But I hates teh dirty copses, too.
You may recall that just before Karl’s stellar performance, I was on stage linking the arresting officer in Senator Craig’s case to the sad spectacle outlined here. Having listened to the recording of the arrest, I am even more convinced that this cop is a lying jackass. That doesn’t mean that Craig is innocent. It just means that we have, I think, to consider the possibility that the guy was railroaded.
Mary Mostert has made the connection that I did, and written about it here. The Minneapolis Metro Airport has been in the news a lot, recently. It seems that Muslims refusing fares from drinkers hasn’t been as big a problem as other deviant activity, such as riding a bike.ÂÂ
More on solicitation charges, here.
UPDATE: Parallel opining.
I know that something happened in that restroom. I don’t know what. But something happened.
AMEN.
Listened to that whole thing last night and didn’t post because I couldn’t be coherent.
Or rather, I was less coherent than normal.
As soon as I heard “I deal with bad people all day.” I lost any control. I’m heavily medicated now and still really ticked off.
So what are you saying? That Craig is guilty only of FBSWR*?
*Flying in a Blue State While Rethuglican
Not a good person to be entrusted with a badge.
I’m suggesting that he’s been victimized by a cop who feels that the airport is his turf, and there he trumps anybody, and he likes that. Looks like Thugland, to me.
Rest assured “soliciting anon sex in public bathrooms” is one lifestyle choice which has come to an end. What male will venture into public restrooms at the risk of being arrested for toe-tapping?
On the other hand how easy this event foster into ‘police-state’ Stazism in which smokers will disappear for having smoked in public, fat people will disappear for having consumed McDonald McHappyMeal in public, and SUV owners will disappear for driving an incorrect automobile unless of course the smoking, McD eating SUV driver is the superior Al Gore or Michael Moore, they’ll get to rule the kingdom all for the good of everyone.
I still connot help but wonder had the Senator been linked to the big D none of this would have ever happened.
So if the Senator went up to the cop in the restroom and said ” Hi. Would you like to have sex with me?” that would be legal.
But if he taps his foot and shows his fingers under a stall divider he gets arrested?
WTF?
Fwiw, I think the Senator is an odd duck, and appears to have some internal sexual issues he should work out. I also think he was in fact trying to hook up with a guy. So, is any of that illegal? I thought it was only in Rethuglicanland where being gay was illegal.
I guess it’s just the RepublicanHypocrisy! that must be punished.
I don’t know anything about the cop, he could be a great guy for all I know.
I just think somebody was going to get arrested in that bathroom that day.
Senator Splayfoot was just very unlucky, and stupid to boot.
It is interesting that Minneapolis PD have the time to waste pursuing such silly offenses.
the transcript is at
http://abc*news.go.com/print?id=3543062
remove the asterisk – the filter doesn’t like that link
Well, look. When Soros complains about the cruising, you have to do something.
I get the feeling a lot of people are waiting for him to resign before really putting any energy into a counternarrative.
Officer Cutie must have invested quite some time preening himself for his big gay day out. I’m sure that dissapointment at not scoring would have hurt his self-esteem.
He was probably pissed that the big college jock he’d followed in there turned out to be a “bike rider”
Is your Mary Mostert link right?
Dan, I’m not sure what you don’t like. His ego? He’s just some cop at an airport dealing with a publicly lewd perv U.S. Senator. Not a super-interrogator with a script (for cop and suspect ala tv). As for his pre-arest conduct, he had to dangle the bait, Craig or whoever else uses the public restrooms improperly has to be reasonably assured they’re not going to get punched out before they are going to start making overtures. Its not even close to entrapment which has to do with prevaililng on someone to do something they wouldn’t have done otherwise. As for those saying this is no big deal – that is reflected in the sanction. The airport cops can’t give up policing the bathrooms just because there are murders too. Has no one learned the broken windows lesson?
