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The Wide Stance Defense!

By Al Owens
Did I ever tell you about the time I joined Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus? It’s true. I was a young television reporter down in Charleston, West Virginia and Ringling Brothers used to offer reporters a chance to spend a day with a clown – and then dress-up and perform briefly during an actual performance.

I was the willing volunteer! I met with a Ringling Brothers clown. We went to lunch together, and then I spent the rest of day at the circus asking him dozens of questions. I was then made up in full clown make-up, and I was fitted with the requisite clown attire - before getting detailed instructions on how to act when the show began.

There I was. Standing in the center ring, hoping nobody from Fayette County would spot me. Well, I wasn’t that lucky. I looked into the audience, and I saw the late Jim Braxton of Connellsville, and his wife. They lived in Charleston, when he wasn’t starring in the backfield for the Buffalo Bills.

After my “performance,” (which only lasted a few minutes) I got back into my civilian clothes, and went directly into the stands to ask Braxton if he’d seen me out there “clowning” around. Fortunately, he hadn’t. But he certainly got a big laugh out of my confession.

What does this have to do with politics? Well, this week it was reported that Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig had been busted in a men’s room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport back in June, for trying to play footsie with an undercover cop in a restroom.

Craig has denied he was trying to signal the cop that he wanted to engage in a little restroom lovemaking – by sticking his foot into the cop’s stall and tapping it.
Craig claims he was merely adopting a “wide stance”, and that he certainly wasn’t trying to find a john in a john!

Now here’s my point. Those sized 50 shoes I had to wear when I “preformed” with The Greatest Show on Earth? Even in those I couldn’t have adopted a stance wide enough, to get my foot into the next bathroom stall – unless I really, really wanted to.

That Senator Larry Craig may not be a clown. But he’s certainly causing a circus.
Key Republicans are standing in line to jump off the Larry Craig bandwagon. Arizona Senator and presidential candidate John McCain is offering the strongest rebuke, "So, I think he should resign. My opinion is that when you plead guilty to a crime you shouldn't serve."

It’s enough to make liberals shut-up and gloat. (Of course they aren’t shutting up. And they certainly are gloating!) Especially since Craig has been a supporter of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, which would define marriage as being only between a man and a woman.

That means if Craig and that undercover cop ever decided to settle down, and get married, he’d be one who’d stand at the altar and object to his own marriage – when the preacher asked anybody to speak now or forever hold their peace.

It’s just another case of a Republican who champions the cause of “family values”, who’s been caught with his pants… Well you get the point!
Last year, ex-Florida Republican congressman Mark Foley, who’d fought tirelessly to rid the world of sexual predators (especially online), was himself using the internet to try to pick-up underage congressional pages, by sending sexually suggestive emails to them. He left congress immediately after those emails got “outed.”

A little more than a month later, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggard, resigned after a male escort claimed Haggard had paid him for sex over a three year period. Of course, Haggard always preached strongly that homosexuality was condemned in the bible. He’d even been known to have visited gay bars in order to deliver its patrons to his flock. Somehow Haggard was the one who got delivered.

Soon after Haggard’s secret life became public, he sounded like he was auditioning for the “family values” wing of the Republican Party. "I am a deceiver and a liar. The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality,” he confessed. I don’t do the hiring over there. But if I did, he’d certainly get a second interview!

Oh those right wingers. When will they ever learn? I’ll answer that. Never!
There’s another well-known Republican who has stood firm against gay rights. He’s a California congressman – who will remain nameless here.

He was “outed” by a Los Angeles publication back in 2004. But he’s never denied the reports about his sexual orientation, or the rumor that he’s been living with his congressional chief of staff for a number of years.

Yet he’s voted against bills that would have allowed for gay adoptions or would have protected homosexuals against hiring discrimination and in hate crimes legislation.

While the rumors persist, the hypocrisy becomes more evident.
As you know, I have nothing against clowns. Unless, of course, they’re delusional Republicans who live lies and try to tell other people how to live!
What I’ve learned is that our president just might say anything to make his point!