The more Larry Craig talks, the less sympathetic I am. Here he is with Matt Lauer:
Larry Craig: I call it gladiator politics. Put the politician in the arena and beat him until he’s dead and let the crowd cheer. And that’s really tragic because we’ve watched this and certainly with the gay community, a fair number of them have become very militant.
Larry Craig, during the Clinton years;
It’s a bad boy Bill Clinton, you’re a naughty boy. The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy, a naughty boy, I’m going to speak out for the citizens of my state who in the majority think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy.
You know, if Larry Craig had not spent his entire career publicly and loudly moralizing and legislating about people’s personal behavior, and if he didn’t belong to the party that has made destroying people a sport, he might have a point about gladiator politics.
And does anyone have a picture of Roberta Muldoon from the movie version of the World According to Garp?
*** Update ***
In case you were wondering how screwed up I am and what goes on inside my twisted head, every time I have thought about this incident, this is the image I get when I think of Larry Craig:
You be the judge.
SomeCallMeTim
“Billy, do you like gladiator movies?” Maybe not the way to go, Mr. Craig.
Elvis Elvisberg
Well, he does have a point. Just because you’re a hypocrite doesn’t mean that you can’t be right sometimes.
I guess you’re not a bleeding heart liberal like me, yet, John. I do feel bad for this guy– for probably living a lie, and for getting a raw deal from the Minneapolis Restroom Authority.
He’s a hypocrite and an asshole, but I do feel bad for the guy and his family.
His interview with Lauer was an awful lot closer to your suggested farewell speech, too. Calling out Mitt Romney for throwing him under the bus? This could get fun.
John Cole
I am still sympathetic, Elvis. I don’t think anyone should have to go through this bullshit. The problem is, I become less sympathetic when he reminds me that he is a major reason this goes on.
And I loved his bus remarks regarding Romney.
Buck
I agree.
Jay
That Clinton-era quote makes me think of the stereotypical image of a dominatrix.
One almost expects David Vitter to be running around in a diaper saying “Yes he is, mommy! Clinton is a bad, naughty boy and deserves a spanking!”
(Now that I’ve left that cheery image in your head this morning…)
Buck
Republican hypocrisy…
They have to be the talk-tough, war-mongering party. It helps to balance out the comic relief of their actions.
Grouchy Marxist
The hypocrisy is galling, but I think there’s more going on here.
It really does make sense that these types like Craig and Vitter are GOP. Here’s why:
If you get an extra thrill out of your hijinks because it’s “forbidden fruit”, then you want to keep that behavior forbidden. Liberals and their ilk, with their permissive attitudes of “Yeah? Oh. Whatever” would just take your fun away.
The GOP, on the other hand, is more inclined to put on that tight leather Nazi outfit, swing the riding-crop in stinging rebuke, and impose their own brand of righteous discipline on their cringing minions. What’s not to like?
Bob In Pacifica
Since I never watch this crap I have to ask did Matt Lauer directly ask Craig about his behavior during the Clinton thang? That would have made for interesting television.
I guess in the mind of Larry Craig all of his problems are due to his center of gravity while using public restrooms (thus his wide stance) rather than any sexual proclivities. He can’t connect his own dalliances with those of Clinton because he can’t admit it, not that Bill was instantly forthcoming.
Kilgore Trout
If a fiction writer had a closeted conservative character talking like that, we’d call it a cheap shot. You really can’t make this stuff up.
Elvis Elvisberg
Fair enough, John. I don’t think we actually disagree at all.
Kilgore Trout, of all people, is right that reality has been much more outrageous than fiction, or even than satire, for the past six years.
So, can Colbert with the SC primary? Will they realize he’s being ironic?
Pb
Wow, you must never watch this crap… not that I saw that interview, but Matt Lauer is a huge tool, so it should come as no surprise that he didn’t ask that. Which is funny, seeing as how the article practically led with that quote, and then never mentioned it in the interview…
Pb
Sure (and maybe he will). In retrospect, isn’t that sort of how Bush won? Of course, if Colbert was at the top of the ticket, his VP would be Huckabee–although if Colbert only got the Democratic nomination instead, I don’t know that Huckabee would accept.
