Idaho Senator Larry Craig resigned from Congress today after becoming part of a sex scandal involving an airport bathroom, an undercover police officer, and some penises. News reports are a bit vague about what actually happened — what was said, who was rubbed, where this rubbing took place, how hard the rubbing was, the color of the Senator's pants, etc. — but apparently Senator Craig went into an airport bathroom on June 11 and tried to solicit sex from the man in the next stall. Unfortunately for Craig, the next stall was occupied by Dave Karsnia, a police sargeant who is barely attractive even by airport bathroom standards. Karsnia arrested Craig, who went on to argue that he was not soliciting sex and that he is “not gay.” He drove this point home by admitting guilt to the solicitation charges.
Luckily for us, excerpts of the interview between Karsnia and Craig have been released to the public, and it contains such enlightening gems as these:
KARSNIA: OK. And when you went in the stalls, then what?
CRAIG: Sat down.
KARSNIA: OK. Did you do anything with your feet?
CRAIG: Positioned them, I don't know. I don't know at the time. I'm a fairly wide guy.
KARSNIA: I understand.
CRAIG: I had to spread my legs.
KARSNIA: Have you been successful in these bathrooms here before?
CRAIG: I go to that bathroom regularly.
KARSNIA: I mean for any type of other activities.
CRAIG: No. Absolutely not. I don't seek activity in bathrooms.
KARSNIA: What exactly did you want when you put your hand under my stall?
CRAIG: Well, I wanted sex, but —
KARSNIA: You wanted homosexual sex?
CRAIG: No.
KARSNIA: It's the men's bathroom…
CRAIG: I wanted the heterosexual sex.
KARSNIA: [inaudible]
CRAIG: I wanted the most heterosexual gay sex you had. The heterosexual kind. With two men and no gay. Heterosexual gay sex.
KARSNIA: I don't understand.
CRAIG: Nobody does.
Since this news broke a week ago, Senator Craig has gotten virtually no support from his own party, and his potato-loving ass has been dragged through the mud and practically thrown out the door of the Senate. This sex scandal, however, is not the first to rock the GOP. Mark Foley's page scandal broke less than a year ago. In 2004, representative Ed Schrock was implicated in a gay phone sex scandal. And it's impossible to forget the trials of Senator Mortimer Q. Dondelinger (R-OH), who was involved in a startlingly similar scandal at the turn of the century. Dondelinger, a senior Senator with ties to the powerful Those Bikes With One Big Wheel and One Small One lobby, was accused of soliciting sex in a train station bathroom from the man in the next stall. This man turned out to be an undercover vice constabulary, and a similar interview was conducted:
CONST.: Senator, sir, I'd just like your side of the story.
DONDELINGER: I was reaching down to pick up a piece of toilet paper.
CONST.: What's toilet paper?
DONDELINGER: Consarn it, I don't need these accusations!
CONST.: I'm just asking you to be truthful.
DONDELINGER: Drat!
CONST.: Settle down, sir.
Like so many public officials before him, Larry Craig's glossy-paged book has come to a close and been placed back behind the counter. He still denies that he is gay, but I think this is the wrong course of action for him to take. Senator, everybody thinks you're gay now. True or false, it doesn't matter; nothing you say is going to make any difference. So enjoy it! It's time to turn in the stifling drab suits and don the stereotypical and far more comfortable boas and flashy pants of homosexual culture. You're gay now! The entire world can be your Minnesota airport bathroom.