Flashback: Larry Craig Blamed "Gay Movement" For Rumors About His Sexuality
Here's an interesting postscript to l'affair de Larry Craig, the GOP Senator who was arrested for "lewd conduct" in a men's room in June.
Around a month before the arrest, Craig blamed the "gay movement" for longtime rumors about his sexuality.
Today's Idaho Statesman has a very long piece detailing an interview the paper did Craig in May, as part of an investigation into his past that the paper ended up not publishing. In the interview, Craig strenuously denied rumors he was gay.
And in an amusing but also slightly sad moment, it turns out the paper actually played Craig -- and his wife -- a tape recording of an interview the paper had done with a man who'd claimed to have had oral sex with Craig:
In the May 14 interview, Craig and his wife listened to a four-minute excerpt of the Statesman's interview with the 40-year-old man who first spoke to Rogers. At first, Craig objected to the man's anonymity, but agreed to listen. The man's voice was disguised.Craig said the man is an activist. "The gay movement, we know it for what it is. It's now aggressive and it's liberal and it's naming people to try to put them in compromising, difficult situations."
Suzanne Craig's eyes reddened and filled with tears as she listened. After her husband's denial, she said, "I'm incensed that you would even consider such a piece of trash as a credible source."
To which Craig added, "Jiminy God!"
Look, if Craig didn't have a terrible record on gay issues, we'd probably care a heck of a lot less how wide the man's toilet stance is. But he does -- and he even cast aspersions on the "gay movement" until the very end, as you can see here.
Late Update: Matt Corley over at Think Progress takes a look at the conservatives who are now calling on Craig to resign.
Comments (20)
MarcNYC wrote on August 28, 2007 11:54 AM:OMG, "the gay movement . . . is liberal".
It really does speak volumes that this is an "accusation" that the right continues to believe (apparently with good reason)carries great weight and can be used to discredit virtually any accusation.
Greg wrote on August 28, 2007 11:59 AM:...and not only that, but they'll keep using it despite revelations such as these about gay conservatives...
zk0sm0 wrote on August 28, 2007 12:02 PM:of course, if it weren't for hypocrites and assholes like craig, there wouldn't need to be a 'gay movement' because if it weren't for hypocrites and assholes like craig polluting the world with their hate and fear, homosexuals (like craig) wouldn't feel the need to pretend to be something other than who they are.
john mccutchen wrote on August 28, 2007 12:19 PM:Power on
Gaydar ON
...............
...............
Queer as a three dollar bill
It isn't so much Sen. Craig's record specifically, as it is the overall game being played here. Which goes like this, as I think everyone knows:
1) The primary purpose of the GOP is to shift wealth upward, to make the rich richer at the expense of everyone else.
2) There are obviously not a lot of votes for this, so the GOP has to find other things to run on, while soft-pedaling and giving misleading impressions of its wealth-shift measures.
3) The main 'other thing to run on' it's had over the past 40 years has been religious/cultural/social conservatism: abortion, gays, all that. Without the religious right and other cultural conservatives who just plain dislike gays, the GOP turns into a permanent minority party, maybe even a third party. So
4) the GOP has to keep its closet queens closeted, because if the GOP was shown to be full of the queers that they're running against in order to get votes, the game would fall apart. You can't simultaneously condone homosexuality and run against it.
fafner1 wrote on August 28, 2007 12:48 PM:A number of people, including TPM’s David Kurtz, have raised the issue if any crime did occur; given that all Craig did was tap his foot, wave is hand and touch the cop’s foot with his. It is common for straights to think if they tap their foot they may be inadvertently signally a come on to the guy in the next stall, but every gay I have ever heard speak about the “code” has been clear, the “code” is well defined, well known in the gay community, and not something a straight would accidentally do. If the cop is telling the truth, Craig was clearly soliciting for sex, not tapping his foot or reaching for fallen toilet paper. No actual sex occurred, hence the mild disorderly conduct misdemeanor charge. It the cop wanted to he could have waited for a more overt offer and thrown the book at Craig, but I suspect all he wanted to do was stop people from using the airport bathroom for sex.
gonzone wrote on August 28, 2007 12:51 PM:Craig needs to keep his sexual indiscretions "dirty" in order to enjoy them. Same as Ted haggard and many others. If they couldn't imagine it as "dirty" and forbidden it would hold no thrill or enjoyment.
I say we spank them with a spatula or hair brush and give them permission to enjoy it.
I cannot imagine why Craig would have pled guilty in this case if there was really nothing to it. He has been battling rumors about his sexuality and other behavior since at least 1982. I'm sure he's faced more serious accusations than tapping his foot in a toilet.