Let’s not jump off a cliff here. The authorities do have a right and an obligation to ensure that the bathrooms are being used for their intended purpose. Anyone who disagrees with this contention should place themselves in the position of a harried parent attempting to rush their four-year old to the potty while on stop-over, only to find that some of the stalls already have more than one occupant. As to the possibility that the Senator was railroaded, consider the fact that on the tape he alleges “entrapment”, a word that I don’t think would be be used by a party who believes that they are the victim of an innocent misunderstanding, but rather, is more likely employed by someone saying, “ok, you got me, but only because you tempted me to do what I might not have done if you hadn’t placed such an attractive young policeman in the stall next to me”. It is one thing to feel sympathy for a man in a difficult position, it is another to believe that his sexuality, (or race, creed or ethnicity, etc) relieves him of any and all responsibility for irresponsible action – such sweeping absolutions are better left to folks on the other side of the political spectrum.
Maybe the cop was trying to be Minnesota Nice.
Guys, considering the way he let his boys deal with the violin playing bicyclist, and how he created the scenario of said nerdly classical musician and pacifist taking a swing at one of them, I’m skeptical about anything the man says.
Dan, the cop appears to have stretched no detail in his report. The techniques used to interview and coax cooperation and confession from his suspect and back him into corners are standard.
He did catch the senator lying, and he tried to make the senator feel like confession would be to his advantage.
Craig did try to solicit the cop for sex. I understand some people are determined not to see them, but there are numerous tells in the tape. You can stop right at his initial protest “You tried to solicit me” and the now-that-just-isn’t-sporting protest “you shouldn’t be trying to entrap people. You can hear the Senator’s mental brakes squealing as he backs off of that real fast, realizing that this road leads to acknowlegement that he was agreeing to sex with the tricky cop.
He is really dancing at the end, and trying to undo the lies he’s already been caught in by the end. I don’t really have the energy to go through it bit by bit, but there is tell after tell after tell.
The most interesting part of this whole deal to me is the denial techniques used by a man trying to contain a secret, and how his guilty conscience keeps tripping him up. If the tape isn’t enough, how he handled the charges is another tell.
Someone who “convenience pleads” will tell family and friends and/or counsel that he did so, and how unfair it was to have to to that to get away from a catch-22. His plea was a calculated move to try and keep it from anyone and everyone, because he fears everyone will see the truth.
I don’t think anyone comes out of this looking good.
Sex should be an activity engaged in by two (or more) adults, behind the locked door of a Hilton Aiport Hotel bedroom – everybody knows that.
Craig needs to go – that
But did you see the photo of the guy Wingate tasered for riding a bike?
I’m neither a cop nor a lawyer but I do watch Cops (the TV show) occassionally.. Seems to me that when they lure would be Johns with fake feamle cop Hookers they wait for the John to make a specific verbal request for a sex act or otherwise commit to having intent by returning to the motel room with the faux-hooker… Presumably this is so the intent to engage the hooker in a sex act is clearly established. So how does tapping one’s foot and waiving one’s hand under the stall divider meet that standard as to intent?
In point of fact, the Senator is not homosexual, he’s – at most – a bisexual, but not in the cool, socially and God-approved way females are.
Yup, bumperstickerist, bi-sexual women are teh bomb.
Is it possible to hold all of the following positions, concurrently?
1) Sen. Craig is bi-sexual
2) Sen. Craig has issues
3) Sen. Craig knew what he was doing
4) This cop is a douchenozzle
5) If this happened while sitting at a bar, it would not be a crime.
6) Dropping a deuce in a public restroom is scary.
I have to agree BumperStickerist; if the Senator were a (hot) female facing similar charges, I would probably reconsider my hard-hearted stand on this issue….but then, I suspect that attractive bi women probably don’t spend a lot of time at airport bathrooms.
