Contrary to some, I don’t feel sorry for Larry Craig

An e-mailer to Talking Points Memo says s/he’s kind of willing to cut Craig some slack:

Sure, he’s a hypocrite, sure he’s probably gay or bi or whatever, and sure, I despise his politics. The problem is, I'm torn between the schadenfreude of watching another one of the Family Values crowd being shown up, and feeling really bad for the guy, because he didn't do anything.

Look at the police report. Did he directly ask a cop for sex? No. Did he expose himself lewdly (as opposed to exposing himself to use the facilities)? No. Did he do anything that was unambiguously sexual? No.

I, on the other hand, feel nothing but schadenfreude for Craig at this time.

The people I feel sorry for is gays and lesbians, especially in places like Idaho (next door to Matthew Shepard's Wyoming!), where gay and lesbian visibility is almost totally beat down because of people like Craig.

As for the e-mailer’s later Walter Jenkins reference (the LBJ aide arrested more than 40 years ago in similar circumstance), it’s ultimately the fault of gay-bashers like Craig that people still get picked up in men's rooms for somewhat iffy solicitation charges. Assuming Craig has been self-knowingly in the closet for the decade or more that seems to be the case, he knows the rules of the game on anonymous pick-ups, too. He's got nobody but himself to blame for causing the rules to be what they are, and for playing by them, rather than being honest and true to himself and living out his sexual preferences without squalor.