And once again I treat myself to a picture of a lovely, active, athletic girl who whips people’s asses by throwing hard things at them… Totally irrelevant, but that’s how life generally is and should be.
Everyone has already heard about the lewd conduct charges against Sen. Larry Craig. I’ve avoided saying anything until now, because it was not funny enough to me to poke at, and it is not serious enough to warrant a mention here. But now it is serious enough. The serious part is not him wanting to put a part of him into another man’s something-or-other. We don’t even know if that’s really the case. Its all hearsay. The serious issue here to take note of is how the media has already framed this. Check out the headlines: We move from “Sen. Craig Caught Being Naughty” to “‘I’m Not Gay!’ says Craig” to “The GOP Must Face Judgment Over Republican Senators Who Visit Cruisy-Restrooms”. These above are my paraphrases, but here are the real ones:
- Idaho Senator Pleads Guilty After Men’s Room Arrest
- Sen. Craig: I am not Gay
- Craig and GOP Await Voters’ Judgement
This change all happened within the course of the afternoon… or I the night in the US. That is convenient, given the short memories of most media consumers. One night they think that Sen. Craig got in trouble being naughty. That’s not a very big deal, it happens all the time to high-ranking politicians and they come out of it unscathed. So the next day when people wake up, they hear a whole new story, that the GOP is in serious moral trouble! Oh my! Wow! What a shocker! Its like getting two sensational stories for the price of one!
What disturbs me here is not that the guy might have a penchant for penis, or even that he might get turned on by public places and anonymity. What disturbs me is the instant connection the media makes within their headlines that casts suspicion and doubt on a whole group. Why must the GOP await judgment? Certainly, the people of the US must judge the GOP, and the Democrats, and the Green Party for that matter. They do every few years. That’s normal and that’s democracy. But we judge them on much more serious issues than what someone does with their penis.
Come to think of it, I don’t remember all of the Democrats coming under fire when President Clinton was running around the Oval Office with his pants down (anyone care to note the irony of which publication this link is from?). So why is the whole GOP under pressure now? Also, Sen. Craig is on a number of serious committees… What he does with willing participants in public restrooms may be pretty gross to contemplate (so I urge you not to… yuk…), but I don’t think it really affects his ability to contemplate and vote on issues.
Or does it? I don’t think my constant obsession with vagina is a serious hindrance to me in performing my professional duties… Then again, maybe the homophobes are right after all and cock obsession is much more dangerous than vagina obsession. I can see the campaigns now “Have cock obsession? Better get a designated driver! Can’t think to drive with all that cock on the brain! Look at Sen. Craig, he can’t even vote straight!”
An interesting footnote to this: Sen. Craig plead guilty months ago in June, and someone looking for dirt dug it up. This guy didn’t perjur himself, at least not in the way Clinton did. Here’s an interesting op/ed piece about the situation. I don’t agree with everything this guy has to say, but he has some interesting ideas here One thing he mentions but does not elaborate on is the factor of Clinton being a media darling (not hard, being a Democratic socialist), and everyone else mentioned getting buried under scandals being reviled by every journalist who graduated from a left-leaning school (read as: most of them).
Here is something funny… Check this paragraph out from an article at Bloomberg. Wow… this guy hates Republicans and sex-lovers alike!
“Being homosexual isn’t a crime. If the three-term Idaho senator didn’t belong to a political party that makes homosexuality an evil to be stamped out, or a matter to be discriminated against, he might not have found himself in a public toilet trolling for a moment of human contact.”
-Margaret Carlson
So this guy thinks that being a gay man and a Republican is such a paradox that it would drive one to visit cruisy restrooms? Now that’s fair and balanced reporting for you. At least its in an op/ed piece, not in the main Bloomberg content.
This is just too funny…
Ah, and in other weird news-ish writings today, check out this creepy article about Billy Graham. Not that I have anything against him, I’m not really educated about the guy enough to know if that article is all just blowing smoke or not, but it is creepy all the same.