Senator Larry Craig is now thinking of….unresigning? Really?
It’s not such a foregone conclusion anymore that the only thing he could do was resign,” Sidney Smith, Craig’s spokesman in Idaho’s capital, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
“We’re still preparing as if Senator Craig will resign Sept. 30, but the outcome of the legal case in Minnesota and the ethics investigation will have an impact on whether we’re able to stay in the fight - and stay in the Senate,” Smith said.
Because Matthew “The Big Stupid” Yglesias is smarter then me and is able to articulate my own thoughts in a more thoughtful way, I’ll quote him (but pretend its me saying this):
I have mixed feelings about this. On the merits, nothing Craig has done — being gay, tapping feet in Minneapolis — seems to me to warrant resignation or even to be wrong at all. The hypocrisy rankles, of course, but I don’t see being a hypocritical anti-gay politician as any worse than being an earnest one. And in some ways the weird, covert nature of Craig’s gay life suggests the possible existence of a level of sincerity and authenticity to his his anti-gay political convictions — perhaps both are driven by a very real conviction that some of his deepest desires are deeply immoral and require repression by the state. Who knows? I’d never vote for Craig, but my reasons for not voting for him have nothing to do with what happened in Minneapolis.
But, of course, Craig isn’t mounting that sort of bold defense that admits he is what he is and denounces the “pre-Stonewall morality fable” unfolding here. Instead, he’s rather implausibly denying that he ever went in for anonymous gay sex. At this point, Craig becomes a liar and a buffoon in ways that seem to be firing offenses on their own terms.
Meanwhile, Senator Vitter who at least seems to have committed acts that violate laws that Senator Vitter seems to support, is sitting pretty in his Senate seat.
As a Democrat frankly I’m in favor of Senator Craig sticking around as long as he wants; the best chance the Democrats have of picking up his seat in 2008 is if Senator Craig is seeking reelection. Having said that, its fairly clear that the two reasons Senator Craig was forced to resign in the first place and Senator Vitter wasn’t were 1) Senator Craig’s “crime” involved homosexuality and 2) Idaho has a Republican governor and Louisiana has a Democratic one. So yeah, Senator Craig is a bad Senator but he’s getting screwed over here.
This story keeps getting more and more bizarre.
Matt is snarking when he points this out but I myself didn’t realize Rudy Giuliani’s campaign doesn’t own RudyGiuliani.com. How is that even possible in today’s day and age?
“It’s certainly true that conservatives today are more divided than liberals about whether the Iraq war has been a fiasco. I simply disagree about what this fact tells us. Conservatives see their split on this proposition as evidence of intellectual acuity. I see it as evidence that roughly half of all conservatives are barking mad,” - Jon Chait
(via Andrew Sullivan who got it from Matt Yglesias)
A while ago I read Matthew Yglesias recommend Mr. Chen’s Organic Chinese Cuisine as one of the best Chinese food places he’d had in D.C. and I filed it away for future reference. Sunday evening I was starving and not really looking to eat another peanut butter and jelly sandwich or some Easy Mac. In a happy confluence of events I happened to discover that just the day before I had gotten a Mr.Chen’s delivery menu in the mail.
After scanning over the menu I promptly placed an order for the Snow Peas with Ginger Sauce appetizer (only $3.95!) and the Beef w/ Green Pepper and Onions dinner special ($8.99). The dinner special also comes with a spring roll, choice of hot & sour or Wonton soup and steam rice, all included. Yeah, its a pretty good deal. Oh and did I mention free delivery? Yeah, they’ve got that too.
20 minutes after I ordered there was a knock on my door. I can’t say for sure but thats pretty much a record delivery time in my experience; I’m used to 30-40 minutes, at best. And things only got better from there. The food was, in a word, excellent. Some of the best Chinese food I’ve ever had (which may, admittedly, speak to my own perhaps limited experiences), certainly in this city at least. The Wonton soup was pretty good, if perhaps not containing as much Wonton as I’d like, the spring roll was excellent, though a bit smallish that left me wanting more. The Snow Peas were good. The real highlight though, the real highlight, was the Beef entree. Delicious, and large enough to leave some leftovers. All in all the meal was excellent.
So there you have it. If you’re looking for Chinese delivery, I second Mr. Yglesias; call up Mr. Chen’s. You won’t regret it.
(Mr. Chen’s website and menu)
As someone how spends an awful lot of time looking at things online, both for my job and for own personal amusement, its nice when you come across a website that is both helpful and cool at the same time. Thats how I'd describe OpenCongress.org, but I'll let Chris Haye's description stand in for my own:
OpenCongress gives you access to all the going-on of congress: what bills are in commitee, what amendments are up for floor votes, how individual legislators are voting, and it presents all this information is an easy-to-use, simple-as-pie manner. But you can also spend time on OpenCongress just browsing. The site displays what votes have just taken place and lists which bills and legislators are most viewed. It's got a blog that distills congressional news and even allows you to set up RSS feeds so you can track what's happening with a specific issue or bill. There's nothing else remotely as intuitive and easy. Next time you want to check up on what your elected representative is up to, head over to
Don't just take my word for it though, these illustrious people have also recommended OpenCongress.org: Matthew Yglesias, Boing Boing, and Ezra Klein. And yeah, this is most likely the nerdiest post yet on this little site.
I supposed I could go on for hundreds and hundreds of words about what the President said in his SOTU address but to be perfectly honest, I didn't watch any of it; I was too busy watching my dear Wizards get smacked around by the Suns. Having said that, I'll second Matthew Yglesias and say this girl's response is, to be fair, quite awesome. Amen sister, amen. When I was four I was still eating dirt and biting people.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cieiWP6nXg&eurl=[/youtube]
(via Matthew Yglesias)