “GO TO HELL.” Each and every one of you.
All these years in Washington, and you were my supposed to be my friends. Not one of you- not one god damned person in Washington- defended me. You make me sick. You are craven, amoral, shallow, backstabbing, self-serving drama queens, and I hope you all rot in hell. I deserved better.
Maybe it would be easier for everyone if I left quietly, but I am not going to resign. Maybe if one of you, just one of you, had publicly stood up for me, I might have done just that and left, publicly disgraced, but still maintaining a degree of personal dignity. But you didn’t, did you? Instead, it was nothing but long knives in the short of the back from you self-serving bastards. Not one of you asked David Vitter to resign for his mistakes and misdeeds, but somehow I am different.
In short, I have a little over a year left in my term, and I am going to do what I do every day. I am going to go to work, and I am going to do my best to represent the citizens of Idaho and their interests. If you want me out of the Senate, you need to throw me out. I worked too hard to get here, my family has sacrificed for two decades to be here, and I will not be run out of town by the likes of you. Again, if you want me out, you have to throw me out. And I will make it as messy, and as bloody, and as painful as I possibly can. I think you have earned that.
Have a good afternoon.
I think it would be widely discussed afterwards.
*** Update ***
He resigns. My speech was better.
Jackmormon
Somehow I don’t think he’s going to say that, John.
Andrew
I would simply finish with, “And now I’m off to screw some female prostitutes, much like my esteemed colleague Sen. Vitter did, because apparently that’s A-OK with the Republican Senate leadership.”
JGabriel
Short grammar/typo correction, John. Where you have:
It should probably be:
Feel free to delete this post one you’ve read it — I’m not looking to memorialize the errors, just alert you to it.
PaulW
Sad to say, but the Republicans have never been about individual courage. They’ve always been about the mindset of the oligarchy, whatever the leadership wants the leadership gets. Just look at them, Specter, Newt, McCain, Romney, all of them. They hide behind the image of being mavericks while all the time they run the same playbook and recite the same scripts. And I think it’s been pointed out elsewhere that oddly enough the most Christianist of the Presidential candidates, Brownback and Huckabee, are the only two not to openly condemn Craig (they did so but crouched in the Christian safewords of forgiveness and grace). And those two aren’t anywhere near leadership roles.
The day the GOP turns on Vitter is the day they live up to the credo of upholding marriage and family values by kicking all their adulterers out. Which of course is the day Rapture comes and they all find out they’re not on the Invite List.
Bob In Pacifica
Nothing in that little speech about gay rights?
Elvis Elvisberg
When Gov. McGreevey announced his resignation, he set the effective date for sometime after the upcoming election. For a few days, that was a mini-scandal– why not resign now, and let the voters pick the next governor?
But he just said no. And then they stopped asking. And then he did what he said he was going to do.
When you’re at the center of a scandal it can’t feel like very much fun. But you know, next week some white woman will go missing, or Lindsey Lohan will do something outrageous, and the world will move on. So why not give the big “screw you” to everyone who was so willing to throw him overboard? Yeah, people are asking you to resign, but you can “just say ‘no.'” It’s not like he’s a business that can be boycotted.
Also, John, this speech, if given, would rival the Gettysburg Address as the greatest in our nation’s history.
Quiddity
I’d like to see Craig make that announcement.
Dennis-SGMM
The Republicans look like a school of homophobic Piranhas. I wonder how many of them have considered how foolish and hypocritical they look as their party thrashes about wildly to appear to stand for something other than enthusiastic support for G.W. Bush.
Apparently there are more adulterers than gays present because serial adultery doesn’t disqualify Republicans from serving in the Senate or running for President. Now there’s something to brag about.
srv
What PaulW said. Republicans are parodies of themselves. If Craig is unhappy with his treatment, he’s really confused in more ways than one. This is who they are.
ThymeZone
Bob in Pacifica is right, the speech needs to mention gay rights, and the absurdity of criminalizing behavior for no good purpose other than to make it illegal to be gay.
Also, you wrote a fine speech, John, but Craig has never been an honest guy. He hasn’t been a guy who cares about other people. So why he would suddenly decide to be an honest guy, and talk about “friends” is beyond me.
If he shows up today and makes this speech and stands up for gay rights, I’d nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
But I think he will go down in flames and become the full victim of the witch hunt.
myiq2xu
I’m gonna miss Lavatory Larry. August is supposed to be the slow season for politics, and I’m a political junkie.
But this year was special. The Schadenfreude Summer Extravaganza.
One scandal after another, all in the GOP. I thought things would slow down when Congress went on vacation, then Rove decided to abandon ship so he could spend more time spreading vicious lies about his family.
When Fredo got thrown under the bus I thought that was the big finish, but no, the GOP had one more juicy scandal to whip out and entertain us with.
“I’m not gay!” Larry screamed in his high-pitched falsetto. “I just got busted because I have a wide stance!”
Ya just can’t make this shit up. :lol:
Maybe Larry and Tucker can do a show together where they travel the country showing off all the hot restroom meeting places.
“Tea Room Time with Carlson and Craig”
JGabriel
PaulW: “The day the GOP turns on Vitter is the day they live up to the credo of upholding marriage and family values by kicking all their adulterers out. Which of course is the day Rapture comes and they all find out they’re not on the Invite List.”
It’s also the day they find out they only have about ten candidates left to run for office.
