If It’s Monday…
Posted on August 27th, 2007 by Gavin M.
…It must be time for another Republican closeted-gay scandal.
This time the breaking news is about Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), who was apparently arrested in June in an airport restroom.
Above: Craig
There has yet been no word as to whether The Singing Senators will be looking for a new lead vocalist.
Update: According to the Roll Call article, Craig explains that he has ‘a wide stance’ on the toilet and his foot might therefore have touched the officer’s by mistake. Grade-school reasoning suggests that this detail, like walking bowlegged or farting noiselessly, is not necessarily exculpatory.
FIRST!!!!!
Shrewd marketing move. This should drive record sales up big time for the Singing Senators.
Pee Wee: no, just no. Don’t turn this place into FDL.
Pee Wee Herman: or the unreadable comments sections at Atrios.
I (re)second Simba & Pablo. Firedoglake is an inestimable blog, but for those of us progressives on dialup, even attempting to *load* their comments is futile. Allthough if you were just mocking Senator Craig’s little publicity problem, excellent snark, PeeWee!
I eagerly await Senator Craig’s public explanation for the “wide stance” he adopts while on the pot.
And, yes, turning this place into FDL would be wrong. Do not “Pull Up A Chair…” unless you intend to touch shoes and signal beneath the stall divider with your hand.
This Monday is better than most. Frabjous day.
It’s not like he tried to marry anybody. Come on.
Arrested in June. I wonder if this will have any more impact on his Senate career then Diaper Dave’s did.
(Not that I really care about what either of them did, as much as I’d like to see Joe Lieberman enjoying his well deserved complete irrelevance.)
I can’t help imagining a meeting of prominent Repub Party members sitting around a table trying to outdo one another’s anti-gay rhetoric– each of them terrified that if they don’t look sufficiently Tough On Teh Homos, the others might look too closely and discover their “secret sin”.
Pitiful creatures.
So there’s a universal set of toe/foot based signals used by the sex in public restrooms community? Who knew? How do beginners learn the signals? Is there a book? And what IS it about public restrooms? Smelly, dirty, nasty – how is that conducive to sex? I’m baffled by all these guys. Geez, got an itch? Get on craigslist and get it scratched in private, fer crissakes…
mikey
I’m not even gay and it’s starting to offend me that homosexuals are tarred with these kinds of behaviors. This guy isn’t gay, he’s a slut with major psychological issues. Difference. He’s probably also into bestiality, and rape, n so on. He just gets off on what his tribe has labeled perverse. It’s about transgression, not actual sex.
Ok, maybe I’m letting my response to De Sade bleed in here, especially considering I don’t know shit about this guy in particular, but still…..
I don’t think he was trying to get any “rest” in that room … if you catch my drift.
amazing how they quashed this for weeks. bet there are a lot of larry craig quotes out there about “law and order” and “one strike and you’re out.”
GOP talking point: Well at least he wasn’t trying to catch a hummer in the Oval Office.
”Craig pinched while pinching loaf” would be my headline.
Craig to cop: “Do you know who I am?”
Cop to Craig: “Mark Foley?”
I’d like to point out the many opportunities for jokes about “Craig’s List” here. ahem
I will never disbeleive the “straight-laced monstrous sexual pervert” theatrical stereotype again, I swear- no matter how outlandish.
Who was it that outed Craig last year/early this year? Nothing came of it-
Just to be clear, wasn’t trying to fault Gavin with my odd little mini-rant.
Smelly, dirty, nasty – how is that conducive to sex?
Maybe I’m sort of weird or something, but I thought the general rule of male sexuality was do it wherever it can be done, treetops, ditches, monkey cage at the zoo included. I don’t think it’s that bathrooms’re necessarily conducive – more power to those that find ’em so – but that they are not sufficiently off-putting, as the intake of a running jet engine or the smokestack of an aluminum smelter might be.
“Craig explains that he has ‘a wide stance’ on the toilet, and that his foot might therefore have touched the officer’s by mistake.”
