By Brendan McLaughlin

The arrest of Idaho Senator Larry Craig for pitching woo in the airport loo  immediately reminded me of one of my favorite jokes:  

A decrepit old man walks into a pub in Scotland and in a trembling Scottish burr, orders a pint.  The bartender asks if the man’s feeling O.K.  The man answers angrily,   Feeing O.K.?!

This very pub we're just sitting in. I built it with me own hands brick by brick! But do they call me "Angus the Pub Builder”? Nay!

See the wall over there that protects our town? I built it with me own hands! But do they call me the “Angus the Wall Maker”? Nay!

And the bridge, you know, that crosses our river, I built it with me own hands! But do they call me “Angus the Bridge Builder”?     You  ----   just one goat!

Senator Craig’s no-no with the po-po inspires so much scatological mirth that it’s easy to overlook the gravity of the situation.  A highly accomplished man’s career and reputation  was flushed down the toilet on the word of a single Minneapolis police officer- an officer who never saw the Senator’s privates or was ever asked explicitly to give or receive a sex act from the accused.   

  Put yourself in Craig's position for a moment assuming you’re completely innocent and indeed assume a wide stance when answering the call. Do you publicly fight a charge of lewd sexual solicitation with all the humiliating details that would generate? Or do you plead guilty to the lesser charge of disorderly conduct, pay a $500 dollar fine and move on?  Now consider the not-at-all inconceivable possibility that the officer fabricated the incriminating details of his report.  You see then how this is one of those accusations that can destroy a person regardless of guilt, innocence, denial or confession.  The accusation IS the conviction and the punishment wrapped up in one.   

Of course, when you hear reports of  Craig’s alleged cocaine use and sexual encounters with male teenage congressional pages dating back to 1982, you’re reassured  that where there’s smoke, there’s hot gay bathroom sex.  But regardless of the probity of your sex life, all of us should shudder at a law that can ruin a life’s work for toe tapping and the display of fingers in a toilet stall.

The absence of outrage at this colossal punishment for a nasty little crime, I think can be explained by the widespread belief that Senator Craig’s bigger crime was hypocrisy. The same finger that got Craig busted at the Minneapolis airport sanctimoniously wagged at President Bill Clinton for his comparatively forthright encounter with Monica Lewinsky.    “A nasty, bad, naughty boy” he called Clinton on Meet the Press in 1999.  (Note to self: Never go camping with anyone who uses the terms “nasty, bad, naughty boy).