Wonkette

Well, I, for one, am surprised that Craig's defense wasn't: "...the undercover officer just didn't have a square... he didn't have a square to spare!"

Oh this is worth a second posting. Olbermann's Dragnet:

[www.youtube.com]

Great recording. Sounds like an old Cheech and Chong record--"Heeere, Billee, swallow this too...."

It is perfectly clear by now that he could not have done this because he is not gay. Which would mean that if he plead guilty to doing this, he must be....,

So, the police officer doesn't "do this crap" and "doesn't want to get into a pissing match"?

I think it's a little too late for that, sweetie.

I didn't think it was possible to take a little attempt at pole smokin' to such dizzying heights (or depths). It just makes me want to evacuate...my home, my bowels, my testicles, whatever. And pardon me for asking, but who would WANT to let Larry blow them?

I like when the cop explains his options: "You can plead guilty ... you won't have to explain anything ... you'll pay a fine ... DONE."

Yes. Done indeed.

So many memorable quotes.

"I'm disappointed in you, Senator"

"I don't seek activity in bathrooms."

Odd thing is, Craig probably paid men to talk to him like that before.

Who picks up toilet paper once it's fallen on the floor? You tell me a U.S. senator would do that instead of just rolling off some more?

Someone needs to go to that bathroom already and take some photos of the stalls. How easy is it really to accidentally touch the foot of the person in the stall next to you?

That officer's Minnesota accent is very cute.

I need to make this flight = I need to make this go away.

Oh Larry, you're so funny.

I like the cop's last line:

"Embarrassing. Embarrassing. No wonder why we're going down the tubes."

OMG h3's teh libtardz@1!11111!!1!!!!

so THIS is what the interviews sound like after dudes get busted by "To Catch a Predator"

Does anyone find it weird -- and more than a little disturbing -- that the top news story to come out of Minneapolis this summer has turned out to be Sen. Larry Craig's arrest for trying to play bathroom hokey-pokey with a police officer, and not, you know, that whole I-35W bridge collapse?

This is going to be one fun GOP convention! When GOP bigwigs aren't fearful for their lives while driving the Minnesota portions of the interstate highway system, they'll be afraid to use the restrooms in the convention center! Awesome.

Why is Craig's story so hard for everyone to, er, swallow? I often go into public bathrooms and pick toilet paper off of the floor with my knuckles.

@No joke.

@Dave J.: "People vote for you!" Not any more.

@procrastinator, esq.: My god, you're going to need to make reservations months in advance to use the Minneapolis airport toilets during the GOP convention.

Craig is also guilty of stall-waiting etiquette. Who the hell waits RIGHT AT THE DOOR for a stall to empty? Hell no! You wait waaaaay over on the other side of the bathroom, brah! Harra!

As much fun as it is (and will continue to be) to jump on Craig's head, this is not funny -- it's nauseating. I need to go take a shower.

@nicolsonde:

"I tend to spread my legs when I lower my pants."

@liberaltruthsayer: jump on Craig's head

Not... going... to... say... it.

@Rick Paulas:

Well, check out Senator Craig's appology that aired on Letterman Tuesday:

[video.google.com]

Did you catch it when the cop says "I don't want to have a pissing match with you"? Uh, pardon the very, very bad pun!

"I successfully go to the bathroom regularly!"

Congrats, Senator!

Why do I have the feeling that after the recording stopped, the officer went all "Pearl" on Craig?

"Did my foot slide over and touch yours? Maybe. Did my hand go below the stall? Yes, I think it probably did."

Wait a minute, where have I heard this before? Rephrasing the questions and answering the new ones? Holy shit, Larry Craig lies just like Donald Rumsfeld!

Of course, you know what that means. Now that he's an embarrassment to his country, he'll only be around for three more years.

The officer's surprise that a US Senator is lying to him makes me nostalgic.

@Moncrief: That officer's Minnesota accent is very cute.

Did I miss the part about the woodchipper?

Predictably, we've got Larry Craig blogs.

The obvious choice - predates the scandal --
larrycraig.blogspot.com

But the internets are nothing but resourceful --
"Senator Larry Craig's Airport tips"
senatorlarrycraig.blogspot.com

Actually, he is innocent. It's not illegal to put your foot and/or your hand under a stall divider. If there's one lesson y'all need to take from this, it's DO NOT TALK TO COPS WITHOUT YOUR LAWYER PRESENT. And jeez, did they really have to release the tape? wtf? Minneapolis police - there to protect and humiliate.

