I feel bad for Larry Craig. Just a little bit. In part, because of the swiftness and completeness of his collapse. But also because I am fascinated by the fact that he had to know, deep in the remote corners of his soul, that it was coming sooner or later.
Imagine the terror of the two months since the arrest, when he silently lived with the fact that the mug shots from Minneapolis would eventually be on the front page of every news outlet in America.
Imagine all those years in which he walked around playing the Western statesman with the big baritone and fake gravitas, knowing eventually he would be brought low by something sordid he'd do in a public bathroom. He had to know eventually it was going to happen, and I imagine the tortured efforts it must have taken to fend it off.
On February 14th, he went to the floor of the Senate to offer what is permanently preserved in the congressional record as a "Valentine To My Family."
After Majority Leader Harry Reid laid out the schedule, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) began the day by chastising Reid for calling the economy bleak and claiming that "As a result of the low-tax, pro-growth policies of the last six years the American economy could not be stronger or better." This was not an especially delusional day for the Republican senator from Texas, who has made defending the president and his policies the overriding centerpiece of his first term.
Colorado Democrat Ken Salazar followed Cornyn: He wanted to talk about the plight of rural America and two pieces of legislation he thought might be beneficial to those who live there. This is the dull nitty-gritty of the Senate
First though, Salazar let Craig have a few minutes.
"Madam President," he began, "today is an essential day in my life. It is not just Valentine's Day. It happens to be the anniversary of the first date I had with my wife Suzanne. Am I a romantic? Well, maybe just a little bit."
The presiding officer was the new Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar, who previously headed the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, with whom Craig would eventually cut a plea deal.
He continued: "Little did I know then that one day we would be celebrating the first date as a married couple with three children and nine grandchildren. Over the years, I have taken to the Senate to announce the news of our growing family and I ask my colleagues' indulgence again today to send a special valentine to the two most recent additions to our family."
Some of Craig's most strident critics take gravest offense at what they see as his hypocrisy, but the tone of the Valentine is that of a man laying it on, hoping to be persuasive when he knows the argument is flawed or incomplete.
It's a little like saying the economy could not be stronger or better on a day when the Chicago Tribune carried this headline: "Income gap is increasing danger to U.S. economy." Or on the day that the AP moved a story under the headline: "Retail sales turn in weak performance reflecting big drop in auto purchases."
Craig may be a romantic, but there is now an inescapable sense that it was all part of an elaborate cover. There was the occasional hint that he was not completely extreme.
In 2005, Craig was outraged by a group of crazies led by Kansas Pastor Fred Phelps, who began protesting at funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. Phelps believed that the war and the dead were God's way of punishing the U.S. for condoning homosexuality.
Craig called the protesters hateful and intolerant, and noted: "The fringe group responsible for demonstrations believes that 2,752 [that was then] of our Nation's finest have lost their lives in defense of America because, unbelievably, God is exacting his revenge on the United States for its permissive laws respecting homosexuality."
A year earlier, in July 2004, when he vigorously supported the Defense of Marriage Act, he said: "It is important now to stand up and protect traditional marriage which is under attack by a few unelected judges and litigious activists."
But he was a strong advocate of an amendment to DOMA that would allow, he said at the time, "citizens of each state to establish systems to recognize same-sex relationships if they so choose, walking the appropriate line through federalism and the separation of powers."
Clearly, Craig is a man who's been walking a fine line himself.
