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Much as it pains me, I have to agree with my friend Peter here. Let's say the guy was indeed trying to solicit sex with another man. So what? And if
Peter thinks that's OK, who wouldn't?
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I usually don't have a whole lot of use for Jonah Goldberg and his commentary, but I thought he made a blog post yesterday that was spot on:
National Review: The Corner
"The left doesn’t – as a matter of passion or strong principle – really mind gay cruising, they mind people who really disapprove of gay cruising. If Craig’s personal conduct really offended liberals, Jim McGreevey – a seedier man personally than Craig by any conventional standard – wouldn’t be a hero. But, no, it’s Craig’s political conduct, not his personal conduct, that offends the left."
Exactly. Count me as a leftist who fits the description Goldberg lays out: I don't give a whit if Craig wants to have an anonymous tryst with the guy in the next stall. It's not Craig's personal conduct that offends me. It's his long-time membership in the holier-than-thou-moralizing-windbag party, that demonstrates time and time again its leaderships' rhetoric about respecting family values is nothing more than a bunch hot air meant to exploit the Christian right.
So despite the claims of adios about what he hears on Air America, I think this is the vast majority of criticism Craig has faced from the left: it's not that he wants to hookup with random guys in the bathroom -- most leftists I know are more than happy to let Craig have at it, sans judgment, if he wants. I mean, I think most people, even the very liberal, might question the prudence of trolling the shitter next to you for action, but I don't think most on the left really care all that much about that, either.
No, the critics chide the fact that Craig spends his day job riding the moral high horse, exploiting his conservative Christian constituents and touting "traditional family values", which most everyone correctly notes is nothing more than right-wing code for "we don't like gays, single mothers, or sex education in public schools!", while simultaneously engaging in behavior he so ardently claims to oppose.
The head-scratching from the right about why Democrats don't face the same lasting disparagements in the popular culture as Republicans is laughable: if the Vitters and Craigs of the world didn't spend so much time lauding the importance, necessity, and sanctity of traditional heterosexual relationships, the level of schadenfraude when said gasbags get caught with prostitutes, or get arrested cruising for gay sex in airport bathrooms wouldn't be nearly as high.