Larry Craig: Guilty of What?

Senator Larry Craig attempted to defend himself yesterday. "I am not gay. I never have been gay." He said it like he meant it. I actually hope he did mean it. I don't want him in my club anyway.

The problem is, as I see it, is that Larry Craig is talking about the wrong "problem."

No one is accusing Craig of being gay. They are accusing him of being a pervert.

He doesn't have to answer to the American public about being gay. He has to answer to the American public, the Idaho voters and the police about being a pervert in a public restroom.

I don't care where he was -- a men's bathroom, the Admirals' Club, or at a backyard barbecue. I don't care if he was lewd with women or with men. The location, the gender of the person he was coming on to, the circumstances -- doesn't matter.

It's not a gay thing. It's not a straight thing. It might be a power thing. It might be a Republican thing. It's clearly an integrity thing.

The New York Times focuses this morning on the trouble this causes the Republican Party. I get that. But what about Mrs. Craig? Oy. I sure hope Larry is more concerned with how Suzanne, his three kids and his nine grandchildren feel than how Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council thinks. And I sure hope he is spending more time at home trying to find a good shrink than meeting with his advisers to determine if he should run again. If he wants to return to the straight and narrow (no pun intended), he has a long journey ahead.

Two last things:

1) Remind me never to take a job where I might have to talk publicly about how my boss stands when s/he is in the restroom. I can only imagine that that "spokesperson" had a hard time looking in the mirror this morning.

2) Someone should post the bathroom hand signals on the internet. I don't ever want to do them accidentally.