I’m kind of inclined to agree but there’s no way of knowing but that some of Craig’s interview statements – the ‘tells’ – are predicated on things said prior to the interview.
here is the Mary Mostert column, I think, that informs Dan’s angle here
Thanks, hf. I’ll fix that. I actually picked it up on a site where there was no photo, but same article. You’ll note, however, that I brought this up at 7:30 am Eastern on the same day she posted her article, so . . . that’s not what’s informing my position. I AM NOT DERIVATIVE!
Unless, y’know, I admit it.
I didn’t know until this Craig arrest that there is some kind of code “dance” that tells other people in a public restroom that you’re looking to do something other than what the restroom is intended for. I could have lived my entire life without finding that out, and been perfectly happy. Then again, if I had to find out I can think of worse ways than reading about it happening to a Senator.
If I’m sitting in a restroom stall and the guy in the stall next to me starts nudging my foot, now I know that the proper response is to stomp on his instep and yell at him to keep his own goddamn foot on his own goddamn side of the goddamn partition you fucking pervert!
And if it happens to be that cop I yell at, so much the better.
Here’s the problem I’m having with this whole story: What senator doesn’t know that the best thing to do when you’re arrested is keep your damn mouth shut except to ask for a lawyer? Even I know that, and my chances of becoming a senator somewhere south of our chances of seeing some actual ‘dillo dancing.
oh – sorry D – I didn’t mean to imply that –
Yup. Someone was cruisin’ that bathroom alright, and it’s looking more and more like that prowler wasn’t Craig.
It all neatly Ffits the narrative, though: clown-faced “Christian-ist” Republicans peekin’ through cracks, tapping a probing penny-loafer along blackened grout-lines and under streaked dividers, seeking that furtive, forbidden touch.
(No wonder Malkin and the right-o-sphere went nuclear.)
Andrew Sullivan, call your publicist. And someone please call me when ALL the facts roll in.
McGehee – If you actually follow the Man Rules, I am sure that somewhere therein, there is a Rule that points out that bathrooms are not a place for talking, looking, touching, groping, feeling, sucking, or fucking. You piss, shit, wash your hands and leave.
I did not like public restrooms prior to this event. Now you can add them to my list of phobias.
What I think works against Craig more than anything is that this place had a *reputation* – to the extent that pretty boy could just sit and wait – but that’s also the oddest thing – the AP said that 40 guys had gotten busted since I think May – so annualized that’s 120 a year. At what point do you say that this approach isn’t doing the trick? And is pretty boy’s initial concern to handle the arrest discretely – while in the john – is that out of concern for the dignity of the perps – or is there some interest in not compromising the reputation of the bathroom of love?
I’m with ya.
Especially on #6.
“You piss, shit, wash your hands and leave.”
And never, ever, make eye contact. We have a protocol. Please observe it.
I am livid about this Craig situation.
First, if the Minneapolis cops really cared about controlling sexual activity in their airport restrooms, they would station a uniformed officer in there, not some sicko arrogant wannabe sitting in a stall. This is nothing but a money making scheme probably targeting the well dressed businessman. After listening to the tape, there is no doubt that the cop is lying and got caught when Craig questions his ludicrous assertion that Craig reached across his body with his left hand to reach under the right stall wall. Like a small town speed trap, they don’t wait for an actual proposition, they pounce and cite for a very minor violation called public nuisance, threaten, extort and then collect their fines and say “job well done, we made our quota.” Why did they jump the gun and not wait for at least a proposition for sex before the bust? Because that cop knew he was running a scam, not a legitimate sting to catch bad guys.
I’m livid with the Republican party for being a bunch of sanctimonious cowards afraid to stand up for Craig, who by all reports has been a great Senator for his constituents, if his conservative rankings are to be believed.
The crime here is the waste of tax payer money on this sleazy stall patrol, while ignoring real crimes. The RNC should be backing Craig, not throwing him to the wolves. Even if Craig does have orientation issues, so what? Has it affected his job performance as a Senator or made him less than a decent human being? I don’t think so.