Seriously, the Republicans are in what I call a “Holier Than Thou” Death Spiral. They’re demonizing gays, latinos, blacks, brown people in general, immigrants, women, liberals, progressives, Democrats, anyone who disagrees with them, and anyone that lives a lifestyle that doesn’t conform to all Republican principles or bigotries (take your pick).
And everytime they succeed in purging yet another group (say the group of people who don’t think the federal government should be involved in personal health issues like Schiavo), they set a new standard for Republican purity (looks like the new one might be people who think Vitter is just as bad as Craig), leading to yet another round of I’m-purer-than-you Republican purges.
No wonder the ‘stab in the back’ metaphor has become vogue again. They’re so busy doing it to each other, it’s the world they live in now — until only one is left standing.
demimondian
Oh, Lord! Would I love to have Craig give this speech! The only thing which might be better would be for him to give out diapered David Vitter dolls to the folks who show up for the presser…
Pb
I’d love to see the fallout of that speech (as delivered by Bizarro Larry Craig) — I think the reactions from the pundit class would be divided between “oh how uncouth and unserious that Larry Craig fellow is” and “you know, he might have a point there”… oh, and, “did we mention that he attempted to solicit sex in a bathroom?”
JGabriel
Bob in Pacifica: “Nothing in that little speech about gay rights?”
Of course not. Craig’s NOT gay. I heard him say so on TV. Repeatedly.
salvage
Meh, the man is a liar, the fact that he tells the same lies to himself as others is hardly mitigating to me. Furhtermore I don’t see how someone so mentally twisted can provide quality leadership.
Craig could never make that speech, he could have three dicks in him and he’d still insist that he was as straight as can be.
Not to mention he ran with the standard GOP Family Values boilerplate so there is a facet of hypocrisy.
Before I can feel a lick of sympathy for him he needs to be honest until then I confess I get a touch of schadenfreude as his former fellow hyenas rip him apart.
myiq2xu
The entire GOP is spinning so hard that the centrifugal force is tossing people off faster and faster.
Meanwhile, the mad chimp at the controls is screaming “More cow bell!”
I haven’t laughed so much or so hard in years.
myiq2xu
If Craig really wanted to piss people off he would announce that since the GOP doesn’t want him he’s switching to the Democratic Party.
Suddenly Joe Loserman would be very lonely.
Jill
He could have said that if he never called Clinton a “nasty, naughty, boy” and if he didn’t vote to impeach the POTUS for a personal matter. It sucks when your past actions don’t agree with your present circumstances.
srv
You mean more mad cow bell.
myiq2xu
Did he thank everyone for coming out again?
JWeidner
Shorter, and perhaps more appropriate: “Live by the sword, die by the sword.”
AkaDad
If I were Larry Craig, I’d be tapping out this comment in an airport bathroom…
myiq2xu
Fixed
Mike
ThymeZone
Here’s the real tragedy …. this fine young cop, who has spent untold hours sitting in a crapper in MSP protecting your peepee, is on the hot seat, in the public eye.
This brilliant young man who couldn’t figure out a way to manage gay use of the restrooms without hours of sitting in a stall, making arrests and ciminalizing gay behavior, now has to endure this scrutiny. The humanity!
But, a moment of silence for Minnesota, where they can’t inspect their bridges, and can’t figure out how to install a tv camera in a mens room and shoo away the annoying gay pests without dragging their hapless asses through the mud of criminal charges, embarrassment, and a criminal record after being arrested for being gay. So a crime about as serious as throwing a gum wrapper on the sidewalk costs a Senator his job.
This is a great day for America.
And for the GOP, which has given you this ludicrous situation in form or another for all these years now.
JGabriel
*An Ode Commemorating The Resignation Of Senator Craig*
There once was a man named Lancelot
On toilets he took a wide stance a lot
Then Senator Craig
Foot and palm did beg
Now all his friends looks askance a lot.
ThymeZone
At times like these, it’s useful to ponder the real differences between Republicans and Democrats:
Republicans think that it’s okay to rig the system to criminalize gay behavior, and invent phony issues like DOMA to leverage the bigotry into votes on a national scale.
Democrats believe the same thing, as long as the proximate victim is a Republican asshole.
PaulW
Dear Thyme:
If you’re griping about the cops harrassing gay guys in the bathroom stalls, you might want to read up the article on the arresting cop, that the police sting that snagged our esteemed senator had rounded up a good handful of gay guys doin’ the tapdance routine… and that almost all of them were let go after showing remorse and terrified of getting found out by their families. The only one to talk back, whine, threaten, and lie about it? Craig. Guess what happens when you act like a dick around cops? Duh.
And if you’re tying in police attempts to keep our bathrooms safe from sodomy to the poor bridge maintenance afflicting our whole country, why not point that outrage at the dumdums who ARE responsible for bridge repair/funding (i.e. state leges, governors, congress and the Preznit, oh and us Taxpayers who keep getting snookered by these fair tax ripoff artists!). Thankyou.
One more thing: can we put up signs in the mens bathrooms encouraging the use of hotels for gay sex hookups from now on? You know, point out the health benefits of cleaner environs, nicer scenery (oh, look, a view of the mighty Minnesota tundra), and a shower for washing off afterward. Clean towels too. Sure, it’ll cost more, but it’s what the heterosexuals do…!