This defense is much better than the Florida scary black man defense.
oh, totally looks like the try to sneak one in the bathroom type.
Is this to get the Alberto Gonzales news off the front page? Remember Alberto Gonzalez, the legal genius behind this administration’s constant violation of our rights:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like “America Deceived” from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov’t.
Support Dr. Ron Paul and save this country.
Last link (unless Google Books caves to the gov’t and drops the title):
http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&isbn=0-595-38523-0
Sure makes Dr. Ron Paul look good.
Maybe Senator Craig was nervous that the man in the stall next to his could have been a stocky black man, and that there may have been an electrical storm brewing, so immediately he thought of self-preservation and initiated actions to offer to pay the man in the stall next to him to blow him.
offer to pay the man in the stall next to him to blow him.
Now that I think of it, there have to be a lot of people offering to blow God.
At this point, just assume any male Republican you meet is a self-loathing sexual deviant, and you’re bound to be right more than half the time.
adb was probably pretty close with his remark about a lot of these guys just being about the transgressive nature of what they’re doing. Whatever’s BAD, that’s what they’re into.
Is that a mommy issue or a daddy issue? either way, nice adjustment, Craig. At least you stayed away from the children. This time.
Don’t you guys get it? Obviously, Sen. Craig was just trying to warn the uncover policeman that some guy might try to solicit sex from his stall by taking a wide stance on the john and nudging the policeman’s foot, and it the officer misunderstood the body language.
I gotta say, this one ain’t quite as funny as the Bob Allen saga. But then again, we still have time before Craig tries to re-justify his actions.
Sen. Larry Craig (from the Roll Call link, my emphasis):
State Rep. Bob Allen:
Police officers on potty patrol are going to have to have an additional session added to their training, one at which they’ll learn to say things like “No, I’m sorry but you are not above the law.”
Imagine that face peering over the dividing wall. yikes.
Rephrase: …are going to have to have an additional session on dealing with Republican legislators added to…
So there’s a universal set of toe/foot based signals used by the sex in public restrooms community? Who knew?
It seems almost unpossible now, but back in the 70’s, there was a whole set of signals to determine what a dude was in to. Colored hankies (yellow for watersports etc.), right pocket meant passive, left was agressive (or the other way around, who knew?), keys hanging on whatever side meant something. It was bizarre, one of those vestiges of the closet that was akin to knowing someone was gay because they walked around with a copy of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.
In Benjamin Britten’s wonderful opera Albert Herring, Albert is a repressed mommas-boy who decides to break free and go on a bender. He lights a match to a lantern and in the libretto, he mentions a particular brand of match. Turns out, that was the exact brand that gay men in England in the 40’s used when lighting a guy’s cigarette. If you were getting your fag lit by a guy with those brand of matches, he was probably looking for some.
The closet breeds strange behavior and I sure don’t miss it.
As for Larry Craig, get help, you sad old fuck.
Craig explains that he has ‘a wide stance’ on the toilet
This is Prima Facie absurd. I don’t know if any, or even most of us have a “stance” we use, but in my case, if asked, I couldn’t tell you what it is. And whatever your basic stance might be, it seems likely that in a public restroom with lots of coming and *ahem* going, you might very well self-conscientiously modify your “stance”.
But in any case, if the best story you can come up with involves a “toilet stance” so expansive you actually interrupt your neighbors crap (I think that’s a commandment – thou shalt not impair thy neighbor’s sit-down), you probably oughta think about just pleading out.
Gnome Sane?
mikey
Well Mikey, its a hell of a lot better than “He was a scary black guy so naturally I offered him a score to suck him off.”
Guess he uses that “wide stance” in his amorous pursuits, too.
And what IS it about public restrooms? Smelly, dirty, nasty – how is that conducive to sex? I’m baffled by all these guys.
A restroom is a semi private enclosed space where other men are. If you are a married man looking for some exciting taboo sex that taps into your repressed bisexuality then that is the place for you. If your personality is shame based then what better way to validate your secret shame by piling on layers of humiliation and disgust? This all goes to confirm your own self assessment that you are a vile piece of shit. That message was probably delivered early in life by daddy beating the shit out of you and then adding insult to injury by making you thank him for the drunken beating he just gave you.
