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Larry Craig is “Stalling” Again!

By Al Owens
Larry Craig, how can we miss you if you won’t go away?
Last Saturday the embattled, toe tapping Republican Idaho Senator announced his “intent” to go fishin’ on the last day of this month.
“It is with sadness and deep regret that I announce that it is my intent to resign from the Senate, effective September 30th,” Craig proclaimed outside the Boise Train Station. (I’m passing up the opportunity to make light of his ironic choice of locations for this announcement. Although I’m betting he didn’t use the men’s room there!)

OK! I changed my mind. I’m just like Larry Craig. If he can do it, so can I.
He’d plead guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct after his alleged antics in the stall of a men’s room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in June. Now he’s changed his mind. He plans to fight the charge.

He’s also changed his mind about leaving the Senate. He no longer believes, as he told the assembled media on Saturday that, “To pursue my legal options, as I continue to serve Idaho would be an unwanted and unfair distraction of my job and of my Senate colleagues.” In fact, he knew he wasn’t telling the truth when he made that statement!
Just before he met the media at the Boise Train Station, he placed a call to his attorney claiming he was only going to announce his “intent” to resign.

That he’d discussed his options with Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, and Specter convinced him to stay and fight the disorderly conduct charge.

But being “intentionally” ambiguous was the least of Craig’s problems. The call he thought he was making to his attorney, actually went to somebody who didn’t even know him. He’d left his “intentions” on the answering machine of a disinterested third party.

That disinterested third party turned over the taped message to the media. By Wednesday, Craig’s true “intentions” were getting wall-to-wall news coverage.

A story that had been allowed to die of its own weight on Saturday began rearing its ugly head and sending startled Republicans running for cover a few days later.

Even Arlen Specter, who’d offered his public support for Craig on the Sunday talk shows by claiming, “I’d still like to see Senator Craig fight this case,” refused to comment after the tape was released, and it appeared that he’d been complicit in Craig’s deceit.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell seemed a bit flustered by the latest development. He’d most likely planned a going away party for Craig – after he left the Senate. But now he’d have to put those plans on hold.
“I thought he made the correct decision to resign, and that would still be my view today,” he told reporters with his party hat still on his head.

Meanwhile, Larry Craig apologists, like Ann Coulter, have begun blaming liberals for his woes. She can always find liberals to blame, even when not a single Democrat has issued any kind of statement regarding the world’s most famous toe-tapper since Fred Astaire.

That’s the same Ann Coulter who claimed, “The Democrats are going the way of the Whigs,” shortly after the 2004 elections. She’s had to watch Republicans, like Larry Craig, self-explode ever since.

Try as she can - she can’t avoid the facts. No liberal forced Craig into that airport stall. There’s no one to blame for Craig’s dimwitted telephone call but Larry Craig. But I’m sure there’s still some straight faced right winger who’ll uncover proof that that answering machine was, in fact, a liberal.

Sen. Craig is his own “unfair distraction.” He’s blundered himself into a situation that makes the people who defend him look naive.

Aside from Specter and Coulter, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough defends Craig by claiming the senator may or may not have intended to engage in sexual activity in that airport stall. And that the charge against him could easily be beaten.

I’ve contended all along that Craig knew exactly what he was doing, and so did that undercover officer.
It may not be clear proof, but I conducted a little internet search and found some very interesting information that I’ve not seen anywhere else.

I found a web site called cruisingforsex.com. It’s a web site that lists places across the country, where men can engage in homosexual activity.

I found a particular restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to be a very popular place among gay men. They even offer lots of personal accounts of their experiences and their methods of encountering men with similar interests.

Last November one man wrote, “It's the bathroom to the left once you get out of security checkpoint two. This place is unbelievably hot! I sat in a stall for less than five minutes and had two Northwest Airlines employees sit on either side of me, both TAPPING THEIR FEET.”

Isn’t it a bit curious that Sen. Craig had allegedly done the very same thing?

Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t aware of the message somebody wrote on that site this past June after 20 people had been arrested in that men’s room. “Plainclothes officers wait in the stalls and TAP THEIR FEET and even put their foot on yours and then arrest you when you look under the stall wall,” they warned.

Maybe when he finally decides to leave the Senate for good, Craig should take a nonstop flight home, and keep his feet - and his “intentions” to himself!
What I’ve learned is that our president just might say anything to make his point!