Not that it quite rivals the Wall Street Journal stealing a Pulitzer Prize out from under the local dailies' nose with Bill McGuire's United Health back-dating scam, but it's a little embarrassing to miss a U.S. Senator -- Larry Craig, aka "The Militia Senator" and "The Right and Honorable Senator of the Aryan Nation", not to mention one of the far right's High Priests of Gun Worship and Family Values -- soliciting anonymous gay sex right there in our own airport.
WCCO TV's Jason DeRusha over on MnSpeak.com offers this explanation why no one in town caught the Craig arrest back June or the court action earlier this month:
"1. Airport Police are a pain in the neck... and extremely secretive. Even yesterday, no one would come back to the office to send us the report or give us the mug shot. "They close at 4 p.m." is what I was told.
"2. Because airport police is separate from Minneapolis Police, or the Sheriff's office, media would have to go to the airport to request reports. The arrest information doesn't leave their property, and as the charge was a minor charge, I don't think it even went to the county attorney. It was like a ticket.
"3. No one locally would raise an eyebrow about a "disorderly conduct" at the airport for a guy named Larry Craig even if they saw the report's front page.
"4. The plea deal at the courthouse happened the week after the bridge collapse. So the usual suspects who would have tipped someone off, were too busy with other things to even concentrate on this.
Someone nationally had to tip off Roll Call, the Capitol Hill Newspaper. That's who broke the story."
»» Submitted by »»» jderusha at 7:44 AM on August 28.
Earlier today I called the Star Tribune's dogged Minneapolis reporter Rochelle Olson, surprised that she of all people hadn't caught that one. "The name alone wouldn't have meant anything to me," she said. "Believe me, I wish I had. But I didn't. Are you going to rip me?"
No. I've missed WAY too many good stories to lob stones over this, which as I say, isn't quite on the same level as a billionaire ripping off shareholders and contributing to the outrageous cost of health care in this country. But since Olson has just about everything else in Minneapolis to cover, thanks to Avista/Par "right-sizing", it is worth wondering aloud how maybe if the big paper did have more bodies working city government and cop beats, downtown and out with MAC, they might have had a source who would have tipped them to this particular "Larry Craig" flashing the card of a U.S. Senator after getting yanked out of toilet stall. A cop tipster was about the only way a local reporter would have gotten the story last June.
Meanwhile, I gotta ask, what gives with these guys? I mean Republican Congressman Mark Foley and the pages, McCain's Florida guy Republican Bob Allen soliciting gay sex in a public restroom because he was frightened of black guys in the vicinity, uber-evangelical proselytizer Ted Haggard (wild guess -- Republican) buying meth ... meth! ... and banging a gay body builder, Jeff Gannon credentialed by the White House as a reporter for Talon (virtual) press (wha?) and later revealed to have worked with a gay escort service, the chairman of the Clark County Republican Party out in Vegas fellating some kid while he slept, and now Larry "Wide Stance" Craig tapping feet in Minnesota, as well as Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias and his romps with a D.C. escort service and Republican Louisiana Sen. David Vitter and the --female -- hookers. (Do those last two guys get a pass for just nailing women?)
I mean, can we just agree that from this point forward any politician or evangelist who declares themselves pro-family values and makes a huge, vote-getting, money-making scene about ripping gay marriage decrying the slippery slope from gayness to turtle sex is in effect acknowledging both their own closeted homosexuality and an affinity for a little clandestine quick-and-dirty, probably in a noisy john, with meth and without?
It is so far beyond easy satire, Jon Stewart's gotta be stumped.
By the way, check out these characters reenacting Sen. Wide Stance's Lindbergh Terminal shtick.
Why didn't Shelby and Vascellaro do this?
Also, Glenn Greenwald at Salon has a terrific "then and now" with right-wing bloggers and pundits excoriating, Mike Rogers, the guy who blogged about Wide Stance last October ... and what they are saying today. His post comes with every imaginable link to all things Wide and Stancey.
"Which goes to my point that the Strib needs more reporters in men's rooms."
Funny, that's what Par Ridder said as a way of cramming all those Freeman building folks, land sale or not, into the main headquarters.
LAMBERT: Yeah, and my guess is he has a plan to handle the over-crowding, too. Joel Kramer better be staffed to handle the next flood of resumes.
I'm not sure how much I pay taxes towards the MSP police as a resident of St. Paul. I do think, though, that the airport cops should have higher priorities than busting these closeted old farts.
That a family values R would turn out to by a hypocrite should be pretty old news by now.
Anytime a misdemeanor turns into this big a deal, it's time to check your personal phony-outrage-meter, to make sure it's not registering in the red.
LAMBERT: As I say, it ain't Bill McGuire, but it is the sort of thing that is an instant big-time "talker" in the news trade.
Here's something that nags at me: Since when does a U.S. Senator go anywhere without a gaggle of handlers and enablers mincing along behind him? Was Craig traveling sans assistants during his anonymous assignations in the MSP can? If so, does he choose to fly solo when he's planning not to fly solo in airport johns? A small matter, perhaps. But I'd be interested to know.
An error in facts.
Just so you know, Haggard was not accused of being with Gannon. It was a different man. Gannon was suspected to be with an entirely different Republican.
LAMBERT: There's a comma in there, separating Haggard from Gannon. It is a very long list, and at this point I would not be surprised to see photos of "Wide Stance" Craig canoodling in a hot tub with Haggard, Gannon and Foley. But they are different cases.
Who outted Craig?
I can understand how the Strib et al. missed this one but how did Roll Call get the scoop. I'm sure they don't have a beat reporter covering Hennepin county courts. Someone inside the Beltway must have found out and tipped them off.
LAMBERT: I'm intrigued by this, too. I'm guessing there is some kind of web site for gay hook-up sites at major airports. If there is, a smart gay activist, who has had it up to here with hypocrites like Craig and that long, long list, would make a point of scanning arrest reports for stuff exactly like this. From there it's just a tip to wherever they might have a friend -- Roll Call in this case.
Which goes to my point that the Strib needs more reporters in men's rooms.
This is far worse than people trying to stop gay marriage. Just thinking that people like Craig are attempting to run our country is beyond troubling. People who slam a behavior and then run into the closet and do the behavior are dangerous to society. Craig really stuck the fork in himself Tuesday when he said he wasn't "gay" like it was some evil disease.
These are the types of stories than define journalism. It's sad that the Strib "lite" cannot be expected to hunt stories like this down. That was what real journalism is about.
LAMBERT: I have sympathy for the reporters left the papers who get embarrassed by something like this. As much as anything this is a source-relationship issue. Reporters build sources through regular contact, which is time consuming, and tough to do if the investment edict of your owners is "as much with less". Rochelle Olson does a terrific job for the Strib, but she's on a beat that could use -- I'm told -- at least three more people. Maybe they're all out in Bloomington.
Great piece, Brian. And you didn't do it as a diatribe, taking shots at the media but deftly, using Jason's blog as an explanation for how this lack of coverage happened. After you read this, it makes yesterday's news conference by Craig seem all the more ludicrous.
LAMBERT: I'll be gossiping and kvetching with my usual sources, but I think the "more bodies" issue becomes relevant at least in terms of the early August court ruling, which was probably held out at Southdale, I'm told and not downtown.
I hope "wide stance" is still relevant at Halloween.
LAMBERT: Don't ou just know all the kids will be doing it?