Letters to the Editor
Jabari
Published Letters: 57 Editor's Choice: 2
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@ petralyn, + "lock 'em up"
[Read the article: Bush's magical shield from criminal prosecution]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Isn't it the fact of the matter that the Democrats' strategy is to run out the clock on the Bush presidency while being just oppositional enough to keep the base sullen instead of mutinous, avoid the terrifying political risks of mounting any genuine challenge to despotic powers asserted by a despised president, hope that Bush leaves office without blowing up the world first, and hope that he is replaced by a Democrat or at least by a less despotic Republican, such that the present constitutional crisis can fade away without anyone having to do anything that might significantly upset the status quo?"
Yes, that most obviously is the fact of the matter.
The Congress, after all, has the "inherent authority" to find someone in contempt, and to sanction that same someone for being contemptous. For the Congress to pretend that this authority relies upon the cooperation of the Executive Branch (by way of the U.S. Attorney's office) is as much an assault on the Separation of Powers doctrine as is the Bush/Cheney radical reading of the scope of the Executive's power. That "reliance" amounts to nothing more than a legislative convenience, and hardly escuses the Congress from exercising it's Constitutional perogatives.
The Congress--which, after all, has it's own police force--should arrest Ms. Meirs, et al., send the whole lot of them down to Central Cellblock, and commence with a prosecution. And, should the White House, through one of the Executive Branch agencies, choose to get in the way, the Congress should simply de-fund the relevant offices/agencies and send those (by then former) executive branch employees to the nearest unemployment office. Pension-free, of course (which threat, I'm betting, will do much to focus the minds of those civil service employees).
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But ISN;T it entrapment??
[Read the article: The return of Larry Craig?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]On one of the better-known websites that lists locations where anonymous sex can be arranged and had, a commenter for the Minneapolis airport location noted that most of the men who appeared in that bathroom looked like Senator Craig, while the undercover officer was a young hottie (and, lest we be confused, gay men are still men, and share with their straight brothers a special penchant for Pretty Young Things).
There were two other men in that bathroom, sitting in stalls on either side of the undercover officer, Ofc. Karsnia. Yet, neither of those two men has yet appeared on TV to say that they, two, were cruised (and the police report points out that Craig stood outside of Karsnia's stall "for about two minutes").
Karsnia also points out that he could "clearly see Craig's blue eyes as he looked into [his] stall." As I read it, that tells me that Karsnia was making eye contact with Craig (two minutes worth of eye contact, perhaps?)... Maybe with a wink? A nod? A smile? A seductive shake of his weenie?
It seems entirely plausible to me that Craig wouldn't have pursued anyone unless he had some indication that his pursuit would have had a reasonable chance of success (1. he's an old man; and 2. he's a closet case)... And, if part of the question for determining entrapment is whether the presumably entrapped person is a person otherwise innocent whom the government is seeking to punish for an alleged offense which is the product of the creative activity of its own officials (like, I don't know, sending a lithe young hottie to the local bathroom to check out the blue eyes of old men who otherwise aren't getting any play)... well, then ISN'T this entrapment?
Until it can be proved that Craig intended to come to that sex solely and specifically to have sex--and flirting with some dude in the john, no matter how ham-fistedly, does not point to an intention to actually have someone face-down-ass-up in the loo, since a just-as-likely outcome of that flirtation could be a quick trip to the local No-Tell Motel--then I think he can, and should, argue that he was entrapped.
See the police report yourself: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/craig-arrest-doc/.