So, while I agree that the police report does not include anything I would consider a crime, I have to conclude something else is going on here. There is some other shoe hanging in the air, threatening to drop, perhaps? And pleading guilty to this vague crime allows Craig deniability?
Thats my guess. He can now go on talk shows and do interviews and suggest that he is being framed by teh gays and teh liberals, and there is plausibility. People will rally around him, even liberals will wonder "where's the crime here?", and he can continue serving Idaho and become the longest-serving senator in history.
But he didn't plead guilty to this for no reason at all. There is a reason. The question is, will anyone ever find out what it is?
I doubt it. This guy started waving his own damn red flags back in 1982 and nobody in the press followed up. Why the press didn't give him the Gary Hart treatment is truly a question worth asking.
Nathan wrote on August 28, 2007 1:12 PM:Why are you treating this as a bigger story than what will happen to Gonzales?? Gonzales is the big issue this week, not another hypocritical Republican gay sex scandal. I want to know how Gonzales can be held legally accountable for what he's done, not the codes of conduct in bathroom sex.
I am disappointed in TPM.
boo boo wrote on August 28, 2007 1:13 PM:DIRTY LARRY IS A FAIRY!
I wonder if he has a prescription for Viagra!
Too bad he didn't get caught on his knees trying to please that big bad handsome police officer!
Oh Nathan, I am disappointed in YOU!
Are you trying to make this hypocrite who votes against his true values a non-story?
TAP TAP TAP....
"Jiminy God"?
Do people actually say that?
JimBob wrote on August 28, 2007 1:41 PM:I think we've talked about this enough. Alberto Gonzales' replacement, the question of whether the Dems are ready to get tough and not allow a de facto recess appointment of Clement or some other Rovian tactics (put up a Harriet Miers, then take her down and slip in the real candidate after the Dems have shot off all their ammunition) -- this is the important issue of today and no one could be happier than Bush that Larry Craig has grabbed the spotlight with his wandering weenie.
Jim wrote on August 28, 2007 1:45 PM:
So when will somebody finally call out Lindsey Graham?
Pretending that guy isn't gay is getting ridiculous.
JimBob wrote on August 28, 2007 1:46 PM:boo boo
Not a non-story. It's a story. It's just taking up an awful lot of space and it's way behind what's in first place in the Lying-Sack-of-Shit Hypocrisy Derby.
W. Goulart wrote on August 28, 2007 1:49 PM:Come on now. Any grown man who goes into an airport men's room and plays footsie with the guy in the next stall is either looking to get beat up or to have bathroom sex or both.
If Utah Senator Larry Craig now claims that his actions were "misinterpreted" by the undercover cop, then the Senator must be utterly stupid. Other potentially more credible excuses that he could have used instead include the following:
(1) I had dropped my iPod and I was hoping the guy in the next stall would pick it up and hand it back to me;
(2) My stall had run out of toilet paper and I was hoping the guy in the next stall would give me some from his roll;
(3) My foot slipped into the next stall and made contact with the foot of the other guy due to the urine on the floor;
(4) I was hoping I would find Michael Vick in the next stall because I wanted to discuss Jesus Christ and redemption with him.
Look, the undercover cop who patrols the Minneapolis airport bathrooms obviously knows what to look for and what the signs are. He's the expert.
And if it WAS all a big misunderstanding, you had better believe that Sen. Craig would have fought this charge with all he had.
There is just no way anyone who is innocent and mistakenly charged with lewd conduct in a public bathroom pleads guilty rather than fighting it.
Jolly Ranchero wrote on August 28, 2007 2:03 PM:No straight man worth his weight in loafers would utter "Jiminy God!" at the end of an interview.
jconor wrote on August 28, 2007 3:01 PM:"Dead girls and live boys"
That's the second live boy the Repubs have had in the last two weeks. In fact, I cannot remember the last dead girl from the right side of the aisle.
Shoe Salesman wrote on August 28, 2007 3:56 PM:The secret bathroom stall code for shoe signals looks something like this:
Cowboy boots slowly sliding around like in a line dance means "I am seeking rough riders and/or men who remind me of Theodore Roosevelt."
Flamenco boots stomping passionatedly means "I offer to take you to Taco Bell for a spicy hot chalupa."
Work boots pounding the floor rapidly like a jackhammer means "I'm a steel-reinforced toes kind of guy."
Ballet slippers lyrically extending into your stall means "Let's face the music and dance."
Motorcycle boots violently kicking the bottom of the stall means "I like smoke and lightning heavy metal thunder."
