Posted on 09/05/2007 7:18:27 AM PDT by blitzgig
The news of the incident in the men's room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport needs to be absorbed layer by layer. It can already be referred to as the "infamous" meeting between Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho and the police officer.
Freeze the story at this point, and you have simply a pickup story, another one of those "dirty old man stories," as one might have it.
U.S. Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) holds an impromptu news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington in this March 2, 2004 file photo. Craig confirmed on August 27, 2007 that he pleaded guilty earlier this month to a charge of disorderly conduct after he was arrested at a Minnesota airport.
Several arguments were instantly made. The first, which will be the most enduring, is simply the tale of sexual freedom. Its formulation, boiled down, is that as long as someone is not exercising coercion on an unwilling partner, the enforcers have no defensible interest in what goes on in bedrooms. But of course, this was not a bedroom, and there are laws against soliciting sex in a public facility.
The defense will seek to wipe away the distracting qualification, relying on the argument that what is truly being prosecuted here is a failure to uphold "family values." They will say that if the engagement had been between the senator and an enterprising whore, the story would not have been considered newsworthy -- who cares about one more successful procurement done by a practitioner of the oldest profession in the world?
But the defense is wearing down a bit. It is a long way from freedom for gay sex in the bedroom, to freedom to solicit gay sex from a stranger. That one could be fought over, and the paradox certainly exists, of relative permissiveness toward straight sex as compared to gay sex. It is not unreasonable, even in contemporary America, to wince rather more sadly over homosexual promiscuity than its heterosexual complement.
When it comes to solicitation, you will find, certainly in New York City -- and probably in Minneapolis and most other big cities -- fliers that advertise both kinds of sex. That such fliers advertise activity that is not in fact legal points to the waywardness of law enforcement, not the crystallization of new civic codes.
So the defense might edge over in the direction of entrapment, leaning on the convention that someone should not be prosecuted if the crime he allegedly committed was brought on by a contrived temptation. When my brother James was in the Senate, he defended an American soldier who was jailed in Turkey for trafficking in foreign currency. What had happened was that the soldier had forked over some dollars, accepting local currency in return, to an apparently desperate petitioner who said his wife was dying for want of a medicine that could only be purchased with U.S. dollars.
But entrapment does not wash here. The defendant did not accept an illegal solicitation; he was its initiator. It was he who made the signals that were understood as an offer to engage in sexual activity. The defense, in short, has nothing to rest on save the pitiable renunciation by the senator of his own guilty plea.
What the Senate will now do is a matter of public interest. As we have seen, there is no supervening moral doctrine that can be adduced in an effort to obliterate what went on in that men's room.
It isn't only with legal concern that one focuses on the case. Consider, first, the utter, incredible, suicidal stupidity of Larry Craig. Postulate that he suffers from a satyriasis that stuns any capacity to think -- but what is such a man doing as a seated member of a legislative chamber that passes laws regulating other people's conduct?
Second, what do we learn from the situation in general? Does every washroom in every airport need to be patrolled for sex hounds? How many undercover policemen are out there, and how frequently do they bring in regular folks on these charges? Banks need guards, races need timekeepers, tennis matches need umpires, but do airport restrooms really need police officers? Are the economics of air travel affected by the ghost of Idaho? Here, certainly, are matters for congressional investigation.
This all presumes that the cop isn’t lying through his teeth.
In this case I'm going with the cop.
L
I've thought about that too. And the only line of defense I could come up with as to why he pled guilty is to avoid the necessity of obtaining a lawyer ($$$), avoid having to go to court probably several times in Minnesota (time and $$$)and thinking that by just paying the fine his anonymity would remain and that would be the end of it.
Speeding tickets are misdemeanors and how many people driving out of state and getting caught for speeding are actually willing to hire attorneys and spend the time in court rather than just paying the fine?
Yes. I admit, I’m one of those people who takes the “aggravation factor” into account. I’m very often for the shortest solution and it’s not always the best.
If you listen to the tape of the interview between the cop and Craig, the impression you get is that this would be easier for Craig if he’d just plead guilty, like the next poster mentioned with traffic tickets.
Frankly, even if he did do this, and I don’t have any conclusion on that, I don’t see this as any worse than someone propositioning another in any other public place. There was no charge of “improper conduct” or “lewdness” or anything other than some foot tapping and hand waving. I think the guy was an idiot for pleading guilty, but that’s just me.
Craig responded, Craig got arrested.
End of the story IMO.
and wasn’t he in there for 13 minutes?
no man occupies a stall for 13 minutes
unless he is very ill
The issue was his extension of his leg back under the stall to another man, you have to try and do that, it was not natural and was the reason why he got caught IMO.
Craig said he spread his feet to avoid having his trousers hit the floor. That sounds quite plausible, IMHO, and I do that too, having some slacks that cost megabucks to dry clean.
Is it normal to bump the feet of person in the neighboring stall? Is it normal to slide your hand - palm up - across the bottom of the partition, 3 or 4 times? The only thing he could possibly be doing is making the signals to solicit gay sex.
It is one man's word against another, but one of them is a cop, so he has a little more credibility than the average Joe. In addition, Craig was at the time being investigated by an Idaho newspaper for this very behavior, and he knew he was under investigation.
Craig is a disgrace.
I don’t know about a newpaper investigation. I heard the man [Craig] say he ‘didn’t know’ if his foot touched the officer’s and that he wasn’t palm up unless steadying himself against [grabbing] the partition.
The officer’s tone was impudent, accusing Craig of ‘disrespecting him.’ It’s not outside the realm of possibility that he targeted Craig in particular. Let’s remember that the bathroom was full and there was another stall on the officer’s other side.
Of course, he’d have missed those signals, having set his cap for Craig. ;o)
Why don’t they jusst make the side walls of bathroom stalls come all the way down to the floor? That would end that problem.
Stalls need ventilation for obvious reasons in the health code.
Not buying that ventilation arguement. Ever been to the loo in Europe? Yeah. Separate little rooms.
I really don’t care about Craig one way or the other, but it does seem Buckley knows a lot about men’s room pick ups.
I am a Rush fanatic, but I’m listening to him right now and he’s talking about how Romney was pandering to the Christian Evangelicals by dropping Craig.
My guess is that Rush doesn’t know all the facts of this story. He came back from vacation in the middle of this story.
Apparently, this guy (Craig) has had suspicions about him all along.
Europe is dirty, why would you compare the USA to Europe regarding public rest rooms.
In Europe, it can be a hole where you spread your legs and let it drop, not in our league IMO.
Craig should just not go after boys in the rest room.
“It’s like a kid who is blamed for having broken a toy he had previously borrowed and claims it was already broken when he borrowed it bot also claims it was unbroken when he returned it.’
And yet, it happens. In the trials following the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s, Interior Secretary Albert Fall was convicted of taking a $100,000 bribe from oilman Harry Sinclair, who was acquited of the charge of giving Fall the money.
I am often amazed at the amazing stupidity of too many elected officials who do indeed pass legislation regulationg my conduct...scary.
Craig is an idiot, that’s why he needs to resign.
I would argue that being a Democrat is enough to qualify as an idiot, but none of those will ever be asked to resign for that reason or for any kind of sexual (homo or hetro) irregularities. The media would make them heroes.
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