Anecdote Party!

Is it really news at this point when a Republican politician is involved in a gay sex scandal? Not really. But Hit & Run provides a couple of fun side items about the case. Balko:

Finally, any sympathy I might have felt for Craig evaporated when I read in the police report that he played the ol' "do you know who I am" game, by giving the cop his U.S. senator business card and asking, "What do you think of that?"

I don't have sympathy either, but I do have a lot of envy for that cop. What do I think of that? Wouldn't you like to know!

And then there's this great quote that Dave Weigel dug up:

Republican Sen. Larry Craig is citing Hillary Clinton as the reason he opposes renewing the Patriot Act in its current form, saying Mrs. Clinton is likely to abuse the security measure if she becomes president - unless additional safeguards are built in.

"There will come a day when there will not be a George W in the White House," Sen. Craig warned, after calling top conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday to explain his position. "And tragically enough, and I hope never, it could be a Hillary Clinton."

Craig wondered aloud: "Who will be her attorney general, and what might he or she do to your liberties and mine? There's the question."

The Idaho Republican told Limbaugh: "You know, I've been here a little while, and I remember Janet Reno, and I remember Waco and Ruby Ridge."

"And I fear the day that we get a president, not this president, who has a very liberal attorney general and sees the opportunity, to leap through the holes that are crafted in the Patriot Act, that could tread on our civil liberties."

It's like reading satire! I would think he would be sophisticated enough to come up with some bullshit "change of heart" justification for suddenly opposing the Patriot Act as soon as a Democrat sits in the White House, but he just came out and said it.

A Democrat sweep in 2008 looks fairly likely at this point; if we wake up in 2009 to a blue-team President and two-house Congressional majority, we will also wake up to a Republican party once again deploying libertarian arguments.

Fool me twice, shame on me.