And remember, if you had to straddle your carry-on bag in a bathroom stall, you would probably have a wide stance too. This whole thing was designed to get the money, if not, they would have been doing what I said up top – using one uniformed cop or even a rent-a-cop in uniform as a visual deterrent.
Re: that Greencycles thing – it may be quite true that the cops involved were arrogant douchenozzles. But it is also obviously quite true that the fiddler did everything in his power short of actually taking a swing at the cop to ensure that the encounter went badly, even if you assume that his account was perfectly honest.
The dude was trying some passive-aggressive manipulation game on a COP, at an AIRPORT. Dude seriously needed about 1,000 viewings of “How not to get your ass kicked by the police.”
So, maybe it was like some kind of “douchenozzle frenzy” where, unsurprisingly, the fiddler lost.
In any case, I don’t think it applies very well to the Craig situation, being a one-sided subjective account that really doesn’t show its protagonist in a very good light and casts doubt on its own honesty.
Kind of like using a wikipedia link as a source in your school paper… it may be right, but it can’t be trusted.
I kind of thought the same thing about the bicyclist, after reading his account again. However, after listening to the audio of the interview, I still believe that Sen. Craig knew what was happening, and even more, that cop is a real ass.
Pal2Pal,
That particular sting was used to chase away activities that had risen to the level of nuisance, it was in response to escalating complaints from people who just wanted to use the restroom for its intended purpose.
The idea is to chase away the activity with unpredictable consequences.
You probably have enough sense to figure out yourself why an un-uniformed decoy would be more effective at eliminating a locations reputation as a safe hook-up spot than a rent-a-cop or regulart uniformed officer, and why it would be more cost-effective.
The first rule of the Man Rules is, don’t talk about the Man Rules.
‘Cause that implies that men live by some written code of Rules. The truth is, we follow the Rules because we want to, and we all know what they are just because we’re Men. That’s what makes them Man Rules.
But when you talk about the Man Rules, that just ruins everything.
Now. I’m so upset because you talked about the Man Rules, that I can’t even eat my fruit salad.
I’m going to modify my position to this extent: I don’t think the arrest would have stood up in court. Not with the cop claiming that Craig reached across with his left hand to wave at him. Sarah makes good points about Craig’s behavior in the questioning, and I still think he was hoping to hook up, but I think he could have beaten the rap by going to trial.
Pal2pal –
Cruising brings a lot of bad stuff with it, besides the public having to fend off cruisers advances. You are aware of this? I’ll give you links and list if you need examples.
As far as Craig being “railroaded”, he has only himself to blame. He may be overall a very decent human being, but he has serious problems that compromise his ability to lead – including an unhealthy craving for unhealthy sex with multiple anonymous partners that he can not control and which he has been desperate to conceal. He is vulnerable to blackmail and temptation to abuse his power to protect himself.
Sorry SarahW, no I don’t see how an undercover decoy sitting in a stall is more effective than a uniformed officer stationed at the door and making his presence known to anyone entering. It makes absolutely no sense. Even if a man comes in looking for a hookup and gets all those signals right and the guy in the next stall understands all the signals and responds positively, at some point they have to come out of the stall and get together. Is a cop sitting in another stall going to see this? And surely with public urinals where men are lined up with their thing in their hand is a more likely place for eye contact and signals than in a stall on the off chance that some likely participant just might enter the neighboring stall. This was a scam to generate the fines and enrich the coffers of the airport police. How long do you think a particular restroom would stay on the “good pickup list” if it was patrolled constantly by a uniform? I think the word would get out real quick that this particular pickup spot was no longer a viable option.
When I lived in small town Indiana, residents of the community all knew that there were two points just outside of town where the police parked behind billboards and ran speed traps 8 hours a day. Residents detoured around these spots, while those traveling through the area got stopped and ticketed.
I raised one boy. Tall, good looking, sports super star and I asked him, now that he is a grown man, if he ever got propositioned or had any restroom invitations. He said no, but he also said that everyone knew where the gay hangouts were, just as they knew who would sell them beer underage. He said that when a cop was stationed near one of these places, the word went out that there was a new place. He is now a college coach and in the off season he works stadium security for an NFL team. His assignment is to be a visible deterrent, not an instigator in the hopes of catching someone.
