God loves Howard Dean

Only if they make an issue of it. If they are smart and let the matter take its natural course they will benefit. If they make it an issue, then Garry Studs comes up again and again.

I actually think that Craig is right to hang on. Despite his gutter behavior, it's not a resignable offense - not as long as Senator Ted Kennedy is still serving and driving a car.

Eric W.: "I actually think that Craig is right to hang on. Despite his gutter behavior, it's not a resignable offense - not as long as Senator Ted Kennedy is still serving and driving a car."

So much for the GOP being the party of ethics and better behavior. Perhaps they would have a different view of Sen. Craig had he accepted oral sex from an intern in the halls of the Capital building.

Such is the sorry state of God's Own Party.

As hilarious as this whole thing is, I think I have to agree that there's no real reason he should step down. Like Eric says, Teddy Kennedy is still there, and he killed someone. So Craig tapped his foot/played footsie with a cop, and ran his hand along the underside of a bathroom stall. How does that rise (ahem) to the standard of "disorderly conduct" - the charge he pled guilty to? I mean, if he had whipped it out in the john, or had flashed the cop or something, that'd be one thing, but he didn't. Are we going to criminalize any sort of sexual come-on or pick-up line now? Let him stay on as a living embodiment of so-called "Family-Values Conservatism" - at least until the voters of Idaho decide to remove him themselves.

"Perhaps they would have a different view of Sen. Craig had he accepted oral sex from an intern in the halls of the Capital building."

No, they'd have had a different view of him if he'd been a Democrat.

Ten years ago, few people in America had ever even heard of the concept of "gay marriage." Now it's supposedly "bigotry" to campaign against allowing courts to impose it.

Sorry but this is such a beautiful illustration of the intellectual vapidity of the American Left. Every foreign policy crisis is another Vietnam, and every controversial social issue is another Civil Rights Movement.

What do they expect to gain? They won't win any Democrats to their side, nor get any Democratic votes ("Gee, the Republicans must really be God's Own Party, judging by the way they gave Larry Craig the boot. Go-o-o-o-l-l-l-l-y-y, I think I'll vote for them!")

It's Politics 101. Craig's seat is up in 2008. Bozo the Clown could win that seat as the Republican nominee in Idaho. But a convicted pervert whose preposterous lies have turned him into a national joke might not.

quote: "Ten years ago, few people in America had ever even heard of the concept of "gay marriage." Now it's supposedly "bigotry" to campaign against allowing courts to impose it. Sorry but this is such a beautiful illustration of the intellectual vapidity of the American Left. Every foreign policy crisis is another Vietnam, and every controversial social issue is another Civil Rights Movement."

Me: Bingo. And ironically the few people that espoused gay marriage twenty years ago such as Andrew Sullivan were actually attacked by other gays for saying that gays should "marry." It will be interesting to see what other fadish "rights" the far left will support ten years from now. Sometime in the 1960s those on the far left substituted their crotches for their brains, and until things change for them we should expect nothing but this kind of vapidity.
Also, while we have discovered that the Republicans have had a lot of hypocrites and sleazy characters in their party since the late 1990s, the Democrats have their own as well. True, it is harder for Democrats to be hypocrites on sexual morality since their standards are so low and fadish, but they were really two-faced with the whole Clinton impeachment. I mean, really, does anyone doubt that if a Republican president had lied under oath in a sexual harassment case and then later been accused of rape that the Democrats and those on the far-left such as the feminists wouldn't have demanded his head on a silver platter? Clarence Thomas anyone?

rr

22 years ago, Harold Hughes ended his political career as a U.S. Senator, saying that he found he could not continue in that office and maintain his Christian beliefs and principles. (He was a lay Methodist minister, I believe, and became a spiritual friend and brother to a former foe, Chuck Colson, when Colson became a Christian. You can read about it in Colson's book, BORN AGAIN.)

What Hughes said in 1975 is undoubtedly just as true today, and perhaps more so. That Craig engaged in conduct "grossly unbecoming of a U.S. Senator" probably does not mean that most of the others only engage in behavior becoming of a U.S. Senator.

OTOH, someone like Trent Lott would have been drummed out of office if he were a Democrat because of his racist rants. But because he's a Republican, he's in the leadership. Different parties, different issues that matter. Democrats tolerate sexual impropriety, but not racists and homophobes. Republicans tolerate racists and homophobes, but not sexual impropriety (unless it involves a Louisianan and a hooker).