Billy K
GMA is not deisgned to inform or intellectually challenge viewers. It’s designed to make viewers believe they are informed and have been intellectually challenged.
The Other Steve
If I understand what Craig is saying here…
“I’m not gay. This whole thing is brought about my a giant conspiracy of militant gays to make me appear gay so that they can further their own agenda.”
He’d have served himself a lot better by just shutting up.
Punchy
I think he meant “Glad-I-ate-her Politics”. Cuz, ya know, he ain’t gay and he digs the ladies.
kchiker
I watched the Larry King interview of Stephen Colbert. When out of character, he seems to be the kindest, most genuine person I have ever seen on TV.
jenniebee
Bad, naughty boys? Gladiators? Is this kitsch or cliche? It’s certainly treading a fine line.
I feel kind of bad for the guy because he clearly hasn’t been able to come to terms with who he is, but Christ on a Crutch, he’s not exactly a troubled teen here, is he? He’s had a few years to sort out his own identity, he just hasn’t done it. If this guy wasn’t so intent on condemning people for their sexual proclivities, he might have been able to accept his own and moved beyond furtive sex in bathroom stalls. And if he hadn’t turned that condemnation into a career, getting caught trying to initiate sex in a bathroom wouldn’t have resulted in anything more than the slap on the wrist it is for most of the people who get caught doing the same thing.
So I do feel mildly sorry for the guy, but I can’t get around it that he made his own bathroom stall, now he has to lie in it.
comrad mattski
And the wife just had me watch Man of the Year (Movie was, Meh) last night but alas Colbert had no doubles in his name.
jcricket
John – Why do you picture Janet Reno when you think about Larry Craig?
Bombadil
When I see Roberta Muldoon/John Lithgow, Craig isn’t the first politician to come to mind — this is.
Face
Is that Linda Tripp?
Dreggas
Nah It would be Larry Craig in a gimp costume, Rudy Giuliani in Drag as a Dominatrix and david vitter in a diaper doing the naughty boy bit.
Jake
Dude. There are flecks of spittle (I hope) on the inside of my monitor now. Please tell me this a transrcipt of an obscene phone call.
Oh wait. Never mind.
Jesus. You can almost hear the panting and frantic jingling of pocket change.
As for feeling sorry for him, if I did I’d have to feel sorry for humanoids like Phyllis Schlafly.
I can’t and I won’t, so I don’t.
Krista
1. Clinton should have responded with “That’s what she said.”
2. Is it just me, or does anybody else find it incredibly inappropriate for him to have spoken to an intelligent, grown man that way? If he wanted to censure Clinton, that was fine, but that quote just strikes me as really creepy and weird. He wasn’t scolding him as you’d scold another adult. He wasn’t scolding him as you’d scold a child. He wasn’t even scolding him as you’d scold a Schauzer who’d peed on your carpet. He really seemed to be scolding him as a dom would scold a client. It just strikes me as really odd and inappropriate.
Peter Johnson
Clinton was indeed a naughty boy. The fact that Craig was entrapped in a bogus sting does nothing to change the truth of his comments about Clinton.
What Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky was probably the least of his crimes. But just like Eliot Ness had to get Al Capone on tax evasion…
Punchy
Anyone else notice the odd absence of TZ on this thread?
Dreggas
Agreed on the Domme/Client part. However if ya want to make it even funnier (and creepier) just give Craig a lisp and a really flaming voice ala the Jerky Boys “gay” personality.
chopper
so you’re saying he was a bad boy, a naughty boy…a nasty, bad, naughty boy who deserves a spanking.
you’re creeping me out.
Zifnab
Score one for IOKIYAR!
Bogus sting! Liberal Conspiracy! The gays were after me! Just out of interest, Pete, why is it that he still pled guilty in the blink of an eye? If this was just another Duke Lacrosse Rape Scandal (beat Paul L to it!) then he should have fought tooth and nail to clear his name, not rolled over belly up and confess.
