Larry Craig and the Next Shoe

Gay Republicans are a source of endless fascination that usually boils down to -- WHY??? A question that the Log Cabin crew must find harder and harder to answer not so much because of the stridently homophobic public face of their party, but because the standard responses of past (the party of fiscal responsibility, personal liberties, blah blah) are so obviously inappropriate after eight years of Republican mismanagement.

My own personal fascination, however, is not with the openly gay, if not proud, Republicans. It is with the Larry Craigs, Mark Foleys and Ed Schrocks of the GOP. And it is with the breathless anticipation of the next tap-tapping right shoe to drop.

The intrigue underlying the Craig debacle has barely surfaced, but I feel, I smell the fear of the senator's Republican colleagues, enemies and friends alike; and surely this must explain some of the more bizarre developments related to Craig's widely anticipated outing.

Hardcore Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell folded like a lawn chair when Craig began to push back and insist on staying; why? Sen. Arlen Specter went far out on the most fragile limb of his career to defend Larry Craig; why? Sen. Lindsey Graham (he who is in so much trouble with his party that he may not make it past his Senate primary in 2008) has recently been mentioned several times as a potential VP candidate; why?

Thankfully, I have no direct, personal knowledge of the private lives of these and other GOP members of Congress. But I do know that the choice must seem easy between running as an openly gay anything in, say, rural Kentucky or South Carolina, or having a shot at winning. But nature eventually takes its course, along with the arrogance of power, and it's just a matter of time before a hustler, a congressional page or an undercover cop exposes more tragically schizophrenic lives.