To Know A Man, Know His Motives

It's not often that I get a chance to make a prediction that will likely be prove4n wrong before I get it written.  So I just had to jump on this opportunity.

Matt has a source that claims that Senator Larry Craig (R-Closet) will be resigning today.  This news has enough election 2008 implications that the story is running at the Orange Website of Doom.  I've known Matt long enough to trust him on most things, but I get the feeling that he may be wrong this time.  I don't think Senator Craig will resign (at least not without one helluva fight).  As I see it, Larry Craig has two very good personal reasons *not* to step down.

1)  He doesn't owe anybody loyalty at this point.  As quick as most Democrats were to point out his hypocrisy, or just point and laugh, the Republicans (online, in person, within and without of Idaho) were even quicker to throw this guy under a bus.  Their vitriol has been far harsher and meaner than anything coming from Democrats.  It's already had a profound effect on his life.  He's been stripped of any real Senatorial power (other than filling a seat and voting), and Romney dropped him double-quick, like any other stance or person that might hurt his campaign. 

It's not any mystery why there is such a Republican backlash/outrage over this.   It's pure self and party interest.  They want the guy gone to 'help' (that being completely relative) their electoral chances in 2008.  Now, suppose you're Larry Craig, and all of your friends have just stabbed you in the back (castrated you is a more apt metaphor.)  What the hell do you think you owe them?  Nothing.  And all you have to do for payback is ... nothing.  Stay put.  Don't budge.    Maybe it's just me, but I'm not seeing any external incentive, here, for Craig to resign.

2)  If he resigns, he admits to being gay (at least tangentially.)  This is a gay guy who just gave a speech claiming to the high holy heavens that he's so not gay he doesn't even smile.  HE"S NOT GAY!  Don't you get it?  He's not ... the gay ... he doesn't have it!  This dude is so deeply in denial that he won't take even the first step towards his greatest nightmare, being found to be moderately happy.  That road leads only one place, my friend ... Gayville!

All jocularity aside, for Larry Craig to resign is for him to admit to personal demons he simply won't face.  Everything about this episode, so far, has been everybody else's fault.   He will hang onto that Senate seat , until and unless he can find a clear way to make this someone else's fault, and exonerate himself from the accusations of manlove.  I find that sad, but still a compelling reason to believe that no resignation will be forthcoming today.

I hope you take from this a few small things.  Never underestimate the  latent homophobia of much of the mountain  west.  It runs pretty deep here.  That's not something to fear or 'hate' or hurl your vile bile upon.  It's just the way things are, at this point in time.  It can be kind of tragic (see Craig, Larry, US Senate).  It can be kind of violent (see Sheppard, Mathew).  It's a mythological hold over belief from a time that probably didn't exist.  But we're working on it.  Maybe the whole affaire de toilette will help shake a few people loose from their fears ... I kinda doubt it, but I can hope.

Now, just for your mirth and entertainment, good reader, I'm going to post this.  I won't check to see if Matt is correct and I am horribly wrong first.  Singer has an awfully good track record, so I wouldn't bet against him.  But I guess we'll see.  Either way, enjoy the show.

UPDATE:  WOOHOO! I rock.  I rule.  No resignation today.  Okay, so maybe it's tomorrow.  But still, I rock, I rule.

(Really Larry.  Don't do it, man.  You can still be totally hetero, really still totally.  All you have to do is tell the NRC to piss off, and claim your throne.  Don't resign.  You got nothing to lose.  Stick to your guns!)

Comments

[david]

FWIW -- FNX just reported that Craig will announce his resignation tomorrow.

[Matt Singer]

Hey -- I'm reporting in this case what I was told. It's possible my source had bad info. What I wrote is similar to what the AP got at around the same time.

Still, we'll see what happens tomorrow. My guess is that Craig would not be making an announcement from Idaho if he was trying to get the whole thing to blow over. You don't make a statement if you're not changing anything, especially if you want the story to die.

[Wulfgar]

Uuuhhhhmmmm, gentlemen? Tongue, cheek, get with the program?

[Linkmeister]

Grins. The really bold prediction would be that the Republican Governor of Idaho would recognize that the best person to replace Craig would be a (gasp!) Democrat!

[dew-r-lite]

This guy must have had no real friends in the public scene, and maybe that's just the nature of the public service at this level, I don't know. Maybe he was so unpleasant with his long secret that people leaped at a chance to get rid of him.

Had he solicited a hooker in a dark alley of some city, would the reaction have been so intense, from right and left? Would he have been stripped of all his assignments and left a pariah as this has happened?

The guy was convicted of "Disorderly conduct", That's his crime. It's hardly the guy with the icebox full of cash, now, is it? Yet his life is destroyed.

Obviously, he was convicted in the court of public opinion as being a homosexual. For that, apparently he deserves to have his life destroyed. Now, all his worst fears are realized, as are the fears of those who share their own version of his secret.

I wish he wouldn't resign either. He could really do some good, if he repented, not of who he is, but of what his society tried to make him into and how he accepted that he was supposed to feel that way about himself.

[Mom]

Last Tuesday we returned home from a wonderful 50th. birthday party catered by Chez Panisse in a park in Berkeley for our nephew of Acme Bread fame...It was very interesting to read the 2 page story in our local Idaho Statesman about this "incident." The Statesman has continued to give us long articles about the story.

