Well, we already know that he can bend himself under a toilet stall, so stepping down should be no problem.

Don't let the stall door hit'cha...

...carry with it a stipulation of what "the facts" are? I always thought it was a plea of "no contest" that carried no admission of guilt, or agreement with the charges as presented.

To his partial credit, Sen. Craig isn't a lawyer, so he can't be considered a legal eagle -- but why would anyone plead guilty to something he claims to consider so personally abhorrent? Why not plead "no contest" instead?

Can anyone explain this? Does the state of Illinois allow a plea of no contest in such cases?

A guilty pea does infer an admission that every element of the charged crime was violated. However, there are defenses against it like coercion, failure to understand the charges, etc. So, a guilty plea can be taken back but it can still serve as evidence.

A couple of weeks ago I stopped in a men's room after clearing passport control in Gatwick airport, for the usual one man/ one urinal sort of bladder-related activity. When I got back to the concourse, I remember asking my wife, "Honey, why in the world would anyone be buying condoms from a vending machine in an airport restroom? Isn't it a little too late in the trip, or a little too early?" It just didn't add up - until the senator from the great state of Idaho demonstrated how one could make use of the condom machine without ever leaving the toilets!

Thank you, Larry Craig, for reminding us all about the importance of practicing safe sex. I'm sure that was what you were doing. Right?

Isn't being a Republican humiliation enough?

now that everybody knows The Code I wonder if it will get used more. Both for hooking up and as a tool for vigilantes. I can just see Chris Hansen now...tapping his foot in restroom stalls all across America with his hidden cameras in the TP dispensers.

This will, no doubt, be a very uncomfortable news conference. I hope he doesn't do anything crazy like that guy in Pennsylvania all those years ago who killed himself on live TV.

TheSmokingGun has the straight poop:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0828071craig1.html

Keep Spinning Sam. Maybe you'll hit an as-yet-undiscovered underground oil deposit. Or just a big steaming pile of crap.

...is Melanie Sloan, and Melanie Sloan is a former staff lawyer for those paragons of ethics, John Conyers, Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden.

No word yet on whether she got a Thanksgiving turkey from Conyers, or whether one of her Biden projects was touching up his resume.

According to the police officer's report on the incident:

a. No crime took place, so why was he detained in the first place? Is it considered lewd to tap your foot? Why do we give police this kind of authority without question?

b. He was detained and told he was under arrest, but no mention of being read his Miranda rights.

I'd say from the look of things, they railroaded a scared and confused man. I'd like to know why we need to have undercover cops seeking out assignations in bathrooms in this day and age. Isn't this the kind of stuff that put the gay community over the top at Stonewall? Why do people have to live in fear for their sexuality and be forced to crawl around in public rest rooms for human contact? I'm sure everyone is smugly liking the "outing" of a republican hypocrite, but let's not forget this is a human being, and deserves better from our media, the justice system, and society in general.

I think I just read in the officer's statement that he was read his rights.

It also states that he spent a couple of minutes peeking into the officer's stall before he went in and sat down next door and did his toe tapping and game of footsie inside the border of the officer's stall, and then made hand motions under the divider.

Now, I will agree that this seems like a waste of police resources. But when a hypocrite like Craig gets busted I have a hard time getting too worked up in a negative way about it.

Um, could someone please explain exactly what it was that Craig did that was disorderly?

I mean, while it's certainly funny every time a rebumblican (did I just coin this phrase?) gets hoisted on their own petard, is this guy really guilty of anything more serious than hitting on a stranger? I guess I don't get why that's illegal, even if the guy was a cop? Do cops not have sex in Idaho?

Could you imagine the cop-- I'm presuming he's straight-- getting bent out of shape if a woman were to have rubbed her in-step along his calf in a bar or under the table in a restaurant? Sure, the location is a touch ribald, and if the cop had sais "yes" rather than "freeze" then we'd be left visualize depraved senator-sex in a bathroom; but my god, if trying to get laid is a crime then how guilty are we all?

So you'd have no problem with your son using a men's room where a Republican was trying to have sex?

Isn't this the kind of stuff that put the gay community over the top at Stonewall?

No, it isn't. It was being beaten up by the police for gathering in private places or even in gay bars out of public view that sparked the Stonewall Riot. It wasn't Republicans having sex in restrooms.

Why do people have to live in fear for their sexuality and be forced to crawl around in public rest rooms for human contact?

Uh, hello? You're using the Internet, so I assume you're not writing from 1957. How do I break this to you -- people aren't forced to crawl around in public restrooms for human contact in 2007. They can join a gay bowling league or attend the gay rodeo or go to a gay church or synagogue or, well, you get the idea. Only twisted Republicans "have to" crawl around on our public restroom floors, but that's their choice.

I'm sure everyone is smugly liking the "outing" of a republican hypocrite...

I would never presume to speak for everyone, but: yes.

...but let's not forget this is a human being, and deserves better from our media, the justice system, and society in general.

Perhaps that "human being" should have been thinking about that when he made millions of dollars off of voting against LGBT people, their children, their parents, their siblings, their friends, their culture, their communities and working against the principles of our entire country. Maybe he could expect better if he'd given any thought to the idea that getting rich off of manufacturing misery was a bad idea. You know, in between his crawling around on public restroom floors.