JGabriel
ThymeZone: “Republicans think that it’s okay to rig the system to criminalize gay behavior, and invent phony issues like DOMA to leverage the bigotry into votes on a national scale. Democrats believe the same thing, as long as the proximate victim is a Republican asshole.”
No, it’s more like Democrats believe it’s just desserts when Republicans end up hoisted on their own self-built petards.
ThymeZone
I’m calling it what it is: Criminalization of being gay.
Period. It is not necessary to arrest anyone to accomplish your so-called goal. Except maybe in very rare cases.
Cut the crap.
ThymeZone
That is Ends Justify Means thinking, and it is corrupt thinking, and it leads to acting like the fucking Republicans do. They thing their schtick is all about just desserts …. for other people.
What goes around comes around. ONce the sweet taste of just desserts wears off, you will realize that you are smiling at somebody getting screwed over because he’s a Republican. That makes you exactly like them. I don’t think that’s what you really want, is it?
JGabriel
Found this quote from ’96, just to remind everyone what kind of asshole we’re dealing with and for how long:
ThymeZone
Because this is a blog, and it’s all theater, and I write my material my way. You write yours your way.
Between us, maybe we’ll make a difference.
Or not, who knows?
myiq2xu
No, Democrats believe in the words of Jesus: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”
The Buddhists call it karma. The non-religious version is “What goes around, comes around.”
The GOP is the holier-than-thou party. They deserve to reap what they have sown. Maybe if this keeps happening they’ll realize the error of their ways.
ThymeZone
Well, an ignoble sentiment at best, but totally corrupt when we calculate than in order to have this delicioius irony, you have to apply law enforcement that is rigged to criminalize gay behavior and legalize bigotry. Most of the victims oare not Larry Craig, they are people like your neighbor.
So it’s not a good thing, it’s a bad thing. It’s a very bad thing. Larry Craig is just one guy. Thousands of people nicer than Larry Craig will get caught in the same rigged net. See?
myiq2xu
The irony is that a homophobic Senator is a homosexual. He and his party support criminalizing homosexuality and legalizing discrimination against gays. He helped rig the system. Well, he got the justice he deserved.
JGabriel
ThymeZone: “That is Ends Justify Means thinking, and it is corrupt thinking…”
Bullshit. I don’t suport the ends, so how can the means, which I don’t support either, be justified by my thinking?
“Just desserts” means exactly what it says: Craig supported and voted to maintain, throughout his career, laws and measures to repress and harrass gays. He voted to build and maintain the system that hoisted him up for ridicule.
I didn’t vote for such a system, and repression of gay people is not a part of the Democratic platform, but it *is* an active plank of the Republican platform.
It’s ridiculous, stupid, irrational, illogical, manipulative, and a lie, to accuse someone of “Ends justify the means” thinking, over an ‘end’ they never supported, using ‘means’ they never supported, just for acknowledging the inherent justice of seeing one who enacted those ends and means – into law – being held to that standard.
Rome Again
Are you not yourself judging when you say they deserve to reap what they’ve sown? “Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged” has a slippery mechanism to it. You need to not only judge not, but mention not to not all into that trap. “Judge Not…” is the hardest thing anyone can do without undoing the message themselves.
I’m not saying you’re wrong to think they deserve such, but just pointing out how you place your own considerations in peril when you do such.
Rome Again
Corrected, oops! Apologies.
Pb
The solution: co-ed bathrooms? Then we can have the cops in there to prevent heterosexual sexual assaults and rapes, too…
ThymeZone
Strategies that reduce the “problem” (you know, the one I have never seen in sixty years of using thousands of mens rooms coast to coast, and while traveling for a living six days a week for years at a time) without criminalization except in extreme cases.
Strategies that aren’t based on calling gay sex “sodomy” and using terms of religious bigotry to describe ordinary human behavior.
I mean, if we are going to call it sodomy, as we have done here on this thread in a recent post, why not call it “bestiality?” Why are we pulling our punches with these fucking faggots?
ThymeZone
You call gay sex “sodomy.” Why use a term of religious bigotry to refer to a sex act?
Criminalization of this behavior is legalized bigotry. Period.
And yes, rooting for Craig to be fucked over is Ends Justifies Means thinking, otherwise people here would be standing up for him. They aren’t. Get a fucking clue.
ThymeZone
It is injustice, not justice. Injustice does not turn into justice when applied against somebody you don’t like.
Innocent people will get fucked over by this same “justice” in no small measure now because good people are choosing “nyah nyah” over standing up for the right thing. Which is, in case you haven’t been following along, to LEAVE THE FUCKING MAN ALONE. Along with all the rest of the people caught in these nets flung by assholes.
KipEsquire
“my business, and my business alone”
Moot now, of course, but let the record reflect that the conduct of a senator is not just “his business, and his business alone.”
Both chambers of Congress are entitled to establish their own standards of conduct for their members and, if push comes to shove, both have the authority to expel members.
Which invites the question: why did, e.g., John McCain vote to convict Bill Clinton but did not threaten to commence expulsion proceedings against Craig?
(Did I mention that this is all moot anyway?)
ThymeZone
I am. He is wrong. It’s the reason why we hate those rightwing motherfuckers. It’s what they do, in every situation. It’s wrong when they do it and it’s wrong when we do it.
myiq2xu
Nope. Everybody deserves to reap what they sow. If you sow bigotry and hatred, that’s what you deserve to get. If you sow love and tolerance, that’s what you should receive.