OTOH, someone like Trent Lott would have been drummed out of office if he were a Democrat because of his racist rants.

By the way, there's only one United States Senator who is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. He has acknowledged but never publicly repented of his membership in that organization. Guess which party he belongs to (hint: starts with a "D")?

Whatever Trent Lott's stupidity -- and yes, the conservative blogosphere pushed him out -- nothing he's said can match in staining the party's reputation what the Democrats did by giving Al Sharpton a prime-time platform at their 2004 convention. But that's tit for tat.

The fact is, Larry Craig's a self-deluded perv. I say that not because of his homosexuality, but because anybody who cruises public restrooms for sex of any sort is a perv. The GOP's rush to distance itself from him is not about winning the respect of Democrats in 2008, but about preventing the hemorrhaging of independents and Republican values voters sick and tired of the GOP's behavior.

Michelle Cottle over at The Plank speculates that Craig is plotting his maybe-comeback to torture his fellow Republicans who were so quick to throw him under the bus.

Trent Lott would not have survived in 2004 if he were a Democrat, Sen. Byrd notwithstanding.

Rubbish. Trent Lott's remarks were perfectly defensible. Had he been a Democrat, they would certainly have been defended.

And what does "Sen. Byrd notwithstanding" mean? Sen. Byrd is a former "Kleagle" of the KKK, who publicly lobbied in the 1940s against desegregation of the U.S. military (vowing that he'd rather die and see "Old Glory trampled" than serve alongside a "Negro" -- ironic, given that Byrd himself hadn't served in World War II). Byrd won his U.S. Senate seat in 1958 by labelling the pro-civil rights Republican incumbent a "N***-lover" and promising the people of West Virginia he'd fight all forms of desegregation.

Lott's jovial, generic remarks about what a great guy Strom Thurmond was are somehow more deserving of opprobrium than Byrd's career? The closest Byrd has come to apologizing for his past is claiming he "lost interest" in the Klan after a few months (which documentary evidence strongly suggests is a lie) and advising aspiring politicians to avoid Klan membership not because the Klan is evil but because politically "it's an albatross."

Oh, yes, there was also the charming "white niggers" lecture he treated us to just a few years ago.

This guy served for years as Senate Democratic leader and now rules the Appropriations Committee. No one in his party has shown the slightest discomfort with having a viscious racist as one of their most powerful Senate leaders. Until they do, no lectures from the Left about how Republicans supposedly tolerate racism while Democrats don't.

OTOH, Byrd immediately apologized for his 2001 comments while Lott took weeks to even acknowledge there could be a problem. Byrd had long denounced his KKK past, while Lott was till cavorting with hate groups well into the 1990s.

And still Lott kept getting elected and put into leadership. He hosted the Council of Conservative Citizens in the late 1990s and bent-over backwards to defend Bob Jones University. And he was made a leader because those kinds of race politics and ideologies are the cornerstone of the Southern strategy.

"The fact is, Larry Craig's a self-deluded perv. I say that not because of his homosexuality, but because anybody who cruises public restrooms for sex of any sort is a perv."

Standing and applauding! The Larry Craig dust-up is really that basic. Even Dan Savage made that point in his column this week.

So then the question still is: "Which party is more tolerant of its racist members?" Answer: Republicans, at least by your own statements. Or am I not understanding what you have stated? Heifer

We have already established from the case of the "Honorable" Robert Byrd that the Democratic Party is 100% tolerant of racist members when it is in their interests to be so.

Lott's different, because his remarks weren't anything that a reasonable person of goodwill would classify as racist. Telling a 100 year old man at his birthday banquet that we "wouldn't have the problems we have today" if we'd elected him President half a century earlier is just happy talk, nothing else. The idea that Lott was specifically thinking about segregation when he said that, or using some sort of code for racism, is the kind of nonsense that could only be believed by a certain type of Northeasterner who fantasizes that most Southerners today are closet Klansmen.

That said, my point above (in response to Daniel's claim that Democrats have no tolerance for racists) is that neither party is absolutist on these matters. Political parties are simply large coalitions of diverse interest groups that have one thing in common: Trying to win. When a politician says or does something awful, all that really matters to either party is how the voters will react.

