Oh, Those Wacky Republicans!

Senator Arlen Specter has said, in an interview on Fox News, that his fellow Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) should, in the words of the Bloomberg report from which I derive this story (since you don't really expect me to watch Fox News, do you?), "try to withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct in connection with an incident in an airport men's room and fight the case."

"I think he could be vindicated,'' Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on the "Fox News Sunday'' program.

Specter, of Pennsylvania, said that Craig "hasn't resigned'' from the Senate, only that he "intends to resign'' as of Sept. 30. That gives Craig a month to fight the case in court, Specter said. If the case went to trial, Specter said Craig "wouldn't be convicted of anything.''

I hate to say it, but I agree with Arlen Specter.

Not so much on the legal front (do we really get "do-overs" in court nowadays?), but on the resignation front. It's not like he was caught in bed with a dead nine-year-old with an ice-pick in her chest or anything -- it was a private (or as private as a men's room stall can be) incident that should be left to Senator Craig and his wife. If I felt that way about President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, then I think I should also feel that way about Senator Craig and the hunky undercover officer he tried to blow.

What happened to Senator Craig was a pretty clear case of entrapment. I really don't care what he does in men's rooms, with or without an undercover office, but I do think that the law should butt out of people's bedrooms.

Or their toilets.

Now, that having been said, I should also point out that this is a relatively easy call for me to make, given that, considered politically, Idaho is about as red as my face would be if I were to be caught in a men's room with an undercover officer -- so it's easy for me to say that Senator Craig should fight to save a seat that would be reliably Republican in any event. I wonder if I would stick to principle if the senator involved was John Warner, in the highly competitive state of Virginia.

But it's not. Idaho will have a Republican senator whether Craig steps down or not, so I say he should stick around and be a living example to the GOP of what family values are about.

Might even do them some good.

Tom Moran