Craig Reconsiders

It looks like Larry Craig may not resign after all. I have mixed feelings about this. On the merits, nothing Craig has done -- being gay, tapping feet in Minneapolis -- seems to me to warrant resignation or even to be wrong at all. The hypocrisy rankles, of course, but I don't see being a hypocritical anti-gay politician as any worse than being an earnest one. And in some ways the weird, covert nature of Craig's gay life suggests the possible existence of a level of sincerity and authenticity to his his anti-gay political convictions -- perhaps both are driven by a very real conviction that some of his deepest desires are deeply immoral and require repression by the state. Who knows? I'd never vote for Craig, but my reasons for not voting for him have nothing to do with what happened in Minneapolis.

But, of course, Craig isn't mounting that sort of bold defense that admits he is what he is and denounces the "pre-Stonewall morality fable" unfolding here. Instead, he's rather implausibly denying that he ever went in for anonymous gay sex. At this point, Craig becomes a liar and a buffoon in ways that seem to be firing offenses on their own terms.

Meanwhile, Senator Vitter who at least seems to have committed acts that violate laws that Senator Vitter seems to support, is sitting pretty in his Senate seat.