What is Larry Craig thinking?
Posted on September 28th, 2007
You know the story. The Idaho Senator pled guilty to charges stemming from a sex sting operation in an airport men’s room. The lid stayed on that story for a couple months until the news was broken by a guy who spends his time outing public figures he believes are closeted gays.Once the news broke, Senator Craig declared it was all a big mistake. He was not soliciting sex in the Minneapolis airport; he pled guilty because, he has said through his attorney, he was panicked about an investigation being conducted by his home state’s leading newspaper alleging that he is…gay.
His choices, it is safe to assume, are equally unpalatable. Wage a legal battle to clear your name and fight to keep your Senate seat while the 24 hour news cycle broadcasts and publishes and blogs endlessly the lurid details of your men’s room arrest. Or, go quietly. Go home to Idaho. Home to private life and let the salacious matter fade from the front page but live with the knowledge that everyone believes you did solicit sex from an undercover cop.
Which choice are you going to make, Senator Craig? Which choice do your family and friends and staff want you to make? There must be intense debate. Should you fight to clear your name, save your political career and hold onto your Senate seat?
Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom is you’re doomed. Your political career is over. You can’t remain in the Senate.
Is that Senator Craig’s real goal? What is the outcome he really wants or believes he can achieve? (more…)