Classless

Well September 30 is past and after having made his “intent to deceive” speech a couple miles from my house, Senator Larry Craig is digging in even as Republican Senators plot extreme measures to get him to leave:

Worried that the disgraced lawmaker intends to remain in the Senate indefinitely, they are threatening to notch up the public humiliation by seeking an open ethics hearing on the restroom scandal that enveloped Craig last month.

The Senate hearing would examine the original charges in Craig’s case, including the allegation of “interference with privacy,” for peeping into the bathroom stall occupied by an undercover police officer. One senior Republican aide imagined “witnesses, documents, all in front of the klieg lights.” The committee also could look for “a pattern of conduct” — which means combing court records in other locales to discover whether Craig had prior arrests that haven’t come to light.

The call for a public hearing is not unprecedented. In 1995, the Senate narrowly rejected holding an open forum to examine sexual misconduct allegations against Bob Packwood (R-Ore.). The Democrat who called for the open Packwood hearing? Barbara Boxer (Calif.), the current chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee.

I’m trying to ponder the type of ego required to consider putting your family and the people of a state you say you love through this indignity. I just can’t fathom it. I hope Craig resigns before it comes to this, but he’s already spent a lot of good will through his plain failure to bow out gracefully. Hopefully, he’s not forced to bow out through a tawdry hearing like this. It’ll be sad if his own party has to do this to get Larry Craig to do the right thing.