Category: Politicians Suck

In 2006, Robert Casey unseated Rick Santorum from his senate seat.  To be honest, I decided to vote for Casey, despite the fact that Santorum had an excellent record on guns, and was endorsed by the NRA.  I voted for Casey because Santorum, quite honestly, scared the hell out of me with his views on a lot of social issues.  Casey got a good NRA rating, and kept saying he was a friend of gun owners, so I figured he’d be willing to fight for us.

I would appear to have been wrong.  I don’t think Casey is going to join the ranks of Chuck Schumer or Diane Feinstein any time soon, but he certainly doesn’t seem to be aware of the issues that are of concern to us, as his generic form letter response would indicate.

I’ve been singularly unimpressed by Senator Casey since taking office, mostly because I haven’t seen him doing anything.   Not that I want politicians to be busy doing things, other nursing a mild case of alcoholism in the local DC bars and eateries.  If more politicians did that instead of making laws, we might actually be better off.  But if Senator Casey dropped off the face of the earth, I don’t think I’d notice.  Would anyone notice?

Clearly, if The Senator wants to be a friend of gun owners, if he wants to earn his NRA rating, and maybe get an endorsement someday, he needs to get his staff to do a better job of communicating with gun owners.  We’re an important political constituency in this state, even for Democrats, and we’re not impressed by generic one-size-fits-all form letters.

Squeaky talks about some funny business in the Texas legislature, in regards to votes legislators cast, or rather, cast for other members who are absent.  I think the rules of the legislative body in Texas needs to be changed to stop this from happening, but this probably doesn’t mean the legislator is voting twice.  Remember, these votes are on record, and it one of their colleagues comes up on record as having voted for something he needed to be against for political reasons, you can imagine the trouble that would cause.

What is likely happening here, is legislators are casting votes on their colleague’s behalf.  I agree this should change, but not because it’s double voting, but because it’s lazy and unprofessional.   If you want to cast a vote, at the very least, you should show up.  Otherwise, how are the folks back home to know how uninvolved you are?

SayUncle has more from people who believe we can’t be trusted.   Can you  say “projection”?  I knew you could.

Arlen Specter is encouraging Craig to fight for his seat instead of resigning.  I’m guessing by this point the GOP is probably pretty unhappy that they didn’t take Specter out to the woodshed when they had the chance.

The problem is, the time to fight was when he got arrested.  You don’t get do overs for this kind of stuff.

Republicans seem to be rather eager to throw Larry Craig under the bus for trying to get a hummer in a public restroom, which is only entirely appropriate.   But they haven’t been so eager to distance themselves from Senator David Vitter, who seemed to enjoy soliciting prostitutes.

Surely some will claim it’s because Craig is gay.  That might have something to do with it; I mean, we’re used to politicians and prostitutes, gay sex in public restrooms not so much.   But I think it probably has more to do with the fact that Idaho has a Republican Governor, and Louisiana has a Democrat Governor.  It’s funny how that works, isn’t it?   I think if Idaho were run by a Democrat, Republicans would quickly become OK with whatever Senator Craig wants to insert into his mouth.

Via John Lott, we have a copy of Larry Craig’s transcript with the undercover officer. What continues to baffle me is why Craig didn’t fight it. I’m glad, however, that Craig got to feel, as a person who makes the laws, what it feels like to be subject to them. Personally, if this were me, and I was just being nervous fidgety in the stall, and was innocent, I would shut the hell up and tell the cop I’m not saying a damned thing to him until I have an attorney present, and I would fight the charge, and I would win.

Let me be clear here, my personal opinion is that Craig was probably trying to solicit sex in a public restroom. That’s what I believe as a citizen. What I’d believe as a juror or a judge is that there’s no way the state can meet it’s burden based on the evidence that’s being presented here, and my vote would be for not guilty.

