The evidence strongly suggests that in his private life,Senator Craig is a man given to the compulsive pursuit of impersonal sex with other men in public toilets. At the same time, in his public life, Senator Craig has been a relentless opponent of the rights and interests of gay people, working prominently and ceaselessly to deny gay people many of the rights, opportunities, and civic dignity that straight Americans take for granted.

From incongruities in that record, observers in the media have simplistically concluded that Senator Craig must be some sort of a hypocrite, just because he's a secretly gay man who's devoted his entire political career to attacking and undermining the interests of gay people.

In public, Senator Craig denounced gay Americans as a gang of costumed degenerates passing themselves off as decentpeople. Moral lepers, under a foul sexual compulsion that dooms them to shuffle mindlessly from one public toilet to another, anonymously sodomizing one another and thus raining down a catraract of vile, incurable, agonizingly fatal diseases down on the heads of their innocent and unsuspecting wives.

And in private? Well, in private the man lived exactly the kind of sleazy, risky, dishonest, disreputable lifestyle that he accused the broader gay population of participating in when he was out in public. Small wonder the man despised gay people, if he thought that the entire gay population was like him.

But he is a hypocrite.

Not because he is gay and used his political influence to discriminate against gays. That's distasteful, but as you've pointed out, not necessarily hypocritical.

No, the hypocrisy arises out of advocating moral standards in the legal code to which the good Senator himself had no intention of obeying. "Do as I say, not as I do" is always hypocritical.

William got this one right.

Exactly correct. Craig believes in FORCING gay people into closets and bathroom stalls so they cannot enjoy the same basic bedroom rights but rather are forced into the darkest places of sexual intimacy.

Kind of ironic isnt it? If he was encouraging marriage and honest existence it wouldnt be anywhere nearly as dangerous.

But it also speaks to the fact that even when speaking of himself, he is perverted even among gays. Is he gay? Not really. He is bisexual at least-a married heterosexual lifestyle with a homosexual sidelife. But more interesting is that even gays dont generally support cruising for anonymous sex in bathrooms or elsewhere and most are also against pedaphelia-yet the general arguments against gays often point to such things, which are no less a perversion when done heterosexually.

"Do as I say, not as I do" is always hypocritical.

If someone who smokes tells you not to smoke, how much does it matter that he is hypocritical? This person would be giving you good advice.

If Craig believes everything he publicly says about homosexuality then he is still trying to be helpful by discouraging others regardless of what he does himself. And in any case it could just be a moral failing for him, not hypocrisy.

Well said.

It's also ironic (and more than a little entertaining) that nobody on the political left seems inclined to ask precisely why it was deemed advisable to divert limited security resources away from guarding the nation against global terrorists and drug smugglers and towards apprehending a handful of elderly sodomites, thereby. . .what? Foiling their dastardly plot to offer fellatio to one another by making arcane gestures between the airport's toilet stalls? Great.

No doubt we'll all cherish the peace and security of knowing for certain that the man in the next toilet stall is definitely engaged in the act of squatting and squeezing logs of shit out of his asshole and manifestly not some form of conduct that others might potentially find offensive, such as getting his knob gobbled by (for instance) some kinky, unscrupulous wretch from the Senate Republican Caucus.

And whose brilliant idea was it to commit America's limited aviation security resources to the important task of denying these ass-pounding geezers the use of airport toilets? Well, I don't know, but I suspect it was the work of Bible-thumping flatheads like Senator Craig and the rest of the GOP's Anus Police.

Got to love it. Only an asshole like Senator Craig would think a petty degenerate like Senator Craig was worth arresting. In a sense, it's his magnum opus of sodomy: he's almost literally managed to fuck himself!

Nothing is normal about homosexual activities, and sexual activities in general can be quite personally and culturally varied, diverse, and yes, depraved and demeaning and deviant. Just check out all the crazy Internet sex that is so far gone from "normal" it boggles the mind. As for Senator Craig from Idaho, who better to form and pass along a moral judgement, than someone familiar with the sexual impulse gone awry? No, I don't think he should lose his position or anything else, because he didn't do anything wrong unless you define going to the bathroom at an airport as wrong. Slate writer William Saletan nonetheless chooses to churn his political butter by going after Craig on the basis of his past, conservative, Republican views, policies, and positions on these issues. I would call that a typical media "cheap shot" whereby both extreme political wings, continually try to force their way inside the legislative and political process to their own advantage, by seizing on, and spinning the heck out of, these occasional personal misfortunes or tragedies. It is a form of media dishonesty that recurs often, and that rewards bad politics. It is short-sighted, it is malignant, and it is really, by definition, another form of Evil. Anybody who cites a police report as a factual rendition of events is misguided, since these reports can be highly misleading, and are derived from a very prejudicial, and specific prism which presumes criminal wrongdoing. And yes, I have been criminally accused, and even convicted, on the basis of mere accusation alone, so I know how "the system" works. Fortunately, I was able to remove the matter legally in later years, but I know what it is to deal with bureaucratic and governmental officialdom myself. The genius of America is the limiting of Government, at all levels, especially by limiting the purview of government, but also by establishing checks and balances. Most of our current American citizens and politicians, not to mention young journalists, do not seem to have any comprehension whatever of this essential American DNA. No wonder we are having such a hard time exporting it to the detriment of dictators and autocracies and one party ruling systems elsewhere in the world today. The idea that his fellow U.S. Senators can jump all over Senator Craig for this minor infraction, while they cannot stand up to President Bush, the Little Napoleonic Emperor from Texas, over the course of six long years of misrule and malfeasance in high office, speaks to the deficiencies in the American political system, and our U.S. Senate, more loudly than any sexual titillation ever could. These American leaders have no stature; no wonder this Country and its People and Institutions suffer, and groan, under the weight of their incompetence. But hey - visit my video homepages and listen to some great, new Utada music!