Injustice is when you don’t get what you deserve. The symbol for justice is a balance scale, not only because evidence is “weighed” but because justice is supposed to make things balance.
“Make the punishment fit the crime,” etc.
ThymeZone
What are you, a fucking nun in a Catholic grade school?
whippoorwill
Now the Angels in Heaven can once again sing and the Right Reverend Falwell can rest in peace.
myiq2xu
Sodomy is no longer illegal in any state. It’s considered a hobby now.
Thyme, do you think it should be legal for people to have sex (gay or straight) in public restrooms?
Rome Again
This is important. I cannot say I always live up to this standard, but it is something we should all strive for, including me. Thanks for reminding me.
myiq2xu
No, but I got kicked out of Catholic grade school for fucking a nun.
whippoorwill
Top that Rome Again
Rome Again
I was merely saying it wasn’t part of my argument. “I’m not saying…” doesn’t mean I condone, it merely meant it was not part of my argument.
If you want to know my feelings on it, standing around laughing at all the fubars of the Republican party is sort of a sick pasttime, but, we’ve been so frustrated with this BushCo/Rubberstamp Congress shit for so long that it’s hard to stop doing it. I’m not saying I’m proud of myself for feeling that way, but, it’s difficult to maintain a respectful composure when all this shit is happening.
Rome Again
Oh, you did not! ;)
JGabriel
TZ: “You call gay sex ‘sodomy.’ Why use a term of religious bigotry to refer to a sex act?”
No, I didn’t. You’re taking someone else’s words, attributing it to me, then building a strawman argument on that as your response?
I guess I’m not surprised. It is SOP Republican crap.
I think you’ve made it clear you’re just a troll. People who are interested in engaging in an honest argument don’t use those tactics.
Go clomp away, little troll.
Helena Montana
Your speech was much better than Craig’s, John, and if he’d given yours, I would almost have respected him. But here’s the thing–if it had been some other Republican caught with his pants down, ol’ Larry Craig would’ve been leading the self-righteous, sanctimonious lynch mob.
Punchy
Wasn’t sure where you were going with this…
ThymeZone
Whoops, my bad. It was somebody else. Sorry.
ThymeZone
Sure, understandable feeling. But my point is, if we are going to claim to be better than the Feelgoods, then we have to act better than the Feelgoods.
What we should be doing is defending Craig here, as much as we detest him and his politics. He is the victim of a witch hunt.
Rome Again
I have never laughed at this situation. I am trying to do as you suggest. I am merely using generalization of schadenfreude in general.
ThymeZone
Well you’d be justified in doing so, I did at first. Then I thought about it and said, this guy is being impaled on a stick that we are supposed to oppose. It’s not okay. If we really are in this for the moral value of liberty, then we need to stand up for his liberty even if we think he’s a schmuck. Which he definitely is!
Rome Again
::Grasshopper nods head::
Punchy
WTF?
Fixed.
myiq2xu
WE didn’t demand his resignation, his buddies in the GOP did. Nobody here is demanding that he be harshly punished either. He received a small fine and probation for what he did.
You still haven’t answered my question.
myiq2xu
Unless you think that it should be legal to have sex in public places like restrooms, then you have to support some sort of method of deterring such conduct.
I would agree that sting operations are not the ideal method. The focus should be on prevention rather than apprehension. A men’s room attendant would probably do the trick, but what if it didn’t? What would the attendant do, other than call security or the police? Throw a bucket of water on them?
But Larry Craig was not arrested for having sex in a restroom or for soliciting, he was charged with intentionally peeping into an occupied bathroom stall, and with disorderly conduct.
Thyme has said in previous posts that he thinks criminalizing peeping is absurd. I disagree.
ThymeZone
Doesn’t matter. WE should be standing up for him. That, my low IQ friend, is my entire point.
I think it should be a crime about as serious as a parking ticket. I also think that discouraging it can be done without criminalization, arrests, and embarassment to the offenders. Both of which I have said numerous times.
What is happening to Craig is an example of what happens when do-gooders and Sex Police run the world. That’s why we should be standing up for Craig, even though he happens to be one of those phony do-gooders.
ThymeZone
Substitute “video surveillance” camera, “tv” was a bad choice of words.
Come on, dude, I know you aren’t that dense. It’s a legal term because the fucking asshole sex police made it a legal term, and it should never be used to describe consensual sex between adults. It’s a perjorative term that has no place in the discussion of adult behavior that is nobody’s business. Here’s $5, buy yourself a fucking clue.
ThymeZone
Are you serious? If on the small chance that “Take it somewhere else” wasn’t sufficient, then you have a disurbing the peace situation. But until that happens, no criminalization is necessary, or appropriate.
Christ almighty, somebody actually has to tell you this?
Rome Again
And, of course, sodomy does come from the town of Sodom, it was a religious term long before it was a legalistic term.
myiq2xu
I didn’t vote for him, nor would I, but I didn’t demand he resign either. I don’t think he should have to resign, but the voters of Idaho might have a different opinion.
You think that stall peeping should be treated like a parking ticket. Okay, what do you call a fine and informal probation?
BTW- The Ron White method of debate is for losers. I wasn’t making personal attacks on you. “Fuck you” is not a cogent argument.
Frank
No ppgaz, thinking Craig got his just deserts doesn’t make us “just like” Republicans. Hell even making trollish bad faith arguments like you do doesn’t make you “just like” a Republican. You have to limbo a lot lower if you want to make it under that bar.
