Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in June at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men's public restroom, according to an arrest report obtained by Roll Call Monday afternoon....Real Clear Politics notes that Craig (official bio here) is up for reelection in 2008.A spokesman for Craig described the incident as a "he said/he said misunderstanding," and said the office would release a fuller statement later Monday afternoon.
After he was arrested, Craig, who is married, was taken to the Airport Police Operations Center to be interviewed about the lewd conduct incident, according to the police report....
Craig was detained for approximately 45 minutes, interviewed, photographed, fingerprinted and released, and police prepared a formal complaint for interference with privacy and disorderly conduct.
The Leftosphere is all over this story (e.g., here), in part because rumors that Craig is a homosexual have been flying around the web for quite some time. (A Google search on "Larry Craig" AND "homosexual" yields 19,000 hits, for example.) More importantly, there's the Republican angle: The only "bad" homosexual (to a Lefty) is a Republican homosexual.
Lefties will claim -- with a straight face -- that it's all right to attack Craig because (a) he's a Republican and (b), if he's a homosexual, he's a Republican hypocrite. "Everyone" knows that all Republicans hate homosexuals and want to put all of them in concentration camps, right?
Well, many (probably most) Republicans (along with a lot of Democrats) would deny homosexuals a right to "marry." And most Republicans (and libertarians) -- unlike homosexuals and their Leftist claque -- do not support "hate crime" legislation on behalf of any group. Such positions have nothing to do with "hate" and everything to do with the protection of civil society and equal justice for all. Not that Leftists care about such things, mind you.
Of course, Leftists would not countenance the use of rumors of Craig's homosexuality to harm his reelection bid. I say that sarcastically because Leftists would countenance said use of such rumors. They are world-class hypocrites when it comes to things like
- homosexuality (Barney Frank is the only homosexual Democrat in Congress, right?)
- diversity (It's okay, as long as my kid gets into the college of his choice.)
- public education (That's for other people's children.)
- capitalism (Hate that "greed," except for the part about rising stock prices.)
UPDATE (08/28/07): Senator Craig's statement about the matter is here.
UPDATE (08/29/07): Here is a balanced story from the Idaho Statesman.