But this undercover officer played Craig like a fiddle, and he plead guilty. Too bad for him. It happens to people all the time. Know your rights, and stand up for them. I’d say I feel sorry for Larry Craig, but I don’t. Once the “I’m a Senator!” card failed to work, he found himself an ordinary citizen, unprepared for dealing with a slick talking undercover officer. Am I the only one who thinks it’s poetic justice? Maybe I loathe politicians a little too much.

Clayton comments:

The only good news that can come out of this is that a lot of people will have to confront that this kind of behavior, while not necessarily the norm among homosexuals, isn’t particularly rare, either. Unfortunately, homosexual legislators, whether open or closeted, do a lot of stuff that reminds you that homosexuals really aren’t like the rest of us. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) lover was the result of Frank answering a personal ad so vulgar that I won’t quote it–and then his lover ran a prostitution service out of Frank’s apartment. More recently, Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) sending lascivious emails to pages less than half his age, and Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA) having an affair with a page less than half his age. All of these actions make an adulterous affair seem downright classy by comparison.

Well, considering that heterosexual politicians are generally worms when it comes to sex scandals, I’m not really shocked that the gay politicians are going to represent the very worst that the gay community has to offer.

Senator Craig should go ahead and resign, and let Governor Otter name a replacement who can serve out Craig’s term with dignity and respect for the people of Idaho. (I’m available!)

I agree that Craig should resign, and let the governor appoint a successor.

With friends like this, who needs enemies? It’s worth noting that he’s on the NRA board of directors.

UPDATE:

“I could see Craig look through the crack in the door from his position. Craig would look down at his hands, ‘fidget’ with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again. Craig would repeat this cycle for about two minutes,” the report states.

Craig then entered the stall next to Karsnia’s and placed his roller bag against the front of the stall door.

“My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall,” Karsnia stated in his report. “From my seated position, I could observe the shoes and ankles of Craig seated to the left of me.”

Craig was wearing dress pants with black dress shoes.

“At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area,” the report states.

Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that “I could … see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider.”

Karsnia then held his police identification down by the floor so that Craig could see it.

“With my left hand near the floor, I pointed towards the exit. Craig responded, ‘No!’ I again pointed towards the exit. Craig exited the stall with his roller bags without flushing the toilet. … Craig said he would not go. I told Craig that he was under arrest, he had to go, and that I didn’t want to make a scene. Craig then left the restroom.”

I couldn’t make that up if I tried! It’s a well known fact that Snowflakes in Hell does not frown upon gays or their lifestyle choices, but we do frown upon gay life style choices that involve guy-on-senator sex in the stall of an airport restroom. Based on this report, it would appear Larry Craig is an old pro at men’s room gay encounters.

We also frown on this kind of maneuver:

Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, “What do you think about that?” the report states.

Kudos to the undercover officer for having the stones to haul his ass down to the station and process the arrest, as would have happened to any of us.

The real victim in all of this is, of course, Craig’s wife and family. I have to admit this all sounds very familiar, but I suppose at least Larry didn’t nominate his boy toy to a prominent anti-terrorism position, when he was by no means qualified.

Via John Lott (who’s book I’m finishing up, and will write a review on shortly), Senator Specter is trying to inflate his own sense of importance again:

Specter, who championed their confirmation, said Tuesday he will personally re-examine the testimony to see if their actions in court match what they told the Senate.”There are things he has said, and I want to see how well he has complied with it,” Specter said, singling out Roberts.

The Specter inquiry poses a potential political problem for the GOP and future nominees because Democrats are increasingly complaining that the Supreme Court moved quicker and more dramatically than advertised to overturn or chip away at prior decisions.

Specter, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, who served as chairman during the hearings, said he wants to examine whether Roberts and Alito have “lived up” to their assurances that they would respect legal precedents.

Hey, GOP leadership, are you regretting throwing Pat Toomey under the bus yet? I am. I’ve always voted for Snarlen Arlen, because the other choices have been worse, but I’ve never enjoyed it.