GOP Gay Glass House

Republican conservative policymakers must be reeling.... their "moral authority" shtick and gay bashing hypocrisy are laid bare once again as "GOP State Rep Resigns Amid Sex Scandal." (WaPo)

Washington State lawmaker Rep. Richard Curtis, who voted against gay rights, resigned Wednesday after "he was quoted in police reports as saying a man he had sex with after they met at an erotic video store was trying to blackmail him."

And, according to police reports, he didn't have gay sex at just any old place, but at a hotel room in Spokane during a GOP retreat. The blackmail? According to the other man, Cody Castagna, Curtis reneged on his promise to pay him $1,000 for the sex.

Following the lead of other GOPers caught out.... Curtis, married with children, now declares that sex was not involved and "he was not gay."

On the lunatic right fringe of the GOP, more gay bashers are getting their comeuppance. "$11M Verdict in Funeral Protesters Case." (WaPo)

This fundamentalist Kansas sect pickets military funerals waving placards bearing vile messages like "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God hates fags."

The courts have at last acted against their hate speech.... they have been ordered to pay nearly $11 million in damages to the grieving father of a fallen Marine after their protest intruded on his private funeral ceremony.

The sect.... the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka.... led by Fred Phelps and his two daughters, believe that U.S. deaths in the Iraq war are punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality, and hide behind the First Amendment to justify their vitriolic behavior. No more.

The far-right "religious" czars in the GOP need to sit up and take notice.... their days as the self-promoting gay-bashing hacks of the "moral majority" are over.... their clay feet have been exposed, and real "values" upheld by the courts.

Eyes were opened with fundamentalist mega-church leader Ted Haggard's revelation of his gay activities, sending shock waves though out the conservative movement. From creepy page-stalker GOP Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, to GOP Sen. "Widestance" Craig of Idaho.... the mounting gay-baiting hypocrisies have washed up on the beach of their pretensions.

The current crop of self-annointed gay-baiting GOP power brokers.... like "Third Party Threat" Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council; Gary "humping in corporate accounts" Bauer of American Values; and James Dobson of Focus on the Family and SpongeBob-SquarePants-is-pro-homosexual fame.... are nothing more than shallow, opportunistic money lenders in the political temple.

Evangelicals and the Republican party would do well to drive them out.

Fred Jumps, Debate Slumps, Bush Pumps

Former senator Fred Thompson continues to make his presence known by his absence. In last night's debate on FOX between eight Republican presidential hopefuls in New Hampshire, Thompson was the Southern conservative Reaganish elephant hulking behind the curtain...dealt with by lame jokes such as Sen. John McCain's (AZ) "Maybe it's past his bedtime."

Meanwhile, "Fred Thompson Makes a Late-Night Late Entry" (WaPo) on Jay Leno's show laconically announcing he was joining the presidential wanna-be fray, and dismissing the debate with a backhand, "I'll do my share, but I don't think it's a very enlightening forum, to tell you the truth."

And, truth be told, it wasn't a very enlightening forum. A not surprising chorus of "Top Republicans back Bush Iraq Strategy in Debate" was the tenor of the evening. (WaPo)

Without the presence of Rep. Ron Paul (TX), it would have been a yawner although it was designed to stir things up....questions on immigration (at last) that elicited not very artful dodging from New York's "safe-haven city" former mayor Rudy Giuliani, and on the flip-flopping of disgraced Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig (R-ID).

The debate was mostly a joust to the bottom... and Sam Brownback easily won that slot. While the questions on Iraq allowed McCain some expected chest-beating, it was Paul who showed the courage of his convictions by reminding his hostile cohorts that the decision to go to war was made by a handful of neoconservatives who hijacked U.S. foreign policy.

And, while the political climate was heating up in the U.S..... a half a world away, White House diplomacy was also getting a bit steamy, or unseemly. "In Australia, Rice stands in for first lady," (AP) the headline teases.

While Laura Bush stayed in D.C. with what she said was a pinched nerve, in Sydney "office wife" Condi Rice and The Decider were yucking it up. To quote Bush at a dinner in his honor: " 'She can be my date,' the president said, reaching out his left hand to touch Rice's arm as they stood before the cameras at a dinner hosted by Prime Minister John Howard and his wife."