That Mostert column is some kind of parody, right? Or does she seriously believe that the DNC has conspired with the Minneapolis police department to manufacture a political scandal? Also beyond parody is her claim that poor Mark Foley railroaded because “it was the page, not the Congressman, that was writing sexually suggestive e-mail.” I guess “how’s my favorite young stud?” isn’t suggestive.
Ardsgaine, I don’t look at “the rap” or the potential for beating it as the beginning and end of wether Craig cruises or whether he should resign.
For what its worth, I happen to agree your thinking that conviction would have been far from certain; I think with a good lawyer he probably would not have been convicted.
Like I said, the most intersting thing to me is how his internal knowlege of guilt keeps tripping him up.
“Real crime” in Minneapolis is almost solely committed by drug gangs, cops, and government officials. Being symbiotic, the three groups don’t fuck with each other, so the police do revenue-generating ticketing (based on admitted “blue-collar profiling” of those who can’t afford a decent lawyer or time off work to challenge a ticket) and “we’ll go easy on you” quick-plea shit like this (for the rich and gang- or government-connected) all day.
Sometimes they cause car accidents by running intersections to get to the titty bar, or demand sex from women they pull over for made-up traffic violations, or beat down some drunk Indians and park fags and twelve-year-olds and bespectacled sissies on bikes, just to get those bravery juices flowing, because they’re not just meter maids, damn it, they’re violent meter maids, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
But I’ll give them this: I only know of about ten instances of them laying an ass-kicking on me or my friends for no law-enforcement-related reason, or ignoring a crime because the victim was just some black guy and the perps were “upstanding citizens,” which is considerably fewer than anywhere else I’ve lived. They’re as “good” as it gets.
Ok then Pal2pal, there are some things you have not considered.
One is cost effectiveness and practicality.
A uniformed officer might be stationed there, or a rent a cop. There are situations, depending on the size of a restroom and the traffic in the restroom, where that might be appropriate. But you can imagine problems that could arise and how objectionable that kind of detail might be. That kind of supervision requires constant presense and constant surveillance.
A decoy, on the other hand, makes the activity risky at any time. It makes the perps feel concerned about capture each and every time they engage in that activity – they cn never be sure. That sting can happen once a week, twice a day, etc. as opposed to 24/7. It’s cheaper, and the officer can be about other things or moved to other duties as needed. No need to hire more security, no need for an officer or officers to be assigned a daily boring dirty unpleasant activity every day for the entirety of his shift.
It increased fear of even trying to gesture potential pick-ups. The activity moves elsewhere. Which is the point….not so much the convicting.
I didn’t get Mostert’s point about the “timing” of the Craig arrest.
Yeah, me neither.
Sarah – I don’t get it – if the only people that know about the bust is bait boy and whatever he reels in, how does this have a deterrent effect?
I rather think that JD sort of answered the whole thing in #23.
Cost effectiveness? What are you talking about? How cost effective is it to have some undercover sitting in a stall 8 hours a day over several months and issuing 40 tickets over that time? It is stupid policing with no deterrent. Police departments will tell you that it is far more cost effective and crime prevention effective to have one visible patrol car making constant swings through a district and that they are better received by the public too. This stall sitter wasn’t in uniform, he was more likely dressed and groomed to look like someone who might be interested in hooking up. How would the patrons of the rest room even know this was someone they could report suspicious activity to? What deterrent did he provide. He was the one doing the instigating. If you see a black and white parked on the side of the highway, are you more likely to slow down than if you saw a green Ford Taurus parked there? If they are going to pay for an undercover to sit in a stall all day, then they can pay for a uniform to patrol on foot all day. The difference, the undercover is there to make sure a crime happens so they can charge and get the fine, the uniform is there to make sure a crime does not happen, therefore no charges, no fines collected. That’s your cost effectiveness. Preventing the crime though, well I don’t see the effectiveness of the stall sitter. Plus, to be assigned such duty has to be the lowest of the low in police jobs, so what does that say about the quality of the stall sitter? It is all icky and it stinks to high heaven when it comes to civil rights and liberties.