It seems that the local reporter had been doing over nine months of investigation on Larry Craig because of the persistent rumors about his sexual preferences. It was a very fair treatment and unbiased article. There was a statement from a local elected state politician who is openly lesbian saying, "It's too bad that our country isn't yet at the place where good people of any sexual orientation can hold political office."

[dad]

Craig will resign, because the party pulled the rug from under him. That is politics! As much as I find the guy evil, his end could not come fast enough. I don't think he is gay, if that matters, but he tried to handle this episode without input from anyone. His party feels he has shown very poor judgement, at the very least. Idaho is evenly divided on this issue. The Democrats may not be able to take advantage of this, because the party in Idaho lacks balls. They are afraid to take an anti-war position, and they put up poor candidates. Our newspaper(Idaho Statesman) sat on this story for a month. It took Roll Call to make it public. Shame on our newspaper, and probably yours, for not telling the truth!

[Montana Headlines]

Craig had a solid conservative voting record (other than on illegal immigration, where he tended to vote with big Idaho agricultural interests who love paying pennies to illegals,) so the lack of even lip-service support shown him would normally be surprising. It's not like control of the Senate is going to hang on that Idaho race.

The speed with which he was turned over to the mob would seem to indicate that his GOP Senate colleagues have long known about Craig's risky behavior (perhaps even warning him to knock it off,) and are in no mood to go to the barricades for a man who continued to put himself and his party at risk through a lack of self-control.

The difference between Craig and Vitter is not homosexual vs. heterosexual, or even pleading guilty vs. not being charged with anything illegal (even though soliciting prostitutes is certainly illegal.)

The difference is that there is no evidence that Vitter (as far as I know) ever had his "first warning," -- something which Washington politicos are generally inclined to grant. (Cf. Barney Frank, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, etc...)

Craig was involved in a very politically dangerous scandal involving purported sex with interns or pages or whatever -- more than 20 years ago. He had that major "gimme," and he did this in June *after* he knew the press hounds were after him in earnest yet again.

He should have known that he wouldn't get a second (or third, or whatever) chance. The fact that he's not pleading for yet another chance indicates that he knows he's out of chips to play.

Rest assured, if David Vitter *now* gets stung in New Orleans by an undercover cop posing as a hooker -- he'll be gone, gone, gone...

[Victor Holt]

The more Victor Holts they run out of the government, the better off America will be.

[carol]

The strange thing is that I don't think the average Republican activist is that homophobic - everyone's used to this now. Everyone knows somebody who's gay or has a relative who's gay. Just don't get graphic about it, ok? No one wants to visualize that, any more than SNL's Ladies Man wanted to think about old people having sex.

But the fact that someone would risk his career over any kind of sex is just so stupid. But that's just me I guess. What a moron.

[carol]

Heh, yes I'm a moron! No I meant Craig of course.

Thank you and good night...

[Wulfgar]

Methinks the Lady doth protest too much. Seriously Carol, what you've written really undercuts some of what Montana Headlines Wrote before you.

As silly as it is to think that lawbreakers in Congress get or deserve warnings (and cover-ups in the case of Foley), it is vastly more silly to pretend that a charge of Disorderly Conduct would be met with such vehemence without the element of homophobia on the part of the constituency involved. If Craig were from Maine, this would not have been the hullabaloo that it was. He wasn't. He was from Idaho, a last bastion of Republican strength, and hotseat of hatin' on the gay. Your "average Republican activist" isn't from Idaho, now are they, Carol?

But the fact that someone would risk his career over any kind of sex is just so stupid. But that's just me I guess. What a moron.

Like Vitter, Foley, Lange, Ghouliani, Gingrich, McCain, Morrison ... Wake up. Sexual proclivity has not thing one to do with intelligence, and presumably electability or qualifications to serve. Yet Vitter, having admitted guilt to a crime that no one has charged him with (they're too busy laughing at him, I guess) gets a free pass, and the crime of Disorderly conduct is career ending, and is moronic, and means you ought to be killed (so wrote MT. Senator David Lewis.)

No Carol, this hand-wringing and white-washing of the Republican double standard is pure opportunism and homophobia. Your party just castrated one of their own for the silliest of reasons. You must be very proud.

[dad]

Better hold the horses for Craig. Our newspaper and talk on TV is that he will fight his guilty plea, and, maybe, stay his term. The party may have decided they need his upcoming votes. This whole farce could remain in the media for a long time. This mess will hurt the Republican Party in Idaho, and the party nationally. He has hired some slick Washington D.C. lawyers that can follow the O.J. defense; "innocent although guilty." I look forward to watching the game that will find an guilty man innocent. His aides started the game by saying "nothing he said, stated that he will resign." They want to protect their jobs in D.C. by playing word games. My shame for Idaho has increased. With all the issues that Demos have avoided, maybe, they can finding something that ....

[Big Swede]

On advice from his lawyers Sen. Craig will get the plea thrown on the account that he was traveling to or from DC. Constitutionally you cannot arrest a law maker in route.

[carol]

"Methinks the Lady doth protest too much."

Yeah maybe I should speak for myself. But from what MT Headlines wrote, it's not because he's gay, but because he was idiotically out of control that the Repubs want him out. I think his hesitation to resign is because he wants to hang on to that nice senate seat, not because he doesn't really admit to himself he's gay. Unless I am in deep denial about his ability to be in denial! Beyond my experience, fortunately.

The only thing I have heard here from actual Republicans was from someone who had spent a day campaigning with him. She stood and defended him in central committee.