This is how it goes: God/Daddy says I am a worthless POS ==> I act out in ways that confirm I am a worthless POS ==> therefore I am a worthless POS ==> So I might as well act on my fetishes/desires ==> repeat as needed.
That’s how you make a wingnut.
It must be time for another Republican closeted-gay scandal
Correction: water closeted
There was even a sociological study about it, called “The Tearoom Trade”. (Keep it next to “The Boys of Boise”, about the anti-gay pogrom in Idaho back in the 50s.)
So Craig was indeed being a Traditional Values Republican when he tapped his foot. Just don’t call him “gay”, these days that’s a lifestyle (a personal acknowledgment or self-identification), not a behavior. (Most guys into public homosex, or situational homosex as in prisons or the military, are straight.)
I had a hunch about the guy when I saw him at the Bee Gees convention, humming songs from The Music Man while licking my heiny.
Are there any Republicans in Congress that AREN’T gay?
NONE. They are all teh gay.
He will NOT be re-elected in 2008. But a Dem won’t replace him either.
Hey! Vitter’s not gay.
Bingoes:
http://www.blogactive.com/2006/10/senator-larry-craig-whats-with-gay.html
Why don’t these guys just learn Polari and find a friggen glory hole fercriseakkes!!
It gets better. Sen. Craig(‘s List) is Mitt “Strap Doggy to the Roof” Romney’s BFF in Idaho:
Mitt “Strap Doggy to the Roof” Romney
Vitter would’ve diapered the thing at least.
Let me ask you men: Can you sit with such a wide stance that your foot touches someone in the next stall…while your pants are on??
#
GT3T said,
August 28, 2007 at 2:00
Let me ask you men: Can you sit with such a wide stance that your foot touches someone in the next stall…while your pants are on??
Me,not so much,but,maybe he wanted to get x-tra comfy while making #2.
You know, I’ve been visiting restrooms for quite a long time now, and I’d have to say that it seems fanciful.
Vic, just because a guy’s admitted to being an adulterous whoremonger doesn’t mean he’s not gay.
Pee Wee: no, just no. Don’t turn this place into FDL.
Yeah, the Boys from S.A.D.L.Y. would have to write twice as well, then, and we wouldn’t want them to hurt themselves.
Sorry. I don’t mean it, of course, but I had to say something.
RE: Oven Mitt’s Craig endorsement video: It’s been taken down and Josh Marshall wants to know if anyone has a copy.
Can you sit with such a wide stance that your foot touches someone in the next stall…while your pants are on??
If the mounting will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad will go to the mounting. Never doubt the power of faith.
Yeah, the Boys from S.A.D.L.Y. would have to write twice as well, then, and we wouldn’t want them to hurt themselves.
Hi TRex!
Granted, if he were a Democrat, he would get all the endorsements he wanted.
Craig should refuse to seek reelection. People who choose to engage in homosexual behavior are not fit for public office.
That being said, he should vote as a representative of his constituents, not his perverted beliefs. He is a Senator for Idaho, not just for himself.
From what I read, homosexuals use airport bathrooms for their trysts. It’s part of the drug-like nature of their lifestyle. They have to keep doing more and more to get a rush.
But he didn’t flush! The officer makes sure the mention in the report that Craig didn’t flush. If it’s brown, flush it down, Senator.
Yellow,let it mellow.
From what I read, homosexuals use airport bathrooms for their trysts.
Exactly what have you been reading, Gary: the GOP guidebook for closet-case conservatives?
We are so gonna tell your mom on you!
Comments on RedState.org talk about those practices.
The fact is that Craig isn’t bad or a hypocrite here. He didn’t vote to increase penalties for homosexuality. He’s bad here because he is sinning against God, and if Craig does not repent and accept the Lord, then he will burn forever.
Increase penalties for homosexuality?
