Marc Perkel Rantz

Larry Craig vs. David Vitter - There is a difference

Even though Liberals / Democrats / Homosexuals want to put a homophobic spin on the issue that Craig was kicked out and Vitter wasn't, I'm not sure I can agree entirely.

Yes - Republicans hate gays. So a gay trist is different than a straight trist in the Republican party. So because Republicans hate gays then they have to toss their gay members.

Having said that, Vitter did is deed in private, behind closed doors. Craig was in a public rest room and the difference is that do we want gay guys cruising public rest rooms for sex? Rest rooms are a plact to go for the bathroom. It's not a gay bar. I don't want people looking at me through the cracks in the stalls trying to make eye contact with me.

Public sex is different than private sex in that you are subjecting people to your sex acts who don't want to be involved. That includes heterosexual public sex as well. So if you get caught by police having public sex then that's a crime and as long as it is a minor crime and just something involving a fine I don't have a problem with law enforcement protecting our restrooms.

Having said that, Republicans claim that they clean up their party and have superior morals. Vitter admitted that he had contact with a prostitute. Craig pleaded guilty. To me that's the same thing because if a senator admits to a crime that's politically the same as pleading guilty. So the Republicans should either kick out Vitter or they should quit bragging about their superior morals. By keeping David Vitter on board they are saying that sex with prostitutes is acceptable to the Republican Party.

Problems with the Larry Craig Story

There are a number of problems with Senator Larry Craig's story even if you believe what he admitted to in the police interview and other Larry Craig statements.

1. Craig admitted to touching the foot of the cop in the next stall with his foot. I'm my years of going to the men's room I've never come close to touching the foot of the guy in the next stall. That just doesn't happen accidentally.
2. Craig says he has a wide stance. But if his pants were down around his ankles then his wide stance is limited to the width of his pants.
3. If Craigs legs were spread so wide that he was touching the foot of the cop in the next stall then he wouldn't have been able to lower his pants.
4. If I were in a stall I wouldn't want the guy in the next stall reaching under the divider to pick up a piece of toilet paper on my side.
5. Craig admitted he wears his wedding ring on his left hand. The cop was in the stall to his right. So if he were picking up toilet paper off the floor in the cop's stall with his left hand, he would have had to get down on his hands and knees to reach it. The idea of getting down on your hands and knees to reach under the stall divider to get a piece of toilet paper off the floor in another stall is creepy.
6. Craig raised the issue of entrapment indicating that he might have been doing the act he was being entrapped by.
7. When Craig pleaded guilty he swore under oath that he was guilty. If he is not guilty then he lied under oath in front of a judge. That's the same thing that he accused Clinton of when he voted to impeach him.
8. When Craig said that "it is my intent to resign" he knew at the time he said that that he was lying to the public.

Then according to the police report Craig was peering at the cop through the crack in the door trying to make eye contact. Craig didn't reach for toilet paper on the floor but had his palm up and touching the bottom of the divider. The cop indicated that he established foot tapping communication with Craig and that they exchanged pickup signals that gay men use to signal they want sex.

Even though the standard of criminal conviction is "beyond a reasonable doubt", if Craig's story is impossible and it's clear he's lying then that undermines reasonable doubt. So a jury conclued Craig is lying and the officer is truthful the Craig goes to jail.

Larry Craig - is he back?

Letter to the Editor

Apparently Senator Larry Craig is considering reversing his guilty plea and fighting charges that he was trying to pick up men the restrooms for gay sex. But Larry's story just doesn't add up. For example, I'm 51 years old and been using the Men's room for a long time. Never in my life did my foot ever come close to touching the foot of the guy in the next stall. That just doesn't naturally happen. Then if Larry has a "wide stance" - if I had my legs so far apart that my foot was touching the guy in the next stall, I wouldn't be able to get my pants down. As Judge Judy would say, "If is doesn't make sense, it isn't true."

Believing doesn't make it true

Letter to the Editor

The problem with people who rely on belief think that if you believe something, and get everyone else to believe it, that makes things true. Bush thinks that if he convinces himself that we are winning in Iraq and he can get America to believe it then we win. But that's not reality and reality always wins in the end.

The reality is that we are not winning in Iraq because in order to win we have to defeat the people who we are trying to liberate. The reason there is no Iraqi army is because we destroyed and dismantled it and we can't rebuild it. Iraq has no real government. The government that's there has no power and is fighting among themselves. Iraq is now just tribes at war with each other. The only thing they all agree on is that they want us out.

So it doesn't make us a winner if we believe we are a winner. All it does is allow things to continue to get worse until we get to the point that we can no longer ignore Bush's failure. One can not achieve victory by twisting the truth and ignoring reality. So even if Bush and the Republican controlled media want you to believe that the occupation is working and you believe it, that doesn't make it so.