Tap Tap, Career All Gone

I’m not a Republican. I don’t live in Utah (Jeni, in a comment below, has advised that the state I'm supposed to be referring to is Idaho). I’m not gay. I’m not fighting an internal battle to remain heterosexual.

I am feeling a bit for Larry Craig. the Republican Senator from Utah (Idaho). You all read about it. The cop whiling away his day in the restroom stall waiting for a mark. Just how had he messed up to get that assignment? Senator Craig tap tap tapping. Spreading his foot wider. Then…a plea to misdemeanor disorderly conduct. If you want the rest of the silly details at this late date, utilize Google News.

Let us assume the “worst.” He’s a repressed gay guy. He was trolling for some anonymous sex, in Minnesota, of all places. The most The Man can get him for is disorderly conduct.

Think about this without the gay context. You’re a guy or a girl. You put some moves on a guy or girl. Tell me you haven’t. Ept or inept. Your full intention was a sexual encounter. OK, it didn’t happen in a public restroom; but, you fully intended to try to get laid. Turns out the guy or the girl is a cop. Somehow your moves, tapping or otherwise, got declared to be deviant. Stupid you, you figure you’ll plea to a minor misdemeanor rather than go through the public and expensive process of being declared stupid, but not criminal.

Then you’re found out. You’re guilty of being stupid. No doubt there. You deal with the “outing” badly. I’m leaving. I’m leaving if I don’t get this overturned. I’m not leaving. Ever had a big problem in your life and experienced denial? Senator Craig did.

Was he, is he, a bad Senator? I don’t know. Without doing research, but knowing he’s Republican and from Utah (Idaho), I know that I probably don’t agree with many of his political views. But, I do know that this incident has no real bearing on the question other than to prove him to be human.

So what does he get from his Republican Senate colleagues? Pariah status. They are shunning him like he was the unpopular kid in the fifth grade.

“Craig's estrangement from his own party was on full display this week during a Senate roll call vote. Not one of the many Republicans gathered on the Senate floor spoke to or even went near their Idaho colleague. He stood all alone until Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) came to the rescue and greeted him warmly.

Nelson later expressed sympathy when asked about his solitary colleague.

‘As a human being, you're always feeling for other human beings who are hurting, and he's gone through a very hurtful period,’ Nelson said.” NPR.org.

Bear in mind that there is no real political consequence to them as the result of his stupidity. I’ve read that whichever Republican runs for his seat in Utah (Idaho, hell they'll probably do well in Utah) next year is a shoo-in. So why the animus?

I don’t know. Could Republican Senators be, as a group, homophobic? Since no Democrats are rushing to his defense, other than Sen. Nelson, tepidly, are they guilty of political opportunism? Let’s watch the Republicans self destruct!

If Democrats truly believed in a society that should allow people to engage in private behavior that deviates from the norm, but harms no one, wouldn’t a couple of them make a move to say that the shunning of Senator Craig is uncalled for? Throw the shunning back in the Republicans’ face, so to speak?

I forgot, they’re all consumed with the past sins of the Ottoman Empire.