Free Republic

Just when Republicans thought things could not get much worse for their scandal-stained party, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig leaked word Tuesday night that he is reconsidering his abrupt plan to resign from the Senate in the wake of his arrest in a police sex sting operation. Top Republican strategists were neither delighted nor amused by the senator's decision to rethink retirement after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct following his arrest in a Minnesota airport men's bathroom.

The ignominious fall of Senator Larry Craig casts new light on the importance of the nation’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning open homosexuals from military service. If preventing public sex in airport men’s rooms is important enough to justify the deployment of undercover cops, isn’t it similarly significant to avoid, at all costs, sexual encounters in military latrines? Imagine the impact on morale and unit cohesion if two guys from the same barracks engaged in toe-tapping hanky-panky (and perhaps much more) while occupying adjacent bathroom stalls in the military facilities? Of course, advocates for gays in the military will...

Yesterday, I read Bob Novak's column titled "Republican Melancholy," which correctly caught the current depressed mood in GOP circles. President Bush's position on illegal immigration has deeply alienated much of the loyal rank and file Republicans across the country. Key Republican incumbents, such as Sen. John Warner of Virginia and Rep. Debbie Price of Ohio, are announcing their retirements. Sen. Larry Craig's cringe-inducing disgrace only adds to the funereal mood. And, of course, the Iraq War, for all the surge's success this summer, remains vastly unpopular with the public. To top off this GOP discontent, none of our presidential candidates...

Ben Stein: Gestapo Tactics Got Larry Craig Tuesday, September 4, 2007 7:39 PM Former Sen. Larry Craig didn't do anything illegal and was railroaded with "Gestapo tactics," says actor and commentator Ben Stein. Appearing recently on Your World With Neil Cavuto program, Stein remarked: "I don't like the idea that people are sitting in the next stall from you at a public bathroom listening to whether or not you tap your foot. This is, as I said, Gestapo tactics. Gestapo, Gestapo, Gestapo. It's not America." Stein says Craig, who was arrested June 11 by Minneapolis police and pled guilty to...

BOISE, Idaho - Sen. Larry Craig is reconsidering his decision to resign after his arrest in a Minnesota airport sex sting and may still fight for his Senate seat, his spokesman said Tuesday evening. "It's not such a foregone conclusion anymore, that the only thing he could do was resign," said Sidney Smith, Craig's spokesman in Idaho's capital. "We're still preparing as if Senator Craig will resign Sept. 30, but the outcome of the legal case in Minnesota and the ethics investigation will have an impact on whether we're able to stay in the fight - and stay in the...

<p>Sen. Larry Craig's spokesman says the senator is reconsidering his decision to resign...</p>

Just reported on a news break.

Why did Sen. Larry Craig resign? Was it that he was exposed as a homosexual? That he is also a Republican? That he lied? That he committed a misdemeanor? That he is a hypocrite? Or that Republicans had to offer him in sacrifice lest they too -- horrors -- be accused of party-wide hypocrisy? Obviously, he resigned under pressure from the left -- which ought to be defending him -- and his GOP colleagues. The larger question, then, is why both the left and right came down so hard on Craig. MSNBC's Chris Matthews inveighed against Craig because Republicans have...

The nation's first openly gay governor has offered his support for beleaguered Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, saying the public should not judge Craig harshly despite the outrage stemming from his arrest and guilty plea in a gay sex sting. In a letter published Monday in The Washington Post, former Gov. James E. McGreevey urges Craig's critics to "fill their hearts with compassion and equanimity." Craig has called assertions that he has engaged in gay sex ridiculous and, after a news conference last week, stated that "I am not gay. I never have been gay." Craig said he had kept the...

Soon, a new name will pop up on Mike Rogers's hit list. Larry Craig wasn't "the first on my list," the gay blogger says. And the Idaho senator, who announced his resignation Saturday, "won't be the last." Rogers, sitting on a club chair in his Northwest Washington apartment, is basking in the attention. For three years now, he's been a feared one-man machine, "outing," he says, nearly three dozen senior political and congressional staffers, White House aides and, most damagingly, Congress members on his blog. On Capitol Hill, a typical phone call from Rogers -- "Are you gay?" he'd ask...

