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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Monday, August 27, 2007

Larry Craig: Elevating Idaho's Visibility One Stall At A Time 

...as a native-born Idahoan who spent his first 24 years in the wild, uncivilized central portion of the Gem State, I can say that I am as justifiably proud as any other past or present resident of Senator Larry Craig's efforts to help Idaho, a little-noticed and seldom remarked-upon minor character on our great national stage, help narrow that important 'Seamy Republican Bigwig' gap that has made the Intermountain West such a bit player. One can only guess why Senator Craig picked an airport in Minneapolis for a bit of toe-tapping footsie, as described by a police investigator, but we, all of us who at one time or another have sported Licence plates proudly stating the unofficial state motto "Famous Potatoes", need to be grateful...

Idaho - indeed, most of the Pacific Northwest - has been suffering from a Republican Scandal Gap. Maybe it's because, aside from Idaho, the Northwest hasn't recently had very many Republicans who mattered enough for us to care. I mean, Oregon's newest Democratic Senator Gordon Smith may be something of an intellectual scandal, but that's about it. No sex; no drugs; no rock and roll. Not since former Oregon Senator Bob Packwood turned boxed wine into a metaphor for sexual harrassment has there been even the slightest bit of true seaminess involving sex or bulky wads of cash or both. There's nary a Jack Abramoff connection or stretch limo's stuffed with hookers parked next some swanky D.C. condo or San Diego or computer full of racy messages to pages or madams as far as the eye can see. My God, even Alaska is looking at more scandal action than the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho put together. The rest of the country is awash in Republicans doing things of which decent folks just might not approve (especially if there was any sort of chance that their spouses or the local paper might find out about it); out here, we apparently have been too busy hiking and fishing and running and skiing and wind-surfing and drinking Frappuccino's® and micro-brews to engage in truly bracing scandalous behavior on either side of the party-line fence...

Thankfully, though, Larry Craig has stepped up to the plate for both the state of my birth and the entire region. The only scandals that really matter are those that involve improper money or racy sex. We have fallen way behind up here in the upper left corner of the map where Abramoff and D.C. madams don't seem to have a great deal of market...er...um...penetration, and the memory of that remarkable Packwood Senate censure debate of 15 or so years ago has lost its currency, so it's good to see that there are stalwarts of our own who, at least in the eyes of the Minnesota judicial system, will do their best to get us in the show and steal a bit of thunder from all those current and former midwestern, Louisianan, and San Diego Congressmen, Floridian state legislators, and all the others who have been stealing all those 'sleaze' headlines...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:08 PM 0 comments

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