I haven't heard this much bathroom talk since preschool.

Now that Larry Craig is all but out of the closet, can we start calling him Jenny?

Geez, Larry! The cop doesn't care if you is or ain't a homosexual. He cares that you're a dirty hypocritical liar! Maybe if you weren't so full of self-hatred you could be your true self instead of legislating against people who love know who they are and want to live their lives out and proud.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T and whatnot.

@PeeJay: I know. Ech. Plus, how do you spell E-N-T-R-A-P-M-E-N-T?

Welcome to the 50s.

The reason he needed. to. make. this. flight., as he so emphatically... libtard proposal. Which ended up, in the long run, being a pretty worthless vote to cast.

Jiminy! What is the hatred of a href today here. Was linking to the Senate vote on June 11th against Gonzales no-confidence he made it back for at 6pm. Jiminy God!

god, this is so hilarious and sad.
um, can we get a podcast?

Can we expect to see this re-enacted on The Shield, only much bitch-slapping and blood?

The BEST part was when that cute little arresting officer said "I am disappointed in you, sir", with all the conviction of any upstanding ranking minority member.

Unbelievable!

That cop can entrap and embarrass me anytime. He doesn't care ah-boot sexual preference.

Everyone seems to be missing an obvious point regarding Craig's "wide stance" defense: unless he completely dropped his pants and underwear a stance wide enough to encroach into the adjoining stall is not possible.

Craig seems to be somewhat around the same size as I and presumably wears pants of roughly the same waist. In the name of forensic science, I measured my "stance" while on the pot. Even with my pants and boxer briefs down to the floor, the widest "stance" I could get, outboard-edge to outboard-edge of my toes, was 26 inches without busting the seams on both slacks and skivvies.

The standard width of non-handicapped toilet stalls is 32 inches.

But maybe Craig normally sits sideways or askew on the toilet?

Huh huh, he said
"Try to get it off."

O.K. Put me down as one liberal Democrat who is now officially rooting for Larry Craig. I mean, what the fuck?? The guy is gay and he was trying to get a hummer. Why is this cop treating him like Osama Freaking Bin Laden? I also read that Norm Coleman is calling on Sen. Craig to resign and others are returning campaign contributions from him. (Probably afraid the checks have man goo cooties on them.) I mean, NORM FUCKING COLEMAN, whose Dad was arrested for banging a prostitute in a parked car earlier this year and who most people suspect is a raging homo himself is all of a sudden Mr. Moral Scold. As Larry Craig would say, "Jiminy God!"

I don't care if you're a senator...fucking with th po-lice just doesn't work out.

PELOSISLOVECHILD,

I'm liberal too. Still, I wouldn't welcome a stranger putting his foot and hand underneath the stall and into my bathroom stall. The fact that some wouldn't be bothered by it does not make it not harassment and disorderly conduct that needs to be stopped.

I'm going to Minneapolis tomorrow. I'm glad that they're trying to get the bathrooms under control, as I might need to use them. I think the MN police did a great job in finding one of the perpetrators and I commend them for their work. As a side effect it also came out that how few morals Senator Larry Craig has and there's a good chance he'll resign.

Not the best way to keep bad senators out of office. It would have been better if Idahoans hadn't elected him in the first place. But as a citizen of the United States, I'll take what I can get.

@PelosisLoveChild:
Didn't you hear the cop? He doesn't think he's a bad person, it's not about sexual orientation, he's just disappointed because he lied. It hurt his feelings, who would want to make such a sweet little boy be disillusioned? Shouldn't that be a crime all on its own?

Seriously though, you'd think a politician would know how to deal with a classic good cop/bad cop routine. (maybe he thought it was a good cop/good cop routine, you know, kind of like a he said/he said situation). They didn't have shit on him, and they ruined him by tapping into his fears of being outed.

:( I'm deleting the cops now :(

After listening to that tape again, I think I have a little bit of a crush on Sgt. Dave Karsnia. Hats off to you, sir.

@Freedumb:
Never mind, asshole voted yes on cloture for the marriage amendment. Dude was done in by his own self-loathing.

I'm redirecting my :( to society in general.

@Freedumb: I think that's why I'm not distressed by the entrapment issue -- it's irrelevant to our glee. Here's a man who's happy to indulge in moral demagoguery in the service of denying rights to American citizens; getting caught engaging in what he decries for political benefit is what we're celebrating here.

