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Craig’s embarassing flip-flop just another example of hypocrisy

By David W. Shelton | September 5, 2007 |

In what might be the ultimate flip-flop, Senator Larry Craig has announced that he is “reconsidering” his resignation from the US Senate after his arrest and guilty plea for “disorderly conduct” in a Minneapolis airport.
 
Craig is yet another of a long list of Republicans who have had their hand caught in the cookie jar of hypocrisy. What amazes me is that in recent days the only thing that the Republican Party has to say about itself is to attack former President Bill Clinton who got that blowjob in the Oval Office back in 1995. When that didn’t stick, they went after US Senator Ted Edward Kennedy’s drunken driving manslaughter incident back in 1970.
 
Of course, the party line from conservatives and Republicans is that the Democratic Party is “corrupt” and “immoral.” If this were true, why do they have to go back twelve years and nearly forty years to find their examples of just how “immoral” Democrats are?

 
Now, let me be fair. I voted Republican for many years. I voted for them because they had done such a great job in presenting themselves as the party that stood for what was right. They were the party of morality, after all. In fact, the church in America had almost completely repositioned itself as “The Republican Party at Prayer,” as one pastor I know called it.
 
Maybe this is why I’m so disgusted with Republican “ideals” now. Senator Craig’s “indiscretion” is completely indefensible, and he knew it. That’s why he entered a guilty plea. Of course, I don’t buy his pathetic claim that he “didn’t have counsel” for a second. What was much closer to the truth was his statement that he wanted the incident to go away quietly.
 
Some pundits have even gone on record and said that “Senator Craig knows that homosexuality is wrong, so he’s right to be ashamed.” I’m really quite surprised that this has even been uttered in the twenty-first century. But then, after several years of resignations, Congressional page scandals, and improper firings, I can’t help but wonder of Craig’s arrest reveals just how vile Republican hypocrisy has become.
 
No, he wasn’t resigning because he was gay. He was going to resign because he was caught red-handed trying to solicit sex in a public bathroom. He called the incident “entrapment,” but even then, he knew that sex in a public restroom was immoral, dangerous, and downright nasty.
 
His hypocrisy was made clear when a quick glance at his voting record was to deny rights and equality to people who had ten thousand times more integrity that he does. Those of us who are out… and live public lives as gay men and women, are disgusted by people like Craig who don’t have enough backbone to even stand up for himself.
 
This includes other “moral” people like Newt Gengrich, Mark Foley, Alberto Gonzales, Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff, and countless other Republicans who built a career on “family values” only to spit on those values by their adulterous and sometimes criminal acts.
 
Gengrich resigned over an adulterous relationship. Gonzales has resigned over his outright political firings of several US attorneys. Abramoff… wow… he was the center of a slew of corruption in Washington. Foley’s page scandal has become legendary. Tom Delay was indicted, for crying out loud.
 
In fact, Delay and Craig were both instrumental in the Republican impeachment efforts against Clinton. Is it really any surprise that they had such skeletons in their closets? Delay had Abramoff in his closet, while Craig was in the closet.
 
Of course they were moral. Right?
 
Please. When will our country’s citizens realize that party platforms are about as meaningful as a paper plate in a barbecue, only to be discarded when we get something on it? This is especially true of Republican leadership in recent years, who have been struggling to maintain their “family values” image after repeated assaults from within their ranks. Thankfully, Americans are finally beginning to understand that the Republican partly is neither interested in “family” or “values.”
 
They’re interested in power.
 
But then, so are Democrats. But hey, at least they’re a little more honest about it. 

About David W. Shelton

Posts by David W. Shelton are copyright (c)2006, 2007, 2008 by the author. All rights reserved. David W. Shelton is a writer, speaker and activist in Clarksville, and serves on the Clarksville Human Relations Commission. His passions include film and complete equality for all people, and he has worked in various capacities to work toward this goal. He is currently an illustrator, graphic designer, trainer, and is the owner of Imagine Media Solutions. He is an Adobe® Certified Instructor in Photoshop®.

Web Site: http://www.skippingtothepiccolo.com/

Email: dwshelton@charter.net

Sections: Issues, Opinion, Politics
Topics: Bill Clinton, Edward Kennedy, Jack Abramoff, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Newt Gengrich, Tom Delay

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