Craig's List -- Of Republican Pervs
Bob Schildgen
 Maybe the Republican Party should do the honorable thing and dissolve and reconstitute itself as something more credible, like the European communist parties did. This flash of political-pundit insight struck me when we got the news of the arrest of Idaho Senator Larry Craig in a toilet stall in the Minneapolis. Craig pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct after being busted by an undercover officer. The Republican stalwart tapped and touch the guy's foot and brushed his hand under the partition.
Like most of the other Republicans recently busted for sexual trespassing, Craig is a major defender of family values and an opponent of gay rights, having voted for the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act and supporting a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Actually, he was outed last year by gay activist Mike Rogers, who claimed that he had talked to men who had sexual relations with Craig. Instead of pursuing this news, the sex police were still obsessing on what some pederast priest did or might have done 40 years ago. Those stories were easier if not sleezier.
Of course they couldn't avoid some Republican sex scandals, like that of Congressman Mark Foley last year. Foley, another family values guy and backer of the Defense of Marriage Act resigned from Congress after getting caught sending explicitly sexual e-mails to a teenage boy who was a Senate page. When he was pushing for legislation against internet porn, Foley said that its consumers were "really sick people and they need mental health counseling." It turned out that Foley was dishing his own internet porn to the teenager, with comments like "What ya wearing?", and when the kid replied, "tshirt and shorts" Foley said, "Love to slip them off of you." Well, that was one of his tamer comments. The exchange got into details of masturbation practices, which you can find in all their explicit liquidity at http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/BrianRoss/story?id=2509586&page=1 if you're into that sort of entertainment.
After his apology “I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent,” he went infamously on to blame alcohol and a pederast priest for his unfortunate situation.
Now it's not that closeted gays have the monopoly on Republican foibles. Louisiana's Bob Livingston, who was running for Speaker of the House, demanded Bill Clinton's resignation during the Republicans' ridiculous impeachment proceedings. He took himself out of the running after news of his affairs got out. Like Foley, Livingston couldn't cop to what he did. He didn't even use the A word (adultery) let alone the S word (sex) in his public confession. No, Bob only admitted that "I have on occasion strayed from my marriage," and then proceeded to tell how painful it was, trying to get the world to pity him as a victim. In fact, he even morphed himself into a nice, decent guy by saying, "Because these were personal relationships, I have no intention or desire to reveal any specifics in order to avoid harm to others." Well, gosh Bob, that was mighty gracious of you. Some of us were waiting breathlessly for your tell-all confession book, or at least a couple tabloid columns, and it must've been be one heck of a sacrifice for you to give up all the money you could've made on royalties and interviews and maybe even "occasionally strayed" bumper stickers and other repentant-strayer paraphernalia.
Then there was Jack Ryan. Remember Jack? If you don't, you darn well should. He gave Barak Obama the political boost of a lifetime. Another straight Republican arrow, Jack was all set to run against Obama when some incriminating material oozed out of his divorce papers. His wife's deposition said Ryan took her on three "surprise trips" to sex clubs. She refused to go, but then went after he insisted, she said.
"It was a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling," she said. Maybe Jack could've made her feel more comfortable in Abu Ghraib, with comforting American military protection. No doubt that if a Republican wheel like Jack had gotten caught there, maybe they'd have done a better cover-up job and we'd never have heard about that demoralizing episode. Ryan's wife also said he wanted her to have sex with him in this place, with another couple watching, which she said she refused to do. Ryan even took her to a sex club in Paris "where people were having sex everywhere. I cried. I was physically ill. [He] became very upset with me and said it was not a 'turn on' for me to cry."
Of course Ryan denied everything, saying these were "romantic getaways" that "did not include the type of activities she describes."
"We did go to one avant garde nightclub in Paris," he conceded, saying "it was more than either one of us felt comfortable with. We left and vowed never to return."
But my all-time favorite wholesome Republican hetero is Don Sherwood, the Pennsylvania congressman and family values guy and backer of the Marriage Protection Act whose covert activities came to light in 2005. Don took apparently took the marriage protection thing very seriously—or maybe not, depending on your point of view. He got sued by his mistress for physical abuse, which apparently included choking her, according to a police report. Instead of denying, or blaming booze, or other people, talking about romance or straying, Don paid honest dollars for his evasions. The settlement of the $5.5 million lawsuit brought by the mistress included her agreement to disclose nothing regarding their relationship. Fine. But the overriding moral question, which I leave to Republican ethicists to resolve, is this: Which is the greater crime against family values, to spare your wife a beating and wail on your mistress, or to reject the idea of having a mistress and wail on the wife? Spare the rod and spoil who, so to speak?
Okay, I already hear Republicans crying foul, and whining that Democrats do it too, as they invariably do when accused of almost any misconduct. Yes I freely admit, Democrats do too, even the best of them, Jack Kennedy being their arch-stud, but there's a mighty big, obvious difference. The Democrats never made the issue of private sexual behavior into a major political cause. They apparently had more important concerns and therefore cannot be called out for deviousness and deviation and outright hypocrisy the way the Republicans can in this matter. Besides, when it comes to picking your political poison, what would you rather have? A guy like Clinton, who uses the S word when he lies about S, or a fraud who uses a lame-ass euphemism to tell an unpleasant truth?
Speaking of hypocrisy, I return to Larry Craig. Though he pled guilty to disorderly conduct for his behavior, he now claims that he did not engage in inappropriate conduct and that the police misunderstood his behavior, and that he was too hasty in pleading guilty. "In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously." Listen up, you liberals, before you jump all over the Freudian slips in Larry's remark. It really really could be that the toilet caper was only about toilet paper. The roll in his stall could have been empty and it was only TP and not BJ he was requesting from the next-door unit.
I am predicting that this episode will change Larry Craig's politics in at least one area that might fragment the Republicans: gun control. If you've ever seen a hand came floating under the stall wall and gesturing with contraction of the fingers that imitates milking a cow, you probably found it kind of unsettling—and you probably tried to swat or kick it away, as I did once while enthroned on a toilet in Columbus, Ohio. Well, I can't help thinking what might've happened if Senator Larry Craig had reached into a stall inhabited by some gun-totin' homophobe who shared Larry's fierce opposition to gun control and firmly believed in the constitutional right to bear arms into any damn toilet he pleased and blast away at any damn intruder who invaded his private space. Why poor ol' Larry would've ended up with one less hand to signal with or otherwise use to do whatever he does in these places. That's got to make him caress his intact pinky and at least reconsider his firearms position.
August 28, 2007
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