I used to own a business in downtown San Diego that was two doors away from a gay bar. One day, a couple of suits came in and asked us if we would cooperate with a police crackdown by calling whenever we saw certain types entering the gay bar. They wanted us to report on any sailors who might wander into that bar or any businessmen. I remarked that when a ship comes in after a 9 month deployment, young sailors hit the bars in downtown SD and that this was one of the first they would come to as they walked up the street from the pier, so how would we know if they were gay or just thirsty and had no idea what was inside the door. At that, my partner and I were given an implied threat that by not cooperating, we would be considered suspicious too. My internal reaction was, “bring it on,” my external reaction was to agree to be on the lookout and get them out of our business as fast as possible. We got to know who were the vice cops and who weren’t after awhile and my partner made a point of reporting suspicious activity every time we saw one of the vice guys walking in front of our business or into the bar.
As I mentioned on another thread, Lars is on of my Senators. I can tell you that even a brief, very casual discussion of his predicament with any of my co-workers yields a unanimous conclusion: Craig should resign.
That said, I agree that his prosecution would simply not hold up in court. Therein lies the rub (if you’ll pardon the expression.) If he were truly innocent he would have righteously told the cop, “I’ll be speaking with my attorney before I say anything more and see you in court.” Which begs the question: why plead guilty hoping just to make it go away? Did he really think the plea would never make it into the national press? If that’s the case he should resign for no other reason than pathological credulousness.
But it’s clear that the biggest heartache (channelling Allah) is now that the secret code for cruising gay sex in bathroom stalls has been, uh, outed, just think how long will it take the gay community to come up with a new code. All those years of hard work down the toilet. Sob!
Pal2pal, I think the point clearly flew right over your head. It’s precisely because you don’t need a decoy sitting on a toilet 8 hours a day that gives it an advantage over a constant uniformed presence….with some other advantages thrown in as well.
Well yeah, Craig should have done resigned days ago. That’s just politics. Buh-bye. And also he has issues, and Sarah’s blackmail argument is not without merit. But tell you what, I find the anti-death penalty logic of “if one person is falsely accused it’s not worth it” far more compelling in this situation than I do for the death penalty. What’s different is that here you lose about as much by contesting the charge as by not contesting the charge, and the police are clearly aware that there is little chance that they will need to defend their case in court. And I’m with Pal2Pal in wondering where the deterrence value of this sort of operation is.
Pal2pal, you are giving me the impression you generally resented crackdowns on cruising.
“Alright boyo. I’ll need to be takin a look at your job if you know what I mean, so stand up slowly and don’t even think about flushing.
Why Sonny Jim, the water is clear and there’s nary a shrimp nor nugget in that bowl. Now tell me tucker, just what did you come in here for?”
This is definitely a guy thing. I’ve never heard of a women’s rest room being a cruising station. However, I have had two incidents in a public restroom where someone tried to grab my purse from under the stall door and another time, I caught some b—ch trying to lift my wallet as my purse sat on the side of the sink as I washed my hands. I also had a third instance at a highway rest stop where a gnarly looking trucker followed me into the rest room. I was thankful that the woman hired to clean was in there, although it turned out that he was really a nice guy who just made a mistake and entered the wrong door. It did scare me for a minute and made me more conscientious in the future about my surroundings when I traveled alone.
In the end, it is up to the Idaho voters. Craig has served nearly two decades in the Senate and another decade in the House, so he must have been doing something right as far as his constituents are concerned. The media, the RNC, and all the rest of us really have no place in demanding the man resign. I still cannot figure out what his actual crime was.