ThymeZone
Nope. Failing to stand up for him makes us just like them, if not worse. It’s hypocrisy, and what’s worse, it’s harmful because it appears to license the witch hunt that put him where he is today.
You are quite wrong.
ThymeZone
What do you call stories of an arrest for “solicitation of sex” accompanied by tapes of his post arrest interview, accompanied by witch hunt media coverage and political posturing? Losing his job? Jesus you are dense man.
Heh. Several things: One, this is not a debate, where you are concerned, it’s an ass kicking. You are on the wrong side of this coversation and I have peeled you like a parboiled tomato for three days. Two, yesterday you were calling me gay. I got your “cogent argument” right here, cocksucker.
myiq2xu
So failing to stop a murderer makes a person worse than the murderer?
That doesn’t happen to everybody. He quit his job because his so-called friends made him quit, not the libruls. All the media did was report the truth.
One: In your dreams.
Two: You admitted that you are gay. I don’t suck cock. Calling me a cocksucker is what psychologists call “projection.”
BTW – I’m curious, what was the sentence the judge gave you when you got busted for lewd conduct in a men’s room?
ThymeZone
Um, actually dumbshit, if you can stop a murderer and don’t you can be charged with a crime.
Give it up man, you are floating out to sea on a little piece of ice now. Back to the gay lames for crissakes?
You are so bad, if I were the other boneheads on your side of this argument, I’d tell you to shut the fuck up, you are making them look ridiculous.
Rome Again
Uh, no he didn’t. He said if you needed to believe that go ahead.
myiq2xu
Nope. Try again after you go to a law school like I did.
myiq2xu
Yes he did. Adoptive admission.
ThymeZone
The rule is, if you call me gay, you have to send me a picture.
Of course, LowIQ doesn’t want to send a picture, then we’d find out he’s actually Justice Scalia.
Rome Again
Well, believe what you want, I know better.
Frank
ppgaz- I’m sincerly amazed that you could even think you are “winning” this arguement. Anyone bothering to read this thread will have noticed that you aren’t making a lick of sense. Take your meds dude.
ThymeZone
Oh brother. I thought after your implosion yesterday you might learn something. I guessed wrong.
News flash fer ya: “Suck my dick” doesn’t mean the requestor is gay, amigo. Don’t take my word for it, you can look it up ;)
myiq2xu
Still waiting for a cogent argument (other than the teeny tiny one you have right there.)
ThymeZone
Uh huh. Brilliantly argued, sir.
myiq2xu
You dance around but you don’t deny it. While you’re in law school learning what you obviously don’t know now, look up “adoptive admission.”
ThymeZone
Well, why don’t you start one?
Cat got your tongue?
myiq2xu
Okay, if you have personal knowledge that he likes girls too, I’ll say bisexual rather than gay.
ThymeZone
You are really, really bad at this, man. Seriously.
Rome Again
What TZ says here on this blog has no reality in his sexual orientation. What he does with is sexuality is what decides his sexual orientation.
myiq2xu
I won’t engage in a battle of wits with someone who is unarmed.
myiq2xu
ThymeZone
Deep in a hole, he reaches for a bigger shovel ….
myiq2xu
Oops, forgot to add “Fixed.”
ThymeZone
Well, then I recommend that you don’t talk to yourself.
Rome Again
Not only do I know that TZ is attracted to women, I also know quite a lot about why he is not attracted to men. He is not bisexual at all and he never has been, but without you knowing the knowledge he has imparted to me, you wouldn’t know this. So just stop it myiq2xu, because, honestly, to someone who has this information, it makes you look very foolish.
myiq2xu
Thyme, you can’t beat me, and I have other things to do, so you’ll have to keep on beating yourself.
myiq2xu
Strange that you have to deny it for him, but he doesn’t deny it himself.
I noticed that you and Thyme appear and reappear together. Which one of you is the sockpuppet?
Rome Again
TZ has made no qualms with the fact that the handle is a persona, so technically, you are correct… but the man behind TZ is who you are referring to and you were talking about his sexual orientation (none of your business btw, especially since you have no fucking clue what you are talking about).
Look, this whole thing started over whether Democrats should help stab the knife in the back of a man who was arrested for making what are gay gestures. If we do not stand up for the gay community (whether Craig is or isn’t) we do a disservice to all people who aren’t absolutely model perfect citizens. Nobody is perfect, we should embrace a man who has been outed as a gay and not tolerate the way he was apprehended, for doing what gay men do, because if not, one day they’ll have locked up all the gays and they’ll start looking at behaviors you (and I) might engage in.
Why can’t you get this?
Rome Again
Perhaps because we happen to be two different people and he is not concerned with your accusations while I am? He reacts differently than I do. The fact that he isn’t all over you for saying he is gay is commendable in my opinion.
Why do we appear at the same time? Um, perhaps it’s because we spend a lot of time chatting and posting while we are chatting together? Did you ever think of that?
myiq2xu
Help stab the back? His buddies are doing that, and I haven’t helped. I could care less whether he is gay or not, what I am opposed to is hypocrisy.
I don’t think it should be legal for people (gay or straight) to have sex in public restrooms. I also think there are better ways to deal with it than sting operations.
But Craig is (or was) a Senator that wants to keep discrimination against gays legal, and who is now being discriminated against for allegedly being gay. He’s denying he is gay, and not denouncing the discrimination.