No, there shouldn't have been an arrest; there shouldn't have been a law that predicated the arrest. But so long as United States Senators like Larry Craig support such laws (and the bigotry underlying them), I'm happy to see him hung by his nuts.

Yeah, but is he gay?

I don't know if he's gay or not, but the interrogation sounds like a railroad job to me. After all, it was a crowded bathroom in a busy airport. What was supposed to happen? Were they going to join each other in the same stall? What would the people waiting have to say?

If nothing else, I guess I've learned that if I ever have to use a public restroom in Minneapolis, I'd best keep my feet together and my hands on my knees. Otherwise, some undercover cop (whose duty station is on the can) might decide that if I don't remember the things for which he was watching, then I must be a liar.

The problem with America is that we are so bad at dealing with taboos. Legalize prostitution, create a prostitute's union, ban street walking, forget about it. Same thing with gays.

As a heterosexual, I do not want to be propositioned in a toilet, so I don't have a lot of symapthy for Craig. On the other hand, why not have swinger's clubs in airports?

Same thing is true with Iran. So we don't like Iran, fine. But obviously, we have to negotiate with them if we want peace in Iraq. We just can't get it together.

"You entrapped me."

Ok. Let's just imagine that Senator Craigslist was in fact 'entrapped' by the officer. EVEN IF the cop made the first move, the Senator responding and engaged the officer. So while the charges would not stick it is still clear that the Senator intended to get his rocks off in a public bathroom.

It would be similar to a cop offering me a huge bag of Amigo Blanco. Sure, it would be entrapment and I could get the charges dismissed with a good lawyer, but that doesn't change the fact that I really wanted to buy it... bad.

Craig is unbelievable on so many levels that to choose one is difficult, but here goes anyway: The entire tape shows that Craig knew exactly what the cop was accusing him of, which implies he was familiar with the bizarre code of bathroom propositioning.

Let's pretend for a moment that what actually happened was that Craig took a crap in a wide stance and decided to clean up random bits of toilet paper off the floor. Wouldn't you spend your interview time saying something to the effect of "What the hell are you talking about? I'm taking a crap and all of a sudden a badge comes under the stall. Why in the world would I put my left hand under the stall, and even if I did, what difference would that make? I'm sorry I touched your toe dude, but I like to spread my legs when I'm crapping." Instead, he says things like "I'm not gay" and "I don't do this."

I also concur with the implausibility of the "wide stance" defense. When your pants are around your ankles, it tends to keep your ankles fairly close together.

@PeeJay: You're absolutely right. The moral (if one can be found) to this story is SHUT THE HELL UP AND GET A DAMN LAWYER! Frankly, the evidence was sketchy and circumstantial and the average 2L could have probably gotten him out of this mess. No, the dumbass has to go and plead guilty (becuase that's not a matter of public record or anything, right?).

Pro se is a bad idea kids. Do not try this at home.

@Cranky Little Camperette:

That having been said, even if he is straight, the idea that this vehement Family Values, Moral Superiority Crusader will be eternally tagged with this has sent my schadenfreude-ometer off the charts.

@Sean Robertson: Or Mary?

@Magister: I think the transcript made clear that the can wasn't that busy. Larry waited for the stall next to the cop, while others stood empty. Though I think that legislating morality is wrong, the laws as they exist ought be applied equally to all. Hetero, homo, for or not for profit.

The esteemed Senator was simply posing as a bathroom cruisin' gayman to expose the Minnesota police force's tactics of entrapment for all to see. I think it's honourable. Honourable like a married man in the weeds at a rest stop to underline the nation's problems with marriage.

@Cranky Little Camperette: Sometimes pro se is the only way.

@pelosislovechild:

don't forget that Norm Coleman's original campaign manager and later state director had a sex change operation...

I live in Mpls. I don't want anyone reaching under my stall, but I still vote no on having bathrooms monitored and making all this criminal.

I noticed the cop said: "We expect this from a guy from the hood" (meaning shuck and jive lying) but not from you". The racism continues in my Minnesota nice city. It was a real Freudian slip, and typical of Mpls. PD.

The whole thing is so unnecessary. Leave people alone. If it exposes a hypocrite, it has some positives. But get Big Brother out of the bathroom. We'll call for help if we need it.