I still have zero pity for this man. If anyone deserves to be busted by laws against wide stances in bathrooms, its a man who any other day would have embraced such legislation whole-heartedly. When Craig wants to introduce legislation to prevent this kind of travesty in the future, he might get some sympathy.
Peter Johnson
The amount of homophobia I’m seeing here from the supposedly tolerant left is just mindboggling.
You’re pretty much saying “Hey, I’m for gay marriage, but watch a gladiator movie or engage in gay sex…and you’re a scumbag.”
Nice. Smart, strong.
Lee
pointing out hypocrisy != homophobia
You really need to work on your troll skills. We expect much better here.
dickweathers
Pish-posh! I’m all for people watching gladiator movies and having gay sex.
As long as it’s in the sacred confines of a gay marriage.
The Mechanical Eye
The amount of homophobia I’m seeing here from the supposedly tolerant left is just mindboggling.
No. Please just stop.
If you’re arguing that the ridicule for Sen. Craig comes out of his homosexuality alone, you’re either willingly lying to yourself or lying to us. It has everything to do with an apparently very closeted, delusional man dropping lines that allude to the biggest gay stereotypes around.
Take your false concern-trolling elsewhere. It’s pitiful and I remember seeing this whining all the time when I read Instapundit like a true believer.
It’s so disingenuous I don’t think you believed your own comment.
DU
Zifnab
Are we on the same boards?
Krista
Um, no. Once again, you’re not getting it. None of us here give a flying fart at a rolling donut if Larry Craig has a gay orgy while watching gladiator movies. What has OUR knickers in a twist is the fact that he has seen fit, on multiple occasions, to poke HIS nose into other people’s sex lives, and to loudly declare moral pronouncements on the characters of said individuals.
In other words, he lived in a glass house, and threw some pretty freaking big stones. Now, his glass house is broken, and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him?
I’d feel sorry for him if he showed even a breath of remorse for having been such a sanctimonious prick about other people’s sex lives. Everybody makes mistakes, and sometimes it takes an upheaval for people to see their mistakes. But he still sees absolutely NO parallel between the way he treated others, and the way he’s now being treated.
Jake
Au contraire Peter Hugh Johnson. Craig isn’t some poor confused closet (or stall) case. He’s just another pervert who gets a thrill out of screwing people who don’t have all of the rights of the rest of the population. The fact that he gets to support laws that keep them in that position is just gravy. Or something.
Still it’s nice to see you reject homophobia. I assume you find Craig’s voting record repulsive.
Peter Johnson
I don’t agree with him on issues to do with homosexuality if that’s what you mean. I support same sex civil unions
Tsulagi
These guys crack me up. Odds that he was actually thinking of himself and getting a little excited when winding up that comment? I’m thinking pretty high. Men’s restrooms + Larry Craig = a nasty, bad, naughty boy.
Just your standard Republican manly man values warrior while, as he said on that show last night, “disapproving of that lifestyle.” They praise Jeeeezus, and keep the latest issue of GQ in their bathroom.
The Other Andrew
Remember–our tax dollars are inadvertantly paying for arms for Iraqi insurgents, but it’s the gay militants we need to worry about.
Tax Analyst
But I think that’s part of the whole point – I don’t think a mere slap on the wrist would give Larry Craig all that much of a rise. Now if you up the ante to a solid double-bun thrashing with a good, sturdy paddle or reasonable substitute I think the still-or-former Senator’s interest would be pricked.
After that you could probably interest him in a couple of used diving suits and some enhancing accoutrements and accessories.
THEN we can really talk about how to deal with “nasty, bad, naughty boy(s)”.
chopper
Are we on the same boards?
i mean, i’m on the board full of people that get jokes. apparently, Wang Doodle isn’t.
tBone
I have to admit, Peter Johson is pretty good. He skates right up to edge of being too over the top, but always manages to pull back before he goes over the credibility cliff. It’s that kind of fine control that separates the good spoofs from the bad.
