La Cage Aux Sénateurs

Jesse Walker | September 24, 2007

Larry Craig goes to court to fight his sex rap later this week. Frank Rich -- the only readable regular in the New York Times opinion district now that John Tierney has moved to the science pages -- sticks up for the embattled senator:

What Mr. Craig did in that men's room isn't an offense either. He didn't have sex in a public place. He didn't expose himself. His toe tapping, hand signals and "wide stance" were at most a form of flirtation....

Yet gay civil rights organizations, eager to see a family-values phony like Mr. Craig brought down, have been often muted or silent on this point. They stood idly by while Republicans gathered their lynching party, thereby short-circuiting public debate about the legitimacy of the brand of police entrapment that took place in Minnesota. Surely that airport could have hired a uniformed guard to police a public restroom rather than train a cop to enact a punitive "Cage aux Folles" pantomime.