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Sen. Larry Craig Back in the Senate
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ShareSeptember 18, 2007 1:12 PM
ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports: Disgraced Sen. Larry Craig was spotted late Tuesday morning, back in Washington, D.C., for the first time since word of his arrest for disorderly conduct in a Minneapolis airport men's room and subsequent pledge to resign at the end of this month (maybe).
A reporter for CNN spied Craig using a door reserved for staff and Senators and then slipping into a private Senator's dining room. Word spread through the Capitol Hill press corps like wildfire.
An interview with Craig remains elusive since his fall from grace and he has left open the narrow window that he won't resign after all.
Craig was seen next voting on the Senate floor at 12:15pm and moments later he was pursued by still photographers just off the Senate floor.
Reporters who attended a photo op meeting between Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., and Attorney General nominee Judge Michael Mukasey saw Craig pop out of an unmarked door in the hallway and disappear just as quickly.
It's like whackamole or a road runner cartoon perhaps. Journalists covering the Iraq debate and the other business on Capitol Hill have the eyes in the back of their head turned on to find Craig, too.
Games of cat and mouse could not happen anywhere else in town. Reporters covering the White House have a cramped set of rooms and offices built over a swimming pool. It is a renovated spot and the pool has been ripped out. But renovated or not, it's the only place reporters can go at the White House. And it is cramped.
At the State Department, journalists have access to one wing in the basement. Walking the rest of the building requires an escort. It’s a similar story at the Justice Department. Journalists can walk around the Pentagon, but the movers and shakers there are not really public figures. They aren't on television as much as Senators and Congressmen.
But on Capitol Hill, a press pass is like a golden back stage pass to the Van Halen concert. There are some restrictions on where TV cameras can go, but the reporters can go anywhere.
The only places Craig is truly in private on Capitol Hill are in his office and on the actual Senate floor. Pretty much everywhere else is fair game. If you want to ask Hillary Clinton a question; figure out where she is and walk up and ask. Did Minority Leader Mitch McConnell say something that needs clarifying? Wait for him off the Senate floor and ask him. Try staking out President Bush without specific approval. You won't get far.
Its all in keeping with the point of Capitol Hill, really. The House and the Senate, ultimately belong to the voters. The lawmakers, necessarily, are accountable to the people and the reporters who get them information.
September 18, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (13)
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Have they checked the bathrooms?
Posted by: nffcnnr | Sep 18, 2007 1:16:43 PM
"prowl" is right. What, do you have people sitting on the toilet waiting for him, or something? Please, find something really important to report, like maybe some idiot starlet forgetting her underwear - oh, wait, we've already had that one...
Posted by: jdawg | Sep 18, 2007 1:36:41 PM
This man purposely went there to engage in sexual behavior and now lies about it - what else is he lying about with the dictators BUSH and CHENEY
Posted by: joe | Sep 18, 2007 2:05:05 PM
This whole Craig mess in enough to make a Senator leave the restroom and go back into the closet.
Posted by: Rick_VT | Sep 18, 2007 2:22:08 PM
Craig, just go. Let it go. Get over it and retire or something. At least switch parties and come out of the closet. If you weren't such a hypocrit, you could have been the next Gerry Studds as a democrat anyway. Why do republicans think they can get away with what a democrat can? It's stupid.
Posted by: TexBk | Sep 18, 2007 2:31:47 PM
I have had several republicans come apart lately stammering and yammering some lunacy to try and prove their failed position. I enjoy their slide and actually encourage it by reminding them that the republicans love strangers in the night and then go home to kiss the wife. How touching they are, so filled with family values. Reading the homophobes retorts here are especially gratifying as my republican friends have zero talking points and now excel at pursed lips and furtive glances. i figured out that pursed kips thing is so the drool will not COME OUT...
Posted by: daddy | Sep 18, 2007 3:08:05 PM
Lock the bathrooms
Posted by: Zorar | Sep 18, 2007 4:28:28 PM
Republicans want even perverted Senate votes. How's the "family values" crowd doind with that one, ick.
Posted by: Sandra Lea | Sep 18, 2007 6:32:33 PM
Dear Byron,
Lest you forget this inside the beltway:
The White House, State Dept, Justice Dept, etc. all belong to the people as well.
Posted by: The People | Sep 18, 2007 7:20:04 PM
Dear "Religious Right", Here is the poster boy for the party you have chosen to represent you. He stands next to Foley, Livingston, Barr, but, you have "faith" that they have the morality you are looking for. New Orleans Madams applaud your choice, it may be your business to "forgive", but, I chose not to. Please do not let these names represent Jesus.
Posted by: Independent | Sep 19, 2007 3:15:27 AM
I'm loving this. Family values is such bull. I'm tired of these extremist fanatical hypocrites trying to turn our country into a theocracy.
Posted by: moderateistheway | Sep 20, 2007 6:30:26 AM
The only ones that are full of "such (much) bull" are the so-called "Family devalued" extremist fanatical hypocrites, , who want to turn Our Country into a CHAOTIC ATHEOCRATIC ANARCHY (ala THE DARK-AGES OF SATANIC-VATICANISTIC/ROMAN-"CATHOLIC"-CULTIC GLOBALISTIC-NEW-WORLD-ORDER "TEMPORAL" POWERED TOTALITARIANISTIC TYRANNY) ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Posted by: ConstitutionalConservative | Sep 20, 2007 12:30:59 PM
Come on now! The Idaho Statesman ran a 10 month investigation that came up with one, according to them, unreliable source.
Now, after 3 weeks of intense media not a single man has come forward to claim to have had sex with this man. Not a single one!!! And if there was one, he'd get a million dollars from Larry Flynt.
So if this senator is gay (as so many of you assume - in order to futher assume he was cruising at MSP)there would be some man who would talk - or one of his friends who know something would.
This total absence of any proof and just jumping to conclusions is mind boggling.
Posted by: Bill C | Sep 22, 2007 12:25:12 PM
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