Larry “I’m not gay” Craig needs to know that it’s GAME OVER. He can’t be effective. He’s pretty much been destroyed. It’s one of those dead girl – live boy things.
And aren’t we proud of that Happy Feet? So proud. Excuse me while I go get sick.
I’m not reveling in it. It’s just there. I guess he can hang in there until the end of his term, but to what end I couldn’t tell you.
So does being gay require you to be pro-public lewdness? I am pretty sure it does not.
And slickdpdx, where is the “public lewdness” in the Craig case? Communal urinals seems far more publicly lewd than anything that transpired by Craig and I’ll bet, if you are a man, you’ve used those public urinals at least a few times in your life. Should you be driven out of your job for that?
Thems that *are* reveling in it, say, NPR for example, are really getting on my nerves though. The “public lewdness” is in hearing those estrogen-deprived NPR crones interview drag queens for insight into the politics of this with no sense of irony whatsoever.
I listened to the arrest tape twice.
Craig starts out admitting the shoe bump on the officer’s side of the divider. Later on in the tape, Craig says whether the shoe bump happened is a problematical.
contradiction #1 within the same interview
Craig also starts out saying…”you solicited me”, meaning, that the arresting officer’s shoe went up and down.
Indicating that Craig is familiar with the protocols of solicitation.
You think the arresting officer made up the part about the left hand (with the wedding band) sliding back and forth under the divider ? Craig insists on the tape his “toilet paper picking up” right hand was the only hand that could possibly have been visible to the officer.
And the arresting officer gets obviously frustrated with that version.
Craig, a lawmaker on and off in the House & Senate, pleads “guilty” (to a lesser charge than original) after mulling the thing over for 2 months.
I think the guilt thing is moot here pretty soon. I think it’s funny that “Butch” will name his replacement.
But I’m kind of easily amused like that.
You know what I didn’t know? His kids – he adopted his wife’s kids. They didn’t have any together.
Yes, at Craig’s big denial statement (1982) on tape he says he’s not married.
Presumably, the marriage happened between then and now, and LC officially adopted his wife’s 3 children.
I think all of this is funny. There is no reason to defend Craig. He was obviously attempting to do some stinky dipping in a public place. He got caught. Hell, he even pleaded guilty.
As far as the cop being an asshole, well aren’t most cops assholes? I have some terribly stupid cop stories on a personal level that I could share but they’d just point out the simple truth that we all know; people who become cops are usually the sort of people who are assholes. It’s in their nature – otherwise they wouldn’t be cops.
The best situation here is for Craig to step down (if he hasn’t already) and buy the wife a dildo so she can give him what he needs. I am sure he will be alright even if he can no longer have employment as a senator.
The retarded thing in this scenario is that if it were a high ranking democrat caught doing the same exact thing, the focus WOULD be on how his rights to be a dirty gay in the toilet were violated by the MAN.
How about a uniform that makes a pass through the men’s room every 15-20 minutes or so? That way, you catch guys going at it instead of playing footsie and presuming they’re trying to hit on you.
Had Craig fought this, he would have won. And yes, I think he was trying to dip his wick. But he never got around to committing a crime.
I wonder why any man, blessed with a wife, children, money and respect go cruising for ass in an airport restroom? This isn’t disgusting because he is a Senator, this is disgusting because he is human.
And the cop? Damn. I used to hate my job at the sawmill during college break.
“And the cop? Damn. I used to hate my job at the sawmill during college break.”
That cop LOVES his job. He is a piece of shit masochist.
Who holds him when he cries?
Yes, he’s a fucked up individual. Dude has issues to spare.
I guess for some, the urinal is lewd. But its also what the urinals are supposed to be used for. The peeping and disorderly conduct charges reflect the fact that the officer did not actually wave willies with Craig. If he had let Craig wave his Willy would you be happier? I don’t think so.
