Say It Ain’t So, Joe (Pulitzer)

The Idaho Statesman is a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the fall of Senator Larry Craig (R-ID). I wish I could congratulate the hometown paper, wish them well, and say that their status as a finalist is well-earned, but I cannot.

I’m on-record saying that Senator Craig should have resigned and he brought dishonor on the state and is reason I have to hear wide stance jokes about Idaho everywhere I go. That does not justify the Statesman’s investigation into the personal life of Senator Craig, nor the sleazy tactics it used.

The Statesman’s methods were disreputable. The Statesman’s Dan Popkey reportedly went so far as going into a gay bar in Washington, DC and showing a picture of the Senator to patrons in the hope of turning up leads.

Their months of investigation produced little solid proof and nothing the Statesman felt comfortable running with until after Senator Craig’s arrest for disorderly conduct in Minneapolis became public. Were it not for that, the Statesman’s investigation would have been a bust. If there were an award for dumb luck, I would own to the Statesman deserving it.

The Statesman’s investigation was corrosive acid poured over our democratic system. It illustrated why good people don’t run for office. Not everyone the press investigates turns out to be guilty, and innocent people don’t want their friends, family, and associates questioned in hopes of turning up dirt on their sexual practices.

I’ve read no substantive report indicating Senator Craig was a sexual predator like Bill Clinton, Mark Foley, or Bob Packwood. The worst thing alleged is that he’s a man who broke his marriage vows with other men. If that’s true (and it looks like it is), that’s awful, but outside of his propensity for public risk taking (which the Statesman was never able to prove prior to the Minneapolis incident) what business is that of the Statesman’s?

When the American Spectator investigated the indiscretions of Bill Clinton, including alleged misuse of government employees and resources, the left called it the politics of personal destruction. When conservative publications reported his alleged sexual harassment and assault of women, it was attacked as a vast right wing conspiracy. Yet, the Idaho Statesman spends months of valuable time and thousands of dollars on tracking down leads that suggested Senator Craig might be a homosexual, and for this they get a Pulitzer nomination?

Of course, the Craig situation was different. It was okay to rummage through his sex life, because Senator Craig was a conservative hypocrite for opposing gay marriage and including sexual orientation in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. You see, hypocrisy is the one sin that excuses all others committed in response to it.

Worse yet, the Statesman’s investigation came as a result of information published by Mike Rogers of Blog Active, who threatened a closeted homosexual US Senator (presumably Craig) with public exposure should he oppose the Marriage Amendment. For his attempt to subvert the American Republic through blackmailing public officials, Mike Rogers belongs in prison. But to the Idaho Statesman, he was a dandy source.

The Statesman’s brand of journalism is not all that new to media. Pulitzer himself practiced yellow journalism, but even he couldn’t imagine the audacity of the Statesman. My hometown paper’s status as a Pulitzer prize finalist for contributing to the destruction of good government, rummaging through the sex life of a politician to make a political point, and investigating the claims of a blackmailer who attempted to subvert the US Senate mark a low point for the integrity of the mainstream press in America.