Thank you for your reply, Bernard. In your post, you argued that,

"Anybody who cites a police report as a factual rendition of events is misguided, since these reports can be highly misleading, and are derived from a very prejudicial, and specific prism which presumes criminal wrongdoing."

That's not an unreasonable point, as far as it goes, but you're overlooking the fact that Senator Craig was convicted by his own entry of a guilty plea. His conviction was therefore based on his own admission of the charges, not the allegations made in the police report.

If the Senator had a legitimate defense in this matter, he should have entered a plea of "Not Guilty" and made his case to the trial court.

Thrasymachus wrote "..nobody on the political left seems inclined to ask precisely why it was deemed advisable to divert limited security resources away from guarding the nation against global terrorists and drug smugglers and towards apprehending a handful of elderly sodomites, thereby..."

I think you're wrong Thrasymachus. The left has been asking that for a long time and I know I asked it when I heard about Craig. But the hypocrisy angle is the issue here. The real question should be; why has no one on the right figured out yet that pursuing elderly sodomites in public restrooms is not a suitable use of resources? The right is just glad that they've purged a fag from their ranks.

But not because he is a fag, but because he is an exposed fag. The right has fostered this atmosphere of accepting anyone as long as they keep their desires secret.

If people like Craig hadn't made it so poisonous to let the world know who they really are elderly sodomites would not find it necessary to troll toilets and use ridiculous foot and hand signals to engage in anonymous sex.

It is my personal wish not to listen to anyone having sex in the stall next to me. Why shouldn't Larry Craig have felt safe enough to go to a bar or a museum, meet someone, take them home to the privacy of his own bedroom and snog his heart out? Because of people like Larry Craig.

Let's take the ironies laid out here as granted...no arguments.

However, something about the article has been bugging me. Is Craig REALLY as big of a hypocrite as the article suggests? I mean, for real real here. The law cited tells the armed forces what to do IF such-and-such information is uncovered. That seems to be the part that Craig authored. However, the investigative techniques ("Ask, and Force to Tell") are what the article is really criticizing.

Did Craig author those policies as well?

"Did Craig author those policies as well?"

I'll hazard a guess, no. But seriously, what result did anyone expect by forcing this policy on the militaries who are by tradition homophobic?

Well, at the risk of sounding like I endorse the "don't ask, don't tell" policy (I don't), your reasoning sounds like a "slippery slope" style one.

I don't accept that argument when Bush and others make it, so I'm not sure I can in good faith allow myself to accept it here even though it would serve my own leanings in the debate. Does "don't ask, don't tell", if applied the way Craig wrote (or intended) it necessarily or intentionally entail the oustings the article details? I'm really not sure that it does.

Not all that long ago, Republican Barry Goldwater stated that you didnt need to be heterosexual to be in the military. His famous comment that "you dont need to be straight, you just need to shoot strait" made all the sense in the world.

How can we have a military tasked to defend a nation where being homosexual is perfectly legal and then tell those troops that they cannot be homosexual. This is the same military which was once segregated too.

As for Craig and whether or not we should be looking for homosexual activity in the rest room, I would say that no, there should not be a specific mission to hand around in a stall for eight hours hoping to bag someone, but there should be a cop on the beat, and yes, some should be plain clothed. During the course of looking for terrorists and drug smugglers, yes, I hope they do catch people doing such stuff in the mens room-because I dont want to know about it going on in the next stall and I dont want my kids exposed to it either.

That said, I agree with a fellow poster who said that any homosexual who wants to should be able to easily meet others and go back to the bedroom or the hotel. And if this becomes a loving relationship, those same folk should be able to marry. We are confusing two very different things here. It isnt that Craig is gay-if he was crusing for prostitiutes or goats to fill his needs in the rest room, it would no less problematic to be doing it in the public rest room.

Nothing is normal about homosexual activities

What's not normal is some uptight creep telling other people that activities that have been widely practiced in every culture in the world, and which exists in abundance in the animal world as well, are not "normal" because of his own hangups and preferences.

Just because its widely practiced for people to kill themselves doesn't make it right.

You have excrement come out of your anus. Penis does not belong in it. Thats is pretty certain.

"How can we have a military tasked to defend a nation where being homosexual is perfectly legal and then tell those troops that they cannot be homosexual."

Its perfectly legal to be under 18 but not in the military. Its perfectly legal to be above 80 but not in the military.

Its perfectly legal to be mentally handicapped, but probably not in the military. The same goes for a lot of other problems.

Stop with the bs kid. You are just showing your ignorance.