If he wants my sympathy, he needs to come out of the closet or at least STFU about homosexuals.
ThymeZone
It’s like a nightmare, isn’t it?
A lot of people here communicate offline via email, you stupid doofus. Over the last few years, probably 20-30 people at one time or another. It’s 2007, it’s the Tubes. Half of the people who post here are spoofs, but somebody like you comes along and makes it harder to tell the spoofs from the real stuff.
I told her that you were doing your imitation of a horse’s ass again, and she wanted to see for herself.
And, there you were.
Get a clue, man. Really.
Rome Again
The only people this hurts is the gay community. Craig doesn’t want to come out of the closet, so let him keep lying to himself. He has to face that with himself. It’s none of your business anyway.
The way he was apprehended is a witchhunt against gays, and all it does it hurt the gay community and erode freedoms of everyone the more Democrats harp on this.
Yes, the hypocrisy sucks, but, who is the target here? Ultimately it’s the gay community if you condone the way Craig was arrested.
You are doing a disservice to the Democratic party (of which I used to belong, I’m Independent now, and hoping to return one day when I feel they are representing me again), and to everyday Americans who are going to get caught up in nanny state politics.
ThymeZone
Then you will denounce the hypocrisy of standing by while a guy loses his job for being gay, and defend him?
Or keep acting like a doofus who thinks that the guffaws and the “good riddance” taunts are actually serving the interests of people whose interests could use defending?
Because, they are not. The interests of the people whose rights are being fucked here would be best served by standing up for Craig, not by standing by while a witch hunt goes on. By defending him, you can truly expose his hypocrisy. That’s by far the best way to expose his hypocrisy. And by far the best way to stick up for liberty.
You can’t stick up for liberty by cheering for somebody’s loss of liberty. Aside from being ugly, it’s just stupid politics.
myiq2xu
This is what we lawyers call a confession rather than an admission, so adios, sock puppet!
Randolph Fritz
He isn’t losing his job for being gay. He’s losing it for being an embarrassment to his party. For myself, I think he’s a poor schmuck with a disabling psychological condition. Being gay is healthy, sexually harassing people in public restrooms is not and making a gross pass (and it was pretty gross–listen to the account) at a cop in a public toilet is a pretty good way to get arrested.
ThymeZone
Lord, what a complete doofus you are.
myiq2xu
No, there were complaints of sexual activity in the men’s room (there were postings online about it’s tea room trade) and the cops were trying to put a stop to it.
If gays want to have sex, find another place besides public restrooms.
ThymeZone
That’s bullshit. All the cop, or anyone else had to do, is say “not interested.”
That would have ended the incident. As it does typically in any incident of sexual suggestion, gay or straight, a million times a day between millions of people in lord knows how many situations.
The idea that we need cops, arrests, criminal charges, embarassment, and lost jobs over such a thing is just nothing but fucking bullshit.
myiq2xu
I’m not going to waste time trying to have a rational discussion with self-admitted spoofers/sock puppets/trolls who are just taking positions for the thrill of starting arguments.
Go into a chat room and pretend to be a 14 year old virgin if you want to spoof for thrills.
This blog is for serious people.
Rome Again
It’s not hard to see who the sockpuppets are here, usually.
If you would like to research the last two – three years, you’ll see that TZ and I were completely separate entities who barely talked. I was in FL, I stated many times I was in FL during two years of that time. I am no longer in FL, but, if you would like a clue, TZ and I didn’t start talking the way we do now until late January of this year. You will also find a six day absence in early February where I didn’t post at all because I was moving. You will also find about a four month absence starting in July of 2006 while I had no computer.
ThymeZone
How did “gay cruising” morph into “sexual activity?”
What sexual activity happened there? When?
Does a guy leaning out of a truck and wolf whistling at a passing woman constitute “sexual activity?” Or “straight cruising?” Is that outlawed?
Are you suggesting that people who don’t want sex are so helpless that they can’t defend themselves in public without police protection? What horseshit are you going to peddle here next?
Three days now, and not a single set of facts supporting the idea that sex in restrooms is any kind of significant public problem. Where is this sexual menace, where are these gay fiends?
I can pretty well guarantee you that I have been approached for sex in public a hundred times in my life, which to tell you the truth is I have no idea what percentage would be typical for a woman …. and I have never had any trouble saying “not interested” and walking away.
I don’t need any goddam police protection, what is your problem?
ThymeZone
What the fuck is the matter with you man? Can you make a winning argument? Then make it.
Rome Again
Well, tell that to the spoofers, you are arguing against spoofers with non-spoofers. LMAO, too funny when I think about it.
myiq2xu
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
ThymeZone
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Randolph Fritz
There are places where no passes are appropriate, period, and public restrooms are among them. If he wants to pick someone up, he can go to a pickup bar, sheesh.
Randolph Fritz
Oh, yes. Deliberate unsolicited and undesired touching and staring at someone while self-stimulating is sexual harassment, anytime, anyplace. And, in a restroom, one can assume that all touching is undesired.
Sheesh.
Rome Again
Right, how many closeted gay Congressmen do you expect to feel safe in such a situation?
Now, I’m not saying closeted gay Congressmen should be cruising anywhere for sex when they are married and have families, but, society has made closeted gays so scared of their own sexual orientation that they marry and have children when perhaps they wanted to be gay men if only society would have allowed them to be what they would choose to be. Social mores are strong deterrents for those who need to be accepted. Hence, they are closeted.
