A friend of mine jokes about all the occasions on which he's tried to pull one over on his wife. Maybe he gets drunk at home in front of the televised Twins' game on "girls night out," or is guilty of some even more heinous offense, and so finds himself, usually early in the morning, still suffering from mental sea legs, trying (as we say) to finesse the truth about his activities of the night before. His wife, however, smells the truth, and, subjected to her withering cross-examination, my friend is reduced in the end to whimpering, "Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it."
Part of the joke is that he and his wife both understand that he is pleading guilty without saying the words. He doesn't expect her to believe him. Sen. Larry Craig, Republican of Idaho, on the other hand, seems to expect us to fall for a story more outlandish than any anyone I know has ever concocted. When he says he isn't gay, that he doesn't "cruise," that he assumes a wide stance on the throne, that his actions in the airport restroom were "misconstrued" and that his only mistake was to plead guilty in order to put the episode behind him, that he is sticking to that story--he's using a punch line out of context. His story is a joke that he doesn't get.
It's hard to account for Craig's "interpretation" of his own behavior without introducing the concept of psychological deformity. He is at such a remove from reality that he fails to understand that his story is ridiculous. I don't know what's gone wrong but it's plain that he's a mess. My feelings toward him are a sort of weird stew of contempt and pity. He shouldn't be in the senate. The people of Idaho, who have also in the recent past contributed Helen Chenoweth to the congressional roll call, will find another nutbag.
Meanwhile here in Minnesota we have our own nutbags over at Powerline. The boys haven't had much to say about Senator Craig's troubles, which will in any event soon pass from the public eye. Thanks to their industry, however, those of us who occasionally enjoy that excuse-me-I-have-an-appointment-back-on-planet-Earth sensation do not have to depend for our fix upon the risible "explanations" of "values-Republicans" caught up in sex scandals. There is at the ever-expanding Powerline archives an endless supply of dope, and I'd like now and again to link to posts that I think will trigger the desired buzz in the minds of my devoted readers. For the first installment, try this one, from a 2004 post on the Presidential Daily Brief of 6 August 2001. Allow me to call particular attention to the addendum of John Hinderaker ("Hindrocket"):
Stop the presses! Al Qaeda wants to attack the U.S.! Good grief. It's remarkable that the PDB is the best the Dems can do. When I graduated from law school, one of the chief reasons why I decided to go to work for a law firm in Minneapolis rather than in New York was because I thought it was inevitable that New York would be subjected to devastating terrorist attacks. And this was in 1974 [emphasis in original].
Since above this snippet Richard Clarke gets tagged with the adjective "self-aggrandizing," what shall we say about Hinderaker? He's another one who doesn't understand that his own words reveal to the world that he's a delusional nut.
Comments