ThymeZone
The elephant outside this tent is hypocrisy. There’s not a doubt that Craig is one of the world’s biggest assholes, and no, there is no pun intended, or appropriate. The point is, his assholeness is exactly why he should be defended, and why he is an example of how even a complete shithead can be a victim of bad law, bad law enforcement, stupid social policy, and bigotry. And the further point is, if you don’t defend the people you don’t like, then you open the door to further abuses.
Craig’s case could be an opportunity for people on the left to demonstrate real respect for equal protection under the law, which is what 100% of gay-rights and gay-bashing stuff is really about thanks to our Republican friends. Instead, it’s just become an opportunity to unleash hatred on Craig and a torrent of crude gay-bashing “humor” into the public airwaves, intertubes and print media.
The right wingers are winning this battle by appearing to lose it. They have exposed the fact that progressives will line up to tell cornhole jokes and make fun of queers just like the Dobsonites do, because it appears — falsely — to be politically expedient to do so.
This might just be the ugliest spectacle I’ve ever seen in my 50 years of association with liberalism.
I’ve lost a lot of respect for the people on the left recently. I put them in the same league as the people who used to laugh with Rush Limabaugh at 12-year-old Chelsea Clinton’s braces. As long as it’s for a good cause, you can laugh at, and despise, and shit on anything.
Tax Analyst
TZ, I’d agree with you, except Craig is a complete parody unto himself and continually goes out of his way to make himself the butt of a virtual endless torrent of crude innuendo. At every stage of this fiasco he has acted in a way to extend the shelf-life of his personal ridicule and humiliation. You barely have to shake and add water to “diss” him; he places the loaded weapon in your hands and then sticks his tongue out and dares you to dump on him. When you mix that with his life-long record of total hypocrisy I think it’s hard to expect a different reaction, especially from a crowd of commenter’s so thoroughly steeped and adept in wise-assery.
Pb
I’ll bite; name three.
Also, what’s your historical opinion on sodomy and the pirate tradition?
Jake
Tax Analyst, I think you may have set some sort of record for most double entendres in a single post.
Or maybe it’s the fact you’re talking about Craig.
A dirrrrty mind helps too.
JC
I’m really late to this thread, but I have this crazy idea – and I know it’s crazy – but I wanted to get it out there anyway.
You know how when guys go to prison they “go gay”, because of lack of contact with females – and when they come back out, they go straight again?
I also know of a few straight guys who, every once in awhile, will go “pick up” a gay guy, because:
a. It’s easy, if thestraight person is decent looking.
b. Gay guys give (I’m told) incredible blowjobs, as they like receiving great blowjob.
c. You don’t have to pay, of course (which is illegal, and risky on it’s own).
If a guy likes getting “risk free” sex, quickly, without any issues, their wife/girlfriend doesn’t get “wild” like they used to (or often, sex becomes a negotiation in the relationship, which can be a hassle) – then getting a blowjob off a gay guy is one of the “best” ways to get some sexual activity, easy, fairly risk-free, without any emotional complications, and without breaking the law.
Thoughts?
jake
Yep. Either this is spoof or your friends are assholes.
jc
Oh, my friends are definitely assholes, no doubt. Cheap too, since they could just go to massage houses, get “worked on”, by a nice asian girl.
But that’s my point, right? Craig’s definitely an asshole.
And calling someone an asshole doesn’t really address that there are situations where straight guys would engage in same sex encounters.
Agree or disagree?
chazaroo
C’mon. Roberta Muldoon would never fuck a low life like craig. When Roberta could fuck orrin, mitch, linsey, why fuck around with a second string creep. How about craig’s wife, she does’nt know this guy is a cocksucker?
TenguPhule
And if you defend the very people who make and enforce these stupid laws, they’ll keep just making them.
The law applies to everybody or it applies to nobody.
Chris Johnson
Wipe your mouth, dude ;)
witkacy
GOP fetish for privatization extends even to sex! Craig’s sex privatization scheme takes sex out of civil rights and hate crime legislation and enforcement and health care insurance and whatnot, and keeps it REAL private in select men’s rooms…He’s probably mad at gays for not pimping the system the way he does: “Well my name is Ernest in town, and Jack in the country” etc etc