The Return of Larry Craig

Ok, I am sure that I was not the only person to notice that Larry Craig did not resign last weekend? I scanned the news and almost everyone noted that Craig resigned (ABC, Fox, CNN) but if you look at the text of Senator Craig’s statement, he says the following: “Therefore it is with sadness and deep regret that I announce that it is my intent to resign from the Senate, effective Sept. 30”.

Now there is talk that Senator Craig is thinking of fighting for his Senate Seat and working to overturn his guilty plea to a misdemeanor. And people wonder why everyone is so cynical about politicians. Was Senator Craig really parsing words during his statement so he can say come Oct 1 that he never stated he was going to resign, only that he had “intended” to resign and that now he “intends” not to. This case has got me scratching my head in wonderment and irritation. If anything it got Chris Matthews to go on air and basically call homosexuality “deviant” (of course he was referring to Senator Craig here but still words do mean things). Video and story here from Newsbusters. I blogged recently about conservative politicians who open themselves up for charges of “hypocrisy” but never really made a judgment about Senator Craig or that he should resign or stay for that matter. What I did say was politicians of the conservative stripe should know the game that they are playing (i.e. politics) and stop acting as if it is a spectator sport. Moreover, it is still frustrating to hear pundits compare the Craig issue to Bill Clinton. Repeat after me, it was not about the sex with Clinton, end of story.

So the ever gracious Ann Coulter with her rapier wit writes about the Craig issue today on her website. Ann notes that there are a preponderance of stories about Senator Craig and what he supposedly did and will he or won’t he resign. It is a great column and readers need only go to Google News and search on Larry Craig. But Ann is not done with her sardonic column. After one is done searching on Larry Craig, run a search on Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed and Youssef Samir Megahed (go ahead and use Google News). Do you know who these guys are? They are two Egyptian engineering students arrested on a South Carolina highway earlier this month have been indicted on federal explosives charges as they were found with explosive material going across state lines. ABC News has the story here. So what is the point? Well as everybody is writing about a stupid sex sting (whatever the hell it is), we have Egyptian students looking to blow things up right here in America. Would they have gotten more press if they were potentially targeting bathrooms used for gay sex encounters? The media should be giving us pages of info on stories like this and showing us what threats we still face, especially on the eve of 11 Sept 2007. Thanks to Ann for a great column and for shining the light on stories such as this one that should be the lead story rather than Senator Craig’s wide stance.

A footnote on Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed and Youssef Samir Megahed. The ABC News story makes no conclusions as to the religion of these two blokes. Is it wrong for me to guess? Count how many times the terms “conservative” and “Gay Marriage Opponent” appear in stories about Senator Craig. I guess those aren’t as controversial as terms such as Muslim.