Perhaps society should just accept that two people of any stripe should be allowed to love each other if they wish to be? Of course that won’t happen, because Mr. and Mrs Christian who are heterosexual and faithful in their marriage believe that the unnamed gay couple who lives five miles away is ruining their marriage and their society and will bring down God’s wrath upon Mr. and Mrs Christian for not putting a stop to it. A sick mindset if I ever saw one.
Rome Again
Who said anything about self-stimulation? This never happened.
ThymeZone
And there ya go! All the justification we need to send the sex police to sit in the crapper all day and snag queers, charge them with crimes for tapping their feet, and criminalizing gay behavior.
And you guys thought the Republicans were fucked up. The GOP has nothin on the people who hang on this blog.
120 days of a “sting” and they manage to nail 41 faggots. That’s one every three days. Thank God for the Minneapolis Airport Authority, keeping us strong and free from teh gay.
Arrested for “passes.” How much of your liberty do you folks want to throw away in order to cling to this stupid fucking idea? Seriously?
S.W. Anderson
ThymeZone wrote:
And how many more cases of HIV AIDs do you want to see propagated because people like lusty Larry stop into public restrooms to hook up with a stranger? How many innocent wives, like for instance Craig’s wife, do you want to see get a little surprise after doing their wifely duty?
Come to think of it, how would you feel if you had an 11-year-old come out of an airport restroom and tell you how some stranger peered into his stall and then tried to get him to do weird things?
I’m all in favor of treating gays and lesbians fairly. Heterosexuals who hook up and get it on in a public place can expect unpleasant consequences. Same goes for gays.
Maybe you need to think this over a little more carefully. Seriously.
S.W. Anderson
John Cole wrote:
Craig is an arrogant, overbearing, judgmental and bigoted member of an arrogant, overbearing, judgmental and bigoted political party. He’s been around long enough to know his fellow neocons are dedicated to anything-to-win, hardball politics.
Craig had to know — certainly should’ve known — his fellow Republicans wouldn’t take kindly to having him saddle their already scandal-ridden party with yet another scandal.
Clever though they were, John, the words you wrote for Craig are those of a drama queen luxuriating in self-righteous self pity.
Randolph Fritz
The arresting officer, who apparently was rather squicked by it. That says something in itself–he’s after all seen a lot of this.
You sound like one of those straight guys I remember back in the 1970s, defending their right to harass women. (Or for that matter, women defending a right to harass men. Which is less common, but which I have experienced, and is not pleasant.) There’s no such right, not for straights, not for gays. A person’s body and personal space are their own.
As opposed to lusty Lauri in the singles bar? Heterosexual transmission of HIV is quite common; it’s not a gay disease, it’s a sexually transmitted disease that emerged first among gays.
Rome Again
Really, none of the reports I’ve read or seen have mentioned such behavior. Would you like to cite this?
Nancy Irving
If he were to deliver that speech, I think he might just have a chance of being elected president in ’08.
Chuck Butcher
Larry Craig wouldn’t make that speech because he is a Republican Senator. Larry Craig wouldn’t make that speech because he’s made his living being the kind of Republican they are. Larry Craig wouldn’t make that speech because it would take being someone he isn’t.
As for Republicans kicking Larry Craig, I think the story is what doesn’t set them off, like the Constitution, bribery, cronyism, etc.
I’ve kicked him for being a hypocrit and for making difficult lives more difficult. By the way, gayness has nothing to do with children, that’s something entirely other.
ATS
By judging other peoples’ behavior he opened himself up to judgment. This is not a heavily nuanced matter.
Randolph Fritz
From the CNN report:
(I thought I’d linked the transcript.)
Rome Again
Where’s the part where his hands had contact with his doojie?
You are not describing masturbation there, sorry. Try again.
Randolph Fritz
And where do you think his hands were? It’s a euphemism, son.
S.W. Anderson
There’s a problem discussing serious matters in this format, especially when so many commenters make so many comments. It’s that it isn’t practical to stipulate all the things one is not saying by making some point or other.
So, you make your statement and along come others, maybe reading and reacting subjectively and a little too quickly. The result is, they read things into what you said and proceed to argue with that.
Cases in point:
Randolph Fritz Says:
RF, you’re setting up a straw man and knocking it down. I neither said nor implied HIV is exclusive to gays or to males. You want to have that argument, maybe you should start a blog and have at it.
and . . .
Chuck Butcher Says:
Whoa, Chuck, you seem to infer that I made gays out to be pedophiles, or that I implied as much. Although there are people who are both (recall scandals rocking the Catholic Church over the past dozen years or more), it’s probably no more common among gays than among straights.
The clear point in my comment is that public restrooms are not used only by adults and certainly aren’t used only by consenting adults in search of a quickie.
With that spelled out, I do see a strong potential for trouble when you get some less-than-brilliant character who’s horny as hell and not getting any, and in comes some innocent kid. Mr. Horny might not be a true pedophile, just an opportunist in poor control of his impulses, and then out comes Junior complaining about some guy peeking in his stall and trying to get him to do “weird things.”
Capice?
