A "Wide Stance" On The Law?

Sometime today, we should find out if a judge will let Repug Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho withdraw his guilty plea in connection to that untidy little business in the men’s room of the Minneapolis, MN airport earlier this year.

And I also heard somewhere the concern expressed that, if Craig were allowed to withdraw his plea (an idea given to Craig by Our Man Arlen Specter, let’s not forget), it would encourage others who have entered guilty pleas as a result of an arrest to do the same thing.

I haven’t found any information by any legal professionals to substantiate that, however. Besides, there have been precedents for Craig’s actions for some time (noted here and here, as well as a recent example here that may have been inspired by Craig’s attempt to weasel out of this).

And though I suppose Frank Rich has a bit of a point here about gays not rallying to Craig’s defense (though I don’t understand why they should, since, as Rich points out, Craig is a card-carrying member of the party that has tried its best to send them straight back “to the closet”), I definitely agree with a good bit of this (though I think it’s up to the judge to decide whether or not Craig did anything wrong)…

Not only did the senator do nothing wrong, but in scandal he has proved the national treasure that he never was in his salad days as a pork-seeking party hack. In the past month he has served as an invaluable human Geiger counter for hypocrisy on the left and right alike. He has been an unexpected boon not just to the nation's double-entendre comedy industry but to the imploding Republican Party. Gays, not all of them closeted, may be among the last minority groups with some representation in the increasingly monochromatic G.O.P. If it is to muster even a rainbow-lite coalition for 2008, it could use Larry Craig in the trenches.

(I’m not completely sure that Rich wants to see Craig stay in the Senate – these remarks may be “tongue in cheek” only, but I think he does.)

And after all, concerning Craig, let’s not forget about this bit of history, shall we (methinks thou doth protest too much)...

Update: My apologies - the plug for Larry LaRocca, though a good thing, was not the correct video. The one I had in mind from 1982 appears below.