Could a periodic uniform presence be effective? Sure. Could the two approaches have some synergy, because you can’t assume that when a uniform’s not there the bathroom is fair game? Anyhow, is the argument really about how the airport police allocate their resources to keep the bathrooms safe and comfortable for those who want to use them for #1 and #2 instead of #69? I don’t think that’s what its really about.
I agree that minor criminal behavior doesn’t necessarily require a Senator to resign. But I also agree that a Senator ought not engage in criminal conduct and resigning would be the right thing to do. The people that elected him probably expect a Senator who represents them not to emabarass them. To the extent that some of the electorate’s homophobia coincides with their legitimate objections that is too bad, but that’s also the constituency he wooed. He made his bed blah blah blah. Who’s pal2pal, Larry’s campaign manager?
By “it” I mean peeing. Of course.
Strangely enough, yes. It would have made for a much better case.
Not to be all Hardy boy or anything, but you know what’s weird? That cop guy made a point in his report of saying that the Craigster didn’t flush when he left the stall. What airport in 2007 doesn’t have auto-flush toilets? It’s a retro-fitting thing, so… it just seems odd. Who touches anything they don’t have to in an airport restroom?
the people here discussed it… though I can’t figure out what they decided. That site is sort of… just for them I think. It’s different there.
Dan, I’m perplexed. You’re drawing conclusions about Craig’s case from the fiddler’s case, when there were different arresting officers. The fiddler, if you read the most recent parts of his blog, ended up being convicted by the jury of refusing to obey a lawful order, which he characterizes as a “victory.” (Sort of like Scooter Libby was victorious, I guess.) But even if the fiddler was abused, I don’t see how you can draw conclusions from his case about Karsnia’s conduct or veracity on altogether different occasion. And this newspaper report (albeit published by the newspaper whom Craig thinks is persecuting him) is certainly pretty flattering to Karsnia — not at all a portrait of a “dirty cop.”
I didn’t hear anything in the tape that I thought reflected poorly on Karsnia. Indeed, except for the factual issue of whether Craig was picking up paper from the floor and, of course, the implied issue of Craig’s subjective intentions, Craig didn’t dispute Karsnia’s accusations on the tape. Most importantly, Craig then pleaded guilty; his plea cross-referenced the complaint, which included Karsnia’s detailed report.
So the reason you conclude that Karsnia is a liar is exactly what, again? And what, specifically, was his lie?
Look, I’m one of those odd conservatives who’s pretty progressive on gay rights, with strong general libertarian instincts. Disorderly conduct is a broad crime that can be used to be abusive, and sometimes police sting operations go over the line. But I don’t see any reason to suspect that that happened here; to the contrary, the guilty plea leaves me pretty damned convinced of Craig’s guilt and pretty damned unconcerned about whether he was abused. Surely if there is anyone who could had the resources and every motivation to fight an unjust charge by a “dirty cop” all the way through to a jury verdict, it would be a U.S. senator.
Beldar–Karsnia confers with his partner, then comes out with the ludicrous suggestion that the violinist took a swing at his officer. One of his charges deliberately walks over to step on the guy’s glasses. No harm, no foul? Officer orders camera views burned to disc. Department won’t turn information over to defense attorney. What do you think the odds are, with 800 cameras, that none of it was captured?
BTW, I’m not drawing conclusions; I’m saying that perhaps none of us ought. I just think that if this glimpse of Sgt. Karsnia’s behavior is representative, then we have reason to doubt his representation of events. I don’t believe that the Senator was innocent, and I think he did the right thing by resigning, but I do think that we need to examine the truthfulness of the cop as well.
Further, it seems to me that if you can tape an interrogation, you can (video?)tape the bust without too much trouble. Frankly, not many people are going to fight this kind of thing. Like the Senator, they’ll want to bargain it down to disorderly conduct and make it go away.
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“Who touches anything they don’t have to in an airport restroom?”
Is that a trick question?
I really hope you’re as much of an asshole online as you are in person – that would reduce any possibility that you might have the opportunity to procreate.
in person as you are online*