Get drunk and cause some girl's death, then run away and hide until your mega-rich family can pay hush money to the girl's family? Not a problem for the Democratic Party unless it's a problem for the voters of Massachusetts.

Be the Imperial Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan and launch your political career with 20 years of ranting constantly and crudely against blacks? Not a problem, so long as your genius for delivering pork holds that West Virginia Senate seat that otherwise might go Republican.

Molest an underage congressional page? Hey, if the folks back in New England are okay with that, then so is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Fill up your refrigerator with bribe money and get caught red handed? Okay with the DCCC so long as it's okay with a plurality of the morons in your Louisiana congressional district.

There are dozens more stories like this of corrupt or odious Democrats openly tolerated by their Party's establishment -- and there's no shortage of similar stories on the Republican side, such as David Vitter and Ted Stevens. But please spare us the bogus claims that the Democratic Party or its voters have some high-minded absolute moral principles that cannot be crossed. They do not. Politics is about winning. The only candidates and elected officials who get thrown under the bus by their own party for something they've said or done are the ones who risk dragging the party down politically.

Well, not proud, but come on, rthompson, it can't make you proud as a Democrat (presumably) to recognize that they're right. If I had the likes of Al Sharpton running for president in my party, and I saw all the candidates kowtowing to him, I'd be two tics away from projectile vomiting all the time.

Look, I don't have a lot of respect for the general moral character of either party, quite frankly. But I do expect a bit more from my own. Anyway, is there a more pointless debate that over which party, the Republicans or the Democrats, is dirtier?

Lott's different, because his remarks weren't anything that a reasonable white person person of goodwill would classify as racist.

Fixed.

Our culture tolerates racists, because the Constitution of the United States guarantees racists the same rights as any other label or category.

I continue to wonder why so few people see that the whole notion of hate crime is unconstitutional.

In any event, Lott is getting what he deserves. He'd been protected by his position and the general hypocrisy of our society for far too long.

"Sometime in the 1960s those on the far left substituted their crotches for their brains, and until things change for them we should expect nothing but this kind of vapidity."

This is funny, considering that these current events were preciptated by the actions of someone on the "far right". Speaking of vapid...

Rod,

"Larry Craig's a self-deluded perv. I say that not because of his homosexuality"

Mr. Craig is a self-avowed heterosexual. An admitted heterosexual. A known heterosexual. Please get your "facts", er, str8.

Now, could someone explain how this is about the actions of Byrd, Lott, Sharton, Kennedy, et al, instead of Larry Craig???? Please.

Simon, I understood you concerning your observation that the democrats tolerate Kennedy inspite of his background, the tolerance for Byrd's racism because it's expedient, etc. My question was when you delineated the RR's reasoning behind ousting Mr. Lott, there was no mention of his racism. My point being is that it was likely that the RR did NOT base any dissatisfaction on the racist quality.

IOW, they tolerated his racism. But that's good news, sort of. I mean, at least I'm finding out that the republicans do exhibit some tolerance after all. A tolerance for racists!

Heifer.

Some pervs can be refreshingly honest and candid and it's obvious that some Dem voters appreciate those qualities in their pervs. Vive le difference.

Simon--you do know that Gerry Studs is dead, right?

Franklin Evans,

"the Constitution of the United States guarantees racists the same rights as any other label or category."

Too bad theConstitution doesn't guarantee gay Americans the same rights as any other person, eh? Or maybe it does, and 'we the people' just think it's just another piece of TP, to be trashed for political convenience.

Simon,

Neither of the politicians you mention were "pimping" or committing "pedophilia". Do you think posting such stuff wins you points or something?

And once again, a reminder, this isn't about them, it's about (or it's supposed to be about) Larry Craig. Back to topic, please.

Recovering,

Everyone has the same rights. I wrote nothing about someone in authority denying those rights in any given situation. That's why we have a long (and likely neverending) string of anti-discrimination laws.

That's also why the ACLU is so busy, and could be much busier if they had the funding.

As you well know, people ignore or break laws because they can. Doesn't change the fact that the laws exist. :-(

We really are very much in agreement here, Recovering. I'm just splitting hairs with semantics. Everyone has the same rights. Many don't have the opportunity or ability to exercise them.

Cheer up. Some places are better than others. Here in Philly the LGBT community is relatively strong and well integrated.

http://www.waygay.org/