Honestly, what could be worse than sharing a country with closeted homobigots like Craig? People like him are a disgrace to the democratic ideals for which they are supposed to stand.
In the end, though, this is old news. Mike Rogers outed this guy last year. I’ve had some issues with Raw Story reporting on other issues before, but it sure looks like they’re batting a thousand when it comes to gay closeted politicians.
Of course, it probably helps that it appears as though you can’t swing a dead cat at a Republican convention without whacking a closeted gay Republican.
OT this is truly incredible.
Granted, if he were a Democrat, he would get all the endorsements he wanted.
Course, if he were a Democrat, he wouldn’t be a repressed, homophobic Narnian, and therefore would probably not be hanging out in restrooms trying to pick anonymous male partners.
From what I read, homosexuals use airport bathrooms for their trysts. It’s part of the drug-like nature of their lifestyle. They have to keep doing more and more to get a rush.
And from what Gary reads, hot college coeds have hot lesbian sex in the shower all the time, that is, until he walks in and they all bow down and worship the power of his mighty cock. And then, the spankings begin…
and if Craig does not repent and accept the Lord, then he will burn forever.
Actually, some penicillin will take care of that post-haste.
That being said, he should vote as a representative of his constituents, not his perverted beliefs.
Glenda/Gary actually gets something right since Craig’s beliefs are completely homophobic. Perversion is when you repress perfectly natural expressions of one’s sexuality in order to conform with socially accepted norms. Regardless of whether or not you are gay or straight when you suppress your sexuality, you are then perverting it, e.g. “reversing it’s natural direction”.
From what I read, homosexuals use airport bathrooms for their trysts. It’s part of the drug-like nature of their lifestyle. They have to keep doing more and more to get a rush.
Do you have a “wide stance” when you are reading in airport bathrooms Gary?
Welcome, newest member of the FakeGary franchise!
As a welcoming gesture, allow us to remind you to a) not be so lucid and b) refrain from drawing too heavily on previous sockpuppet personas, such as ‘a rabbi with a hot girlfriend.’ By stepping up your skills, it makes it more fun for all involved.
The fact of the matter is…..
And there we go again with more smears from the party of atheism, abortion, and sodomy.
The fact is that a few bad apples exist. But the media prefers to only talk about the scandals of one party.
I wish the 109th Congress actually took action to fillet the bias out of the media. The Warren Court’s destruction of libel/slander laws in this country was an awful step for our nation as a whole.
Perversion is when you repress perfectly natural expressions of one’s sexuality in order to conform with socially accepted norms.
The fact is that Homosexuality is not natural because people are born heterosexual, and twisted into homosexuality due to abuse and bad upbringing.
Ok, I’m bored with this Gary. He’s a dork. Can’t wait to check out the next Gary.
Hey, Bubba, I just saw that on Olbermann. You notice there’s no transcript?
It’s so incoherent I submit you could not make an accurate transcript.
It’d read like random words selected from a refrigerator…
mikey
But she’s a smart makeup applier, mikey.
No. Not even if you’re President Clinton posing for Esquire.
That she is, thunder. The good news is, there are two places in the world where a guy like me can get girls that look like her. LA, and Vegas. And I’ve spent my share of time in both. I’d include Oahu, but they’re only there for 10 days at a time. So it’s a different kind of deal…
mikey
It’d read like random words selected from a refrigerator…
But even so, you can see her little brain working:
Question about map. Must name countries. Shows I know what map is.
Mikey,
No kidding. I was like the stoner girl from the movie Heathers watching that clip. What made it worse was the way she kept saying “the Iraq” the way Herr Chimperor keeps saying “September the 11th.”
You mean Der Chimpenführer, J. A. Baker?
That Clinton pic is really really good.
I saw that video and nearly wept for the future of America. You know, those U.S. Americans who don’t have maps, and therefore can’t help South Africa.
“…if Craig does not repent and accept the Lord, then he will burn forever.”
Alright, I call bullshit again. Fake Gary. Fake, I say. The statement is much too forced.
