Lawmaker News

Harry Truman once said that if you need a friend in Washington, D.C., get a dog. Larry Craig must be off to the Humane Society’s shelter in Boise as we speak. Read more...

It's "Show and Tell" time as everyone returns from vacation to House Middle School and Senate Senior High.

"Let's see what you did this summer," said Ms. Pelosi, the House schoolmarm, "and children, you have to settle down!"  Read more...

I know, I know — bloggers are supposed to be perpetually angry. Accordingly, we usually devote ourselves to describing for our faithful readers the “Outrage of the Week” and how our government is screwing up again.  Read more...

National Republicans are bringing pressure to bear on Sen. Larry Craig to resign his seat. The speed with which individual senators have reacted is stunning. A number of senators have even suggested that the Senate Ethics Committee launch its own investigation of Craig’s conduct. Why are Republicans moving so quickly?

First, the senator already pleaded guilty and that plea, freely entered into, is unlikely to be vacated. If it somehow is, how anxious are Republicans to have details of the incident replayed nightly in a highly publicized trial? Read more...

In this video, Armstrong Williams discusses how the media loves to pounce on a scandal, especially the one involving Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho).

Back in the old days, didn’t “Red state” used to mean a communist country? Well, times have changed. Now the term has moved from left to right. Now it means conservative ... gay-fearing conservative.

So in scarlet-red Idaho, you won’t get very far in GOP politics, just about the state’s only politics, if you’re gay. By the way, didn’t “gay” used to mean happy? It sure as hell doesn’t now. You won’t be at all happy in the Republican circles if you’re anything but a straight arrow, so to speak. And don’t give me Log Cabin Republicans. They’re not very happy. They’re gay. Read more...

I knew Sen. Larry Craig would likely be in denial. But I certainly didn’t give Republicans enough credit — I thought they would be in denial too. I knew they would be shocked, and probably furious, but I expected them to be paralyzed by an incredibly awkward situation. Their reaction was so swift and severe I believe I am as shocked by it as the senior senator from Idaho himself.

As nervous Republicans burned up the phone lines and dodged reporters Tuesday their leaders in the Senate threw old Larry under the bus. No waiting, no negotiating; they knew they had to shake this one. Even before he took to the cameras and microphones, Republicans asked for an ethics investigation and asserted that they would also examine Craig’s situation themselves to see if “additional action” was necessary. They did so less than 24 hours later by asking him to leave his committee posts, which is effectively the beginning of his resignation from the Senate. Read more...

When Brent Budowsky managed to weave the arrest of Idaho Senator Larry Craig into yet another diatribe about war in Iraq in his post yesterday, I just rolled my eyes and laughed to myself. Leave it to Budowsky to link bathroom sex and Iraq. He keeps good company with June Thomas, an editor at Slate.com who complained law enforcement should concern itself with finding Osama bin Laden, not men looking to kill time in the men’s room.

Thomas writes, “I’m saying we should focus on finding Osama bin Laden in Waziristan. I think there are laws policemen take way too much pleasure in enforcing, and this one is right on top. How many people challenge (much less win) charges like this?” Read more...

Isn’t it a shame that e-Harmony doesn’t accept gays? Then we might witness a TV ad showing Larry Craig and Mark Foley gushing about how they have been computer-matched because they have so much in common. What they mainly have in common is Republican politics.

And hypocrisy. To many, GOP has come to mean Gay Oppression Party. And now we have another conservative stalwart awkwardly feeding the insatiable media appetite for mindless titillation. Don’t you just love that word, “titillation”? Will George Carlin add that one to his list? Read more...

While the war in Iraq and the future of the Justice Department are far more important to our nation, I think the GOP should consider that the latest blow — the embarrassment of Sen. Larry Craig — will have quite a lasting impact. (And is any questionable episode in a men's room NOT an embarrassment?)

Unlike his other recently embarrassed Republican colleagues, Sens. Ted Stevens and Pete Domenici, Craig is not tangled in a web of financial or ethical questions. He lands flat on his back in the political dumpster with Sens. David Vitter, who found himself in the phone book of the D.C. Madam, and former Rep. Mark Foley, who sent inappropriate e-mail messages to young boys. They are potent scandals, easy to comprehend and easy to remember. They pile up with the many tales of corruption that have streamed out of the Republican Party since 2005 with alarming regularity. Read more...