Tim is merely following in the footsteps of his predecessors, notably Senator Karl Mundt (R), South Dakota, reelected to the Senate in 1966, who suffered a stroke that left him basically a vegetable in 1969. He remained in office until 1973, bedridden, because to resign would have given his seat to a Democrat.

Oh, and by the way, he wasn't stripped of his committee assignments by his fellow Republicans until his seat came up for reelection.

Luckily, during this time South Dakota was ably represented by its junior senator, George McGovern.

That was quite a list.

Do you also subscribe to the Wayne Madsen Report? He has posted a number of stories about pedophilia in the GOP. (a nominal subscription req.)

Perhaps that's the real story that would finally break the GOP wide-open.

So far, it seems we've barely scratched the surface of it. But it seems there might be a parallel between the uncovered (by the M$M) stories of pedophilia and the number of stories about sexually repressed RWAs getting caught with their pants down, and also, coincidentally, with the number of stories about (GOP) abuse of animals. I think they're all linked.

Culture of Life, indeed.

How many of your readers are familiar with Kay Griggs? Google will pull up her story.

Briefly, Griggs alleges that many high ranking elected officials are controlled from behind the scenes, by an invisble hand with evidence of morally (sexually) deviant behaviour. This evidence would frequently involve acts caught on video, and be used to blackmail those individuals to get them to act in ways that those invisible hands desire.

If such allegations were true, it would hardly be beneficial to purge homosexuals from the Republican party. What better tool to control individuals than to expose those moral 'failings'?

Griggs seems to have a reliable source (her husband, high up in the military), and to be quite a rational individual. Your readers can check out her story.

is exceptionally stupid.

I urge you to check out Down With Tyranny ... hopefully Glenn has it listed on the blog roll .. Howie Klein writes it .. I don't know where he gets his sources and info .. but he has a list of Republican congresscritters who have supposedly hid things better than Larry Craig has.

This is a remarkably striking example of the arbitrary selectivity of social conservatives in deploying their rhetoric. And what better time to recall that the whole point of social conservatism is to justify arbitrary selectivity.

Historically, this can be seen in the history of American racism. In Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the DIlemma of Black Patriotism

http://www.amazon.com/Jeffersons-Pillow-Founding-Fathers-Patriotism/dp/0807009571

--a remarkably subtle, yet sharp analysis--Roger Wilkins tells the story of an early biracial colonial rebellion against a newly-established ruling faction. Once the rebellion was put down, the faction took two major actions to buttress itself. First, it adopted social practices to mark itself as an "elite," including not just balls and such, but also sending its sons back to England to be educated. The other was to split the black and white working class, which were formally distinct (blacks were slaves, whites "indentured servants") but effectively in much the same boat, by establishing arbitrary distinctions, and justifying them with a new framework of racist justifications.

On a broader scale, this can be seen as just one example of how stigmatized subordinate classes are formed, as explained by Social Dominance Theory (SDT), a theory of group dominance whose individual attitudinal component, Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) has been called "the other authoritarianism" by Robert Altemeyer, who developed the first model of individual authoritarianism, rightwing authoritarianism (RWA). One central feature of SDT is that it explains group dominance operating in terms of two fixed forms of dominance--age and gender--and one "arbitrary" form, which can attach to any distinct social group, usually on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion.

Indeed, those who may be members of an arbitrary set subordinate group in one setting may be members of the dominance group in another setting. (Lower status sephardic Jews within Israeli Jewish society are a subordinate group, for example, but part of the dominant Jewish majority vs. Israeli Arabs or the exiled Palestinians.)

While the scales and magnitudes vary widely, the underlying reality is the same: purportedly "eternal" principles, and judgements made on the "nature" of groups or individuals are rooted in arbitrary distinctions made to shore up the power of various minorities to rule in the name of their own "moral superiority" over people who would otherwise never willingly consent to be so bullied, dominated and abused.

Namely, how likely is it that Craig actually will resign?

He's already been stripped of his Committee assignments and his home state wants him out. We hear a lot of talk about GOP 'loyalty', but what precisely does Craig have to be loyal to now?

We'll call for the swift resignation of the morally-disabled David Vitter, and set up the appointment of his replacement by a Democrat governor...

...if you will call for the resignation of the physically-disabled Tim Johnson, with the Republican Governor of South Dakota naming his replacement...

So Vitter was "morally disabled", eh? Is that a communicable disease? Seems to be; so many Rethuglicans are infected. But of course, it's not their fault....

Is Johnson "physically disabled"? Maybe FDR shouldn't have been president; he might not have managed to "land a supersonic fighter" on the deck of a pitching aircraft carrier far out to sea, or even go in with M-16, bayonet, and grenades and take out Osama bin Forgotten all by himself....

That you even (pretend to) conflate the two shows for all thinking people here that Glenn's take on the "morals" of the Republican party and its adherents is spot on. Thanks for your contribution.

Cheers,

Given what we all know about Washington .. would it suprise you? .. From Vitter abd Craig .. to Teddy Kennedy .. we could go on all day about the moral fallings of those in DC ... it would not come as a shock to me at all .. after all .. a lot of them seem to vote how their campaign donors want .. not necessarily what is best for the country