For the record, anybody trying to pass themselves off as a genuine fundy nutjob has to say it this way: “…if Craig does not repent and accept the Lord, then he will burn forever while the Devil laughs and Jesus weeps.
That final little touch makes all the difference.
Quality pic of Der Chimpenführer and Skeletor.
Wait a sec. Didn’t one of the earlier Gary incarnations make the “argument” that gay sex was so good you get hooked on it (thereby giving us a handy little window into the heart of Garyness)? That doesn’t really work with the whole “abuse and bad upbringing” thing, now does it?
Better check the fax again, Gare-Bear.
To the posters who responded to the “FIRST” loser at the top: thank you. This pointless practice is thankfullly banned at DKos, where the comments section is correspondingly more intelligent and informative (usually) than any other site.
I was actually once first in an Atrios comment thread, and I can’t say the experience fulfilled me or changed my life in any way. Firsters, fuck off.
jeez, you’d think hte craigster and missuer allen would have gotten together and thus saved themselves the wide-stance perp walks.
I wish to lodge a complaint.
This Fake Gary is broken.
Too many successive posts, responding to other posters, trying to use logic rather than Drudgian talking points…. I think the departure of Rove and Gonzales has splintered the whackamometer and disjointed the splintmerk.
Should still be under warranty though.
jeez, you’d think hte craigster and missuer allen would have gotten together and thus saved themselves the wide-stance perp walks.
This is the germ of a really fun sitcom: Republicans Without Gaydar.
Nobody can drop the charade
But everyone wants to get laid
Humping in the bathrooms
Gay bashing in the staff rooms
Caught ‘tween a cock and a hard place
Betraying their own in the next senate race…
Republicans without gaydar!
And then the rest of the show has them each being Mr. Furley in their own inimitable way.
Words of wisdom from Miss Teen South Carolina:
Q: Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the United States on a world map. Why do you think that is?
A: I personally believe the U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some…people out there in our nation don’t have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and…I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., err, uh, South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our…
Time for a senate/congress caucus joke anyone…?
Craig explains that he has ‘a wide stance’ on the toilet and his foot might therefore have touched the officer’s by mistake
Hey, you guys are making fun of someone who clearly possesses a mighty fu: why else would he be using the horse stance?
You guys are just recycling old posts. We demand new content!
This is like babysitting and watching “The Little Mermaid” for the fifth fucking time.
Personally, I always use the “Drunken Monkey” Stance in public restrooms.
Here’s a 5 for Me!
you can’t swing a dead cat at a Republican convention without whacking a closeted gay Republican
Eeewww.
Consider:
You know what Craig’s problem was? He just had the wrong shoes on that day. None of this would’ve happened if he had worn his Chuck Taylors.
Here’s Craig, Listing Oven Mitt’s leadership qualities and family values.
Kevin, I think you’re jumping to conclusions. Didn’t you read the article, the Senator has an EXTREMELY wide stance.
[…] another self-hating Republican closet case was caught soliciting sex in a public bathroom. This is going to make the “Teh Gay Agenda Is Seducing Ur […]
Here’s a nice LOLCraig to share with teh kidz. The hard hat is kind of a turn-on, in the “World’s Oldest Village Person” sort of way.
“The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area,” the report states. Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that “I could … see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider.”
Karsnia then held his police identification down by the floor so that Craig could see it.”
Hey, Henry Holland: Do you know anything about “wearing green on Thursdays” to let the other gay folk know you were one of them? Or was that before your time? Or an urban myth? I first heard it in the ’60s.I do remember all that stuff w/ the bandannas from the ’70s.
Bigger question for restroom usage/stance (not just for Henry, or gay people in general): Do you just let your pants flop down to the floor, or do you keep the feet close together & the knees wide apart to keep your pants from hitting the floor?
Either way, no one in a public rest room who isn’t looking to make new friends is going to take a “wide stance” when sitting on the seat made of stone. But the whole thing does smack of entrapment. No one’s going to take a “wide stance” w/o some reason to do so, and I doubt the Denver airport is a prime spot for this sort of thing to begin with.
Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, on the other hand…
Al Pacino,”Cruising”Remember the scene where he’s getting kitted up to look like roughtrade.But your right,Bouffant,I’d think the cops would have better ways of spending tax payer money.But what the hell did he think he was gonna get reaching his hand under the stall,a handshake?
“Comments on RedState.org talk about those practices.”
Daily.
How do you assume a “wide stance” with pants on? You would have to take them off wouldn’t you? ‘Cause otherwise you can’t get your feet much more than 20 inches apart. Sure if they were around your ankles you could get your knees pretty far apart, but not your feet. I think he had his pants off or at least one leg out.
This ups the ‘ick’ factor quite a bit.
Keep saying it people: Craig was doing recon for the Repug Convention next summer.
You know, this shit never happens to me. I am a full-on, raging queer. I have never been approached in a public restroom in my freaking life. This is the first I’ve heard about all this foot-tapping stuff.
The world these people inhabit is completely outside the realm of my experience.
Hey, Henry Holland: Do you know anything about “wearing green on Thursdays” to let the other gay folk know you were one of them? Or was that before your time? Or an urban myth?
I remember it from Maupin’s Tales of the City, though why on earth anyone in 1970’s San Francisco had to resort to code to find other gay men is beyond me. If you couldn’t get laid in 1970’s San Francisco, you simply weren’t trying or looked like Daffyd ab Hugh and even he would have been a hit with the chubby chasers.
I first heard it in the ’60s.I do remember all that stuff w/ the bandannas from the ’70s
Those fucking bandannas! There was never any conformity to what they meant and even the whole left = top, right = bottom thing was never clear to me or my friends. A rather inept way to signal other people your intentions, I’d say.
Bigger question for restroom usage/stance (not just for Henry, or gay people in general): Do you just let your pants flop down to the floor, or do you keep the feet close together & the knees wide apart to keep your pants from hitting the floor?
The latter. Pants touch the floor? *SHUDDER* You don’t know what’s on that floor, best be safe, picking up a stain in an awkward spot of your Dockers would be social death.
Never did the bathroom stall thing –I much preferred soft sheets, candles and Debussy piano music on the CD player– though, once, an allegedly straight co-worker suggested we go in to the bathroom stalls –separate ones– and jack off, which we did. I often wondered if he told some woman he married that he was gay when he was 42 and our little stall-a-thon was his first tentative step out of the closet.
It’ll never get any better I suspect, but I wish there weren’t so many damn hangups about sex.
Damn, Lisa Myers was actually teh hot back in the day.
Now she’s just a fat ugly media whore.
This would explain why the Senate gavel keeps disappearing.
Why, and where …
These stories make me tired.
I travel a lot, and end up using airport toilets while waiting for flights. So now, groggy from jet lag, I also have to worry about toe-tapping rightwing Republicans? Can’t they provide a special stall for these guys to do their thing and leave the rest alone?
Their stalls could even have a universal sign–a stick figure with a cross in one hand and another man’s cock in the other.
Time to start digging up all the wingnut denials from last year when Craig was first outed.
they are not sufficiently off-putting, as the intake of a running jet engine or the smokestack of an aluminum smelter might be.
I’m getting into the comments a little late here, but I had to throw down on this one. Dude – have you ever smelled the inside of some of the public restrooms of rural American? I say this as a man who grew up mucking out the barn in spring, which is one of the truly awful tasks that inspired me to finish college.
I’ve driven across the country a couple of times; pounding down a 44-oz. Supertanker of Mountain Dew to try to make it to Tucumcari without falling into a sleep-deprivation coma leads to having to make some pretty desperate pee breaks in dodgy “rest stops.”
Some of them would make the aforementioned aluminum smelter seem tolerable.
You have to have a serious screw loose to find such an (ahem) atmosphere exciting in a sexual way.
Time to start digging up all the wingnut denials from last year when Craig was first outed.
Glennzilla. On point, as usual:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/08/28/craig/index.html