Internet Could Have Saved Larry Craig
Josh Marshall reports that a series of Web sites out there that “rate different public sex bathrooms around the country” and that “An airport bathroom, specifically one near a shoeshine stand behind the ticket counter, generated the most comments until Web-site users posted warnings in June that men were getting arrested there.”
While disturbing on a whole number of levels, it was inevitable that such sites would evolve. Indeed, it reminds me a lot of the way CB radios were used when I was a kid (and perhaps still today) by truckers and other motorists to warn each other of speed traps.
He would have known of this site if he was in the gay culture, but as a self-loathing closet dweller, how would he have heard of it?
The real story behind all the Larry Craig brouhaha is the hypocrisy with respect to Vitter and his prostitutes. Where are the calls for resignation in his case?
I don’t know what Craig did or did not do, but I wonder how many recordings there are of misdemenor disorderly conduct arrests exist. I wonder why no one else thinks this is unusual. Further, the fact this recording is released to the public is also interesting. I still find it interesting that tapping your foot in a toilet stall or making ones hand visible to someone in the next stall illegal.
Get a grip, dude and learn the law. He was originally charged with lewd and lascivious behavior which can be felonious in some jurisdictions. Taping an interrogation is pretty typical.
Larry consented to the taping as well as plead guilty to a disorderly conduct charge, so there is no question that a crime was committed. Unless, of course you think that Larry is a liar, he committed a crime.
As for it being “interesting” that the recording is released to the public, it seems that seven years of Bush/Cheney secrecy has dimmed your expectations about transparency in government.
The recording–along with the police report and Larry’s mug shot where he is wearing that cute American Flag Pin–is a public record. You can access most court documents that have been retained following a criminal case simply by filing a freedom of information request.