The reason for the date....err.... trip to Australia was the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum attended by leaders from China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and other major Pacific Rim countries. So, with such a gathering in which to make his gravitas felt as the leader of the free world, what did The Decider do?

After lunch, Bush headed back to his hotel to change into biking gear and then his motorcade raced north to a track at the Honda training facility. After an hour Bush emerged and his motorcade returned to Sydney.

It has been reported that much of the advance work for Bush's trips involve the Secret Service ferreting out the best place for Kid George to ride his bike. Bush has become a joke and an embarrassment to us all.... the country's painful pinched nerve.

Friends of George Flee....

There is an echo in the White House these days.... because gone to "spend more time with their families...." are:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Joint Chief of Staffs Chairman Peter Pace
White House Senior Political Advisor Karl Rove
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow
White House Counselor Don Bartlett
White House Budget Director Rob Portman
White House Counsel Harriet Miers
White House Political Director Sara Taylor
Justice Department White House Liaison Monica Goodling
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

In Congress, the latest GOP heavy-hitters announcing retirement....

Sen. John Warner (VA)
Sen. Dennis Hastert (IL)
Rep. Deborah Pryce (OH)

And, today after a tumultuous week during which wide-stance bathroom habits were given wide media coverage....

Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) again made headlines..... "Senator Craig Announces Resignation."

Caught in a sting operation by an undercover officer investigating "lewd conduct" in a bathroom of the Minneapolis airport.... and, after pleading guilty.... gay-bashing conservative poster-boy Craig defensively declared in a news conference "I'm not gay."

Which really isn't the point. Conduct unbecoming a U. S. Senator is. This GOP embarrassment will be history by the end of the month.

So..... a lonely Bush is left peering out of his oval office window, wondering how it is things went so quickly from a lame-duck to a lone-duck presidency.

Craig: "Spend Time With Your Family"

After making what could be termed an almost comical Freudian slip, Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig welcomed those attending his news conference yesterday by saying he was glad they "all came out," and then went on.... "Idaho Senator Asserts: 'I Never Have Been Gay'. " (WaPo)

Craig just doesn't get it.

His "crime" isn't that he may be gay, or the hypocrisy of his ultra-conservative senate gay-bashing career..... no, his crime is that he was arrested for lewd behavior in a public men's restroom, and.... if the article in The Idaho Statesman is correct.... it wasn't the first time he sought gay sex in a public restroom.

And, it's more than just investigative reporting about past incidents in his home state newspaper. The video replayed last night on MSNBC's Chris Matthews Hard Ball of Craig in 1999 calling then President Clinton a "nasty bad naughty boy" is more than creepy. His inflections and demeanor are, well.... salacious.

Craig has already pleaded "guilty" to the Minnesota ugliness. Now, we need "Wide Stance".... his explanation for his foot wandering into the stall of the undercover cop.... to give the U.S. Senate a wide berth and resign.

Hypocrisy, Thy Name is "GOP Values"

If you want to learn more about the married, father of three, Sen. Larry Craig's (R-ID) solicitation for sex in a Minnesota airport men's restroom to a man who turned out to be an undercover police officer.... you can read about it here, "GOP Senator Pleaded Guilty After Restroom Arrest." (WaPo)

But, what you may get to not read, is this excerpt from Craig's impeachment statement about then President Clinton.... released to the Congressional Record, February 12, 1999:

"..... But I would submit that if a generation of young people are taught by our actions in this case that a lie carries no consequences, then the nation is at risk. If our citizens conclude that lawlessness in the highest office is acceptable, that their elected representatives are complicit in that corruption, and that nothing can be done to stop it, then the nation is at risk.

Craig rhetorically built his over 20-year senate career around GOP conservative "family values" and anti-gay legislation.

Addendum: In a statement today, Craig said he regrets his rash decision to plead guilty, making it sound as though he made a hasty decision. He pleaded guilty one month after his arrest.

He also said his poor decision to plead guilty was because a home state newspaper, The Idaho Statesman, had been hounding him, when in truth, an article about previous alleged gay sex encounters, including an underage male page, was suppressed by the newspaper until Craig pleaded guilty to the charge in Minnesota.

Here is the police report from Minnesota.