Now I'll readily admit, cruising in a mens room for willing partners to partake in some illicit nasty-nasty isn't my idea of a good Saturday night activity - even if I am spending a layover in Minnesota (I shudder to even think of spending an extended amount of time somewhere so close to Canada - Geographically AND climatically).

But I won't fault Senator Craig for trying, hey if that's how you get your jollies, who am I to try and stop you (unless of course I happen to be responsible for cleaning said restroom)?

I might even go so far as to actually believe that he was only picking up a piece of paper. Hey some of us have long legs, and we have to put our feet somewhere, why not spread em?

But I refuse to give this man any sympathy. He pleaded guilty. Sure, I know, he claims to have done it in an effort to "keep things quiet," but this man is a Senator for crying out loud! If there's anything that the masses love more than a salacious sex story, its a salacious sex story involving closeted gay Republicans. It was bound to break one way or another, and pleading guilty is not the right way to "keep it under wraps." Its probably the worst thing he could have done.

Once he made that guilty plea, he lost every right he had to play the victim. Had he fought the arrest, he would have had any number of excuses ready in his back pocket, several of which would have found a willing audience. Overzealous cops, a rampant press campaign out to smear his good name. He could have made it bipartisan by wondering very loudly what the use is in having laws that forbid people from making overtures to consensual sex (What's next, one might ask, asking a girl at a bar if she wants to go home with you?). Even the "who the fuck knew that tapping another guy's foot while sitting on the crapper is considered lewd and disruptive" defense would have stuck, for some anyways.

Now the rabid hoards get to salivate over the schadenfreude of a family values man caught allegedly soliciting sex from another man, AND the increasingly bizzarre spectacle of watching this man try and explain not only why he was in that bathroom, but why he plead guilty in the first place.

He might have an abnormally large poo-stance, he might have dropped a secret government invisible piece of paper, but in proclaiming publicly and on the official record that he committed lewd and disruptive acts, he now has to explain away why he exhibited such a gross miscalculation of judgment - both in the bathroom stall and in the police station.

I think you've got a good point here. There are a number of defenses he could make. The most convincing one would be, "I was looking for a little action, but didn't plan to do it in public." Fine, nothing illegal about that.

But the problem is, he's a senator, and a Republican, and a family-values-conservative. So he couldn't say that. To say those things would be to admit that he's into dudes. That, actually, is probably the reason why he was allegedly soliciting anonymous sex in the first place instead of raising a family with his husband.

Senator (for now) Craig has a very easy choice. If he wants to remain in the Senate, he can go democrat. Change parties, move to Mass.(Barney Frank will set him up), and just come out of the closet. Renounce the NRA, his family, his church, Idaho, and all of his conservative friends and affiliations. Become a born again left wing liberal who has seen the light. The left could use him as the poster child for the wayward conservative who has finally come home to the righteous democrat party-- saved from damnation! That's all you have to do Larry. Sadly, I think he would consider it if he were smart enough to think of it.

Is what he did really against the law?

You can't find an effective arguement to defend Craig, so you try to cast some shadow on Frank? Frank, to the best of my knowledge, has never had sex in public. You conservatives can't seem to get it through your heads that what consenting adults do in private is private - except when they are raving hypocrits like you Conservatives. You try to tell other people what their private lives can be like, when your own are a disaster. The disaster in Craig's life is that he can't be honest with himself. He's bi or gay. And rather than be honest and live his life as a bi or gay man, he tries to hook up in a public place.

Your as much a hypocrit as Craig. You can't even face the simple fact that gays like Frank keep their sex lives private because they DON'T need to hook up in a bathroom stall because they aren't pretending to be something they aren't.

And in Craig's case, it's the hypocrisy of voting over and over again against extending equal rights to gays while cruising for gay sex in a public rest room.

Take your meds today Ellen? Cid's comment appears as though it was meant to be sarcastic.

" I was tapping my toe due to constipation and suddenly I realised there was no paper in the stall. I used the 'Universal Hand Signal for "Hey, pass me some ass wipe"' which the officer obviously misunderstood.

And you know this because your psychic??

No, your typical frothing at the mouth rants.

El Cid's comments were totally facetious. But for the record, Ted Kennedy did get reelected after Chappaquiddick and Barney Frank did have a young male lover who was providing prostitution services from Frank's apartment. So..... I just thought Larry may have a future in.....

In 1990, the House voted to reprimand Frank when it was revealed that Steve Gobie, a male escort whom Frank had befriended after hiring him through a personal advertisement, claimed to have conducted an escort service from Frank's apartment when he was not at home. Frank had dismissed Gobie earlier that year and reported the incident to the House Ethics Committee after learning of Gobie's activities. After an investigation, the House Ethics Committee found no evidence that Frank had known of or been involved in the alleged illegal activity.[1] Gobie disputes Frank's account.

The difference here is that Barney Frank reported this himself and was very honest about it...

The New York Times reported on July 20, 1990 that The House Ethics Committee recommended "that Representative Barney Frank receive a formal reprimand from the House for his relationship with a male prostitute."[2] Attempts to expel or censure Frank failed; instead the House voted 408-18 to reprimand him. This condemnation was not reflected in Frank's district, where he won re-election in 1990 with 66 percent of the vote, and has won by larger margins ever since.

Frank has always been an aboveboiard Liberal Democrat and is very open about his sexual orientation.

Craig should take some advice from Barney.

The above quotes were taken from Wickipedia.

Ya know, maybe the entire of Bush and company should take Barney's advice and fess up and be honest and admit that this whole trip has been one, big lie.

Very nice research Boogie Bear. THAT is a rebuttal worth reading! You are right, truth is a powerful thing, and it would be nice if Bush and his cronies would give it a try. However, my point remains. If Larry came clean he could still have a future in Mass., a la Barney Frank, depending on what the Senate chose to do. He'd have to change his stand on all the issues, but conceivably could be absolved of his indiscretion and reelected by 66% of the voters. And to my knowledge, Ted Kennedy has never come clean on Chappaquiddick and has been reelected many times by huge margins. So it just gets down to what Larry is willing to do to stay in the Senate.

I agree with your make on this issue. Honesty in the beginning would have been the only saving grace. He would probably have been forgiven if he had shot the pope by admitting to it immediately. But, at this point, I don't know if it is going to happen. But you never know.

All the t.v. interviews I have seen all show him to be a nice guy and his constituents seem to like him and they are all talking about forgiving him.

Methinks that he would be forgiven of all things except the big one.... the hypocracy.