Rome Again
Randolph, fidgeting is NOT masturbation. You are reading things into this incident report that no one else is even touching. You are clueless and you have a dirty mind.
conumbdrum
Planting cops in toilet stalls is a bullshit concept that smacks of the police state mindset. It’s intended to bust people for sexuality, just as Alabama’s idiotic law against sex toys was designed to thwart the ability of average Americans to get their rocks off in the privacy of their homes. If your airport toilet is being cruised to excess, then post a security guard outside to discourage miscreants.
That said, I’m having a hard time summoning up pity for poor, oppressed Senator Widestance. If any other congressman had been busted the way he had, Craig would have been slinging feces with both hands like the rest of the GOP (just like fellow closet case Mitch McConnell is now). I don’t think he should have to resign, I think this should result in a long, hard look at these entrapment techniques… but all I can come up with for Senator Craig is a “tough shit.” He helped hammer together the scaffold and thread the noose, then ended up dangling from his own contraption.
If that makes me petty or small, then so be it. That turn-the-other-cheek philosophy is noble, admittedly… but in the world as it exists, it’s mighty hard to maintain. Guys like Craig would happily slug you in the other cheek, then kick you in the nuts for good measure.
Randolph Fritz
Rome, then what was he “fidgeting” with? I mean, who fidgets with their hands at eye level or chest level? Or reaches below his legs? No, his pants were down were down and his hands were “fidgeting” in his lap.
Randolph Fritz
Correction, Craig wasn’t sitting down when he was “fidgeting”–he was outside the stall. Other than that, well, what was “fidgeting” with?
You can read the original police report at [http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/craig-arrest-doc/]
conumbdrum
Here’s Tom Tomorrow’s cartoony take on the whole Larry Craig michegoss, which followers of this thread should find amazingly germane.
(Non-Salon subscribers have to watch an ad, sorry. The cartoon isn’t up on Tom’s own site until Tuesday morning.)
Rome Again
Exactly, he was not sitting in a stall, he was fidgeting because he was waiting for a stall, for whatever purpose he needed it. I am not saying he had no intentions to find sex on that restroom, but he was not masturbating and nowhere in the report did it say he did.
Well, I do, for instance. I fidget when my mind is on something and I am vacillating with making a decision. I have also been known to fidget standing in long lines at department stores. One need not have something to fidget WITH, I fidget with nothing by my own hands. Normally when I fidget, my hands are in front of my lower torso, so if what you are suggesting is true, standing in line, moving my hands around front of my lower torso means I’m masturbating? No, there is is no physical contact with my genitals… not even close. If you want to continue to try to win this match, you’re only choosing to win on a faulty premise and you need to stop and think about how idiotic you sound.
Rome Again
I have read the police report, you are the only dumbass trying to state he was masturbating.
Randolph Fritz
The last post got eaten…one more time…
The guy looks at the officer (through the crack around the door in the bathroom partition), “fidgets” (quotes from the report), looks, “fidgets”, looks, … He does this for two minutes. Then he goes into the stall to the left of the officer, placing his roller bag in front of the stall door (could it be he doesn’t want to be interrupted?), flirts with the officer with with his foot, ultimately stroking the officer’s foot, then gestures to the officer with his left hand, reaching awkwardly across his body to do it. (Could it be that he was doing something with his right hand?)
Yes, just barely, it’s possible that Craig wasn’t stimulating himself, wasn’t making a crass pass. (Though he can be as crass as he wants, as long as it’s in a place where crass passes are ok. Airport restrooms aren’t one of those.) But, really, I don’t believe in the tooth fairy. Craig’s probably a sad schmuck with a rotten sex life, but he doesn’t get to have his rotten sex life in airport men’s rooms. And based on this report and his record he’s also a pious hypocrite and no-one I want making family law.
Rome Again
Hmmm, could it be that when someone hauls a travel bag into a bathroom stall they see that the area in FRONT of the commode has more room than either of the areas NEXT to it?
If I had a travel bag, I’d tend to place it in the most spacious area, does that mean I’m cruising for sex?
I didn’t say he wasn’t cruising for sex, I merely said he was not masturbating, you just pissed away your chance to win that argument.
S.W. Anderson
Conumbdrum actually wrote:
Great job of stating your opinion as fact. The problem is, you’re wrong as can be. First, you need to look up the word “sexuality.”
People aren’t arrested in restrooms for a status offense — being gay or whatever. People are arrested in restrooms and other public places for inappropriate behavior. Without anyone behaving inappropriately, how is a cop to know who’s gay, who’s bi, who’s hetero and who prefers a good crossword puzzle?
That you could get this far down a discussion where this simple, logical and factual point has been made before, several times, surely, is just amazing.
ioni
This is just the way it should be done.
If people think that prostitutes are are better then indiscriminate sex in the bathroom – oh well, where the whole society is going to?
ioni
Oh, by the way, as an afterthough – maybe he wanted a blazing splashing end to his career?
Randolph Fritz
Rome, I don’t believe in the tooth fair either. Oh, by the way, you wrote “masturbating”, I wrote self-stimulating.
grumpy realist
The trouble with that “turn the other cheek” and all that is a) too many people think you are a patsy b) if you really think that this will earn you more respect–ha!
So yeah, I’m not sorry for Craig. He built the very same gallows he ended up getting hanged on. Hypocrisy should hurt–it’s the only way to teach people to not be hypocrites.
Rome Again
Semantics, we were describing the same thing.
Randolph Fritz
Oh, it gets better. Rumor is Craig may stay after all.