A media analyst says in its zeal to extensively cover the homosexual sex scandal involving Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), the media has practically ignored a very important story out of Florida. A week that began with the revelation of an arrest in June and guilty plea in August over charges that he was soliciting homosexual sex in airport bathroom, ended with Senator Craig standing before his constituents in Boise on Saturday and announcing he was stepping down from his Senate seat effective September 30. After apologizing for "what I have caused," Craig explained the reasoning behind his decision. "I have...

Last year during the Foley scandal, we, unfortunately, became well acquainted with one of the left’s more notorious “heroes” Mike Rogers, who, after the Foley scandal broke - with his help - moved to target Senator Larry Craig for the purposes of outing him as a “hypocrite.” As it turns out, Craig jumped into his own pail of hot water after it surfaced last week that he was caught soliciting for sex in one of the men’s restrooms at Minneapolis International Airport. Craig resigned, effective Sept. 30. Today, the Washington Post features a puff piece on Rogers, which Patterico dissects...

During the summer, a female acquaintance of mine in her 70s who had been a faithful Republican during her long life received a GOP telephone solicitation as a previous contributor to the party. Not this time. She informed the fundraiser that President Bush's position on immigration was the last straw. She would not give the Republicans another dime. Such a rebuff, commonplace for Republican fundraisers today, puts a human face on cold Federal Election Commission statistics showing a commanding Democratic lead in raising money for the 2008 elections. This unusual disparity is at once a symptom and a contributing cause...

The case of Larry Craig demonstrates the hypocrisy of the Democratic party. Why should he have to resign his Senate seat when Ted Kennedy who killed a woman with his reckless driving a few decades is allowed to continue to serve. Even if Craig is guilty, what he did isn't any where close to being as serious as running away from an accident and leaving a passenger to drown. Then we have President Bill Clinton who was sexually harassing the women who worked for him at the White House. I'm an old bachelor who never was enthusiastic about women's lib,...

Republicans are so intent on pushing scandal-plagued members of Congress out of office and far from the media spotlight that the entire party--from the White House to congressional leaders to the Republican National Committee to various campaign committees--was instantly united last week in the effort to force Senator Larry Craig of Idaho to resign. At another time, Republicans might have cut Craig some slack, allowing him to finish his term and not seek reelection. But after suffering crushing losses in last year's midterm election--spurred in part by highly publicized GOP corruption in Congress--Republicans are not in a mood to tolerate...

When a soldier puts on his uniform, he wears more than cloth and insignia. He places himself within the boundaries that the uniform represents. And he solemnly covenants that he will restrain his personal desires and wishes, so as to bring credit and respect to the service he chooses. That respect can mean the difference between an enemy's calculation that we are too strong to attack… or else ripe for the picking. Except in cases where society may have compelled his actions, such as a war-time draft, he who has voluntarily joined that service has done so with full knowledge...

After Larry Craig pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges, offered apologies and resigned the media circus began. Scoffers, jesters, writers and besters have hopped onboard the rollicking happy critics train and left blogger sites have had a revival heretofore unprecedented. All the hype about Larry Craig’s demise leaves something out. Conspicuously missing is the attention that should have been paid to the appalling habits, the seedy haunts and inconvenient places gays have chosen to further their sleazy activities. But lets not forget that just as the undercover cop who nabbed Larry Craig, may have never expected to nab a U.S. Senator;...

But being in the closet uniquely assisted me in politics. From my first run for the state legislature until my election as governor, all too often I was not leading but following my best guess at public opinion. Politics was for me a way to secure the crowd's approbation while maintaining a busyness that obfuscated the desires of my heart. Despite being a moderately liberal governor, my stance on marriage was: "between a man and a woman." The position, in my mind, created a tension with the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender community that affirmed my bona fides as a "straight." Only after the...

Log Cabin Responds to Resignation of Senator Larry Craig Statement from Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon (Washington, DC)—Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon made the following statement about the resignation of Senator Larry Craig (R-ID): "Senator Craig made the right decision in resigning from the U.S. Senate. He lost his credibility to serve the people of Idaho and his actions damaged the credibility of the Republican Party. Senator Craig had no other choice but to resign—for the good of his State, the good of his Party, and the good of his family. "His actions in Minnesota and the way he handled...