Pinko Magazine Hedonism + Activism

So you guys all remember Larry Craig? Closeted Gay Republican Senator, arrested for soliciting sex in a bathroom at the Minneapolis airport, almost resigned, didn’t, now trying to rehabilitate his image. At this point he’s been convicted and everyone in America thinks he was trying to have it in that bathroom. Craig has been mocked, humiliated, laughed at, embarrassed, his family shamed and his job nearly lost. There isn’t much left.

Given that, it makes sense that he would want to improve his image. America loves a comeback, and maybe if done well a smartly-executed campaign could restore some standing to a man who served Idaho as one of its Senators. So Craig hired a lawyer. That lawyer filed a brief. That brief was an important first step to overturning Craig’s conviction. And what is the central argument of the brief — the brief that is intended to restore dignity and to help people forget that this Senator was part of a raunchy gay sex scandal? The size and shape of the crack i.e. the opening in between the stall door and the stall wall. The crack. Seriously. I know I’m being crass, but the entire argument here that he hired someone to go argue to restore his image in front of all of America was based on THE CRACK, and he just said it over and over. From the Times today:

Mr. Martin (Craig’s attorney) disagreed with Judge Hudson’s description of the complaint. “We don’t know how long the crack is, how big the crack is,” Mr. Martin said. “We don’t know,” he said, if Senator Craig simply glanced at the crack twice “or if it was continuous staring.”

Are you kidding me? It baffles the mind. This man is accused of being a gay, ridiculed all over the world (”wide stance” anyone?) and your defense is based on how long and wide the crack is? Continuous staring? I do PR and I get paid shit. What does Mr. Martin get paid to conjure up the one image — a crouching, jaw-clenching, clearly bored and disturbed gay traveler bending over in his airport bathroom stall — that hadn’t even entered the picture?

How long the crack is. It’s just too much.

[Editors Note: Kudos to those zany NYT writers for their headline. "Senator Seeks Withdrawal of Guilty Plea in Sex Sting." Mmmm hmmm. Genius.]

About The Author - Ben Wyskida is a writer, activist, conscientious hedonist and political communications strategist living in Brooklyn. - Visit Ben's site.