Letters to the Editor
BeOfUse
Published Letters: 45 Editor's Choice: 1
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NOT Liberty BUT Justice For All
[Read the article: "Jiminy God!": The Larry Craig story]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Larry, Larry, Larry, C'mon! After seeing Senator for-not-much-longer Craig’s infamous press conference, it occurred to me that I had just watched the meal without the coffee and dessert. There are a couple of huge problems dining off a menu of exclusively self-righteous, harshly judgmental and intolerant fare. One is the when the check arrives, the coin of the realm is justice, not mercy. Larry just got stuck with the check.
For 16 years this guy’s been a Senator from Idaho - a land of astonishing majestic natural beauty, clean air and water, with TWO elected Representatives in a House of 535+4, and yes a land where survivalists want to spend their post-Armageddon Valhalla. Against that pristine and perhaps unforgiving backdrop, one can at least see the blind, irrational fury of man who sees himself on the brink of professional and yes, personal extinction.
I CANNOT KNOW what he knows. I BELIEVE and probably he does as well - that in or out of office, those who elected and supported him, those who no doubt shaped that narrow bandwidth he uses to communicate within and outside of that community, those whose values he promised to truly represent- will NEVER forgive him!
I’m not proposing that if the Senator hailed from Massachusetts or California, he would be on more solid footing. He and those particular two electorates would have been more than unlikely bedfellows. Nor do I submit, as Craig’s recent behavior might dictate, that he emerged successful from a land of far-right, self-sufficient, morally superior (thus limited) thinking, where Mercy is blind and Justice is the dominion of the righteous.
Information about the Senator’s conduct (as if in a vacuum, suspended, never landing) has been circulated and ignored in Idaho and nationally for years. During the soiled history created by this administration, ethical behavior has become a situational exercise (substitute “vacuum”), and manipulating the truth according to political gain or loss, a core value. Perhaps I need reminding that Senator Craig’s constituents gave George W. Bush, likely to go into the history books as the worst President EVER, almost 70% of their vote.
It is my hope that Mr. Craig finds some relief from that terror and shame I saw posing as fury and anger. Mercy IS something more than what occurs after justice changes the behavior but not the person. If Mr. Craig’s lot is to be determined by the axiom that one is judged by the company he keeps, he may fare no better at home than in the very big world outside of Idaho.
It seems like Rove’s standard soup d’ jour, “never admit, never explain” has recently been taken off the menu. Apparently the Senator didn’t know. It was already WAY too late. Once you sit down at the table of self-righteousness, the menu becomes irrelevant. You’re always at a banquet for one. Check please!
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Between the Thought and The Deed
[Read the article: "I heard a man open his heart up"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For some gay men, the cruising behavior illuminated by the good Senator from Idaho is evidently part a lifestyle, on occasion dangerous, sometimes necessary, hopefully gratifying, but mostly, just the way things are.
From what we know about Larry Craig, his private behavior must seem to him an aberration, an obsession he must hide but cannot defeat. Imagine the crushing weight of a belief system that leaves the Senator with being gay as his drug of choice – waking up every day thinking “this is the day it’s all going to cave in” – “this is the day they’re going to know”.
In light of Senator Craig's shadowy involvement in previous gay-centric incidents going back decades, there seems to be little left to doubt about what happened at the Minneapolis airport. Of course, the previous 4 months of the sting operation could have been just a smokescreen for the conspiracy to take this homophobe down. I don’t think so.
So the real problem is Larry's OTHER history, a public life characterized by far-right, vocal prejudices of gays and their protections under the law. What a horrible truth to face – the jaws of the beast of intolerance he has fed and made stronger these many decades are about to snap shut on him and all he holds dear! There is no beauty in this irony.
You don’t need the Aquinas or Shakespeare to explain the turmoil “between the thought and the deed”. My guess is that Craig’s post-arrest terror brought denial, emotional havoc, sleepless nights and nightmarish days holding off despair while voicing fury and resentment - avoiding the unavoidable. All that remains is to go over the same old ground, a landscape too warn and overworked by a life of secrets to provide any real sustenance.
The Senator's snap judgment, which took TWO MONTHS to plead guilty to a lesser (different) charge, speaks solely to the madness and power of denial. I’m sure some may see the two months as a trial balloon, just the foundation of the “maybe-they’ll-never-find-out" plan. I’m sad to note that in Larry’s universe, he was just bottoming out, a process that is magnificently described in the language of recovery as one who is “faced with a self-imposed crisis he could no longer escape nor evade”.
So, when Senator Craig says that after two months he made a bad snap judgment or decision, he’s NOT lying. HE believes it. For someone paralyzed by the fear of exposure and the power of denial, June 11th to August 8th probably seemed like 2nd day-air, expected but still a surprise! It just means that Senator Craig is sicker than he is untruthful, and the terms “disgusting” and “disgraceful” used by his colleagues say much more about them than about him.
I'd buy a used,"as is" car from Larry Craig before before I'd order a new one from the factory through Mitt Romney. There are a hundred things about Senator Craig that really, really don't like. But I DESPISE people who are perfect.