Here’s some people I’d like to hear less from as the calendar slides deeper into summertime 2009. There’s also two people I wouldn’t mind sticking around, which may delight or appall you. Your ideas are welcome at we collate an FDL stfu list.

Number One and Reigning Champion: Disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The GOP’s Ideas man doesn’t have any new ones; never did, anyway. Can the so-called liberal media just get a cardboard cutout Flat Newt with a thought bubble that says "NO" to set up on all their round tables from now on? Might cut down on green room craft service budgets, too. (stfu, please, Newtie.)

Number Two and Rising Swiftly: Darth & Darthette spawn Liz Cheney, defender of her pop’s policies, procedures, and priorities since before she was born. This worthless hag-ette has been pulling her dad’s balls outta trouble since before she was born, having served as his last Vietnam-era military deferment while pre-born inside Lynne. She has little to add that isn’t regurgitated prevarications and lies of Daddy’s — so I propose another cardboard cutout: Flat Liz, with a thought bubble that says, "What Daddy Said!" (stfu, please, Liz.)

Number Three and Very Irritating: Sweater twinset model Mika Brezinski, who seems not to understand that the rest of us do not marvel at the astounding mental process of Cuppa Rank Joe Scarborough. I’m happy to have the disgraced former Congressman (how many of your former distinguished colleagues’ resumes include an unexplained female aide dead in their office, Joe?) gab endlessly on MSNBC in the morning, because he provides a hilarious lowbrow rightwing counterpoint to the evening’s commonsense commentators. But Mika’s adoring attitude, which she may have adopted (who knows!?) in fear of her own personal safety, is wearing very thin. Before Joe goes all Lori Klausutis on her one morning for being insufficiently fawning, let’s get her outta there. (stfu, please, Mika.)

Number Four and Still Cross-Eyed: Ron Christie. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But can you and Alan Keyes just get a room and work out your issues, please, fellahs? (stfu, please, Ron. you too, Alan.)

Number Five and Getting Younger Every Day: Bay Buchanan, whose miraculous plastic surgery experiments would have you believe she’s Pat’s daughter, not his sister, if you put them next to one another on a television stageset. One person you probably won’t ever see next to Bay Buchanan is Mary Matalin — does James Carville check ID before he tucks her in every night? Because these two scary Marys are morphing into the same person. But Bay’s views are really unnecessary as long as brother-daddy Pat still has his MSNBC green-room cot. (stfu, please, Bay. you too, Mary, you alleged war criminal.)

And who do I want to stick around, debating the future of the GOP and their Administration’s torture legacy? Why, warmonger Colin Powell and warprofiteer Dick Cheney, of course!

One of them had to practically beg the GOP to stop trying to draft him as a candidate for president in 1996; the other had to fold his tent when he couldn’t drum up any interest in his presidential candidacy that same year. One of them lied America into an illegal war — and the other lied America into an illegal war! They are like the yin & yang of lying America into an illegal war — joined forever, one head-hangingly ashamed and one pump-headedly proud!

And now, at every opportunity, they fight like two old Politburo members over who the party loves more. But America is starting to see the tarnish on General/Secretary Powell: not many Earthlings might reasonably worry about being charged with war crimes in three American wars. It does my Democratic Socialist heart good, though, to see Colin Powell say, "I am TOO a Republican, and a better one that Rush Limbaugh!" {not actual quote} and have Dick Cheney respond, "I’d rather have a GOP led by Rush than Powell — is he even still a Republican?" {not actual quote, or it might be….}

The more these two has-beens go on with their demented irrational ranting about who belongs in the Republican Party, the more Americans say, "Well, not me, that’s who!"

The GOP now claims the loyalty of 21% of the American electorate. How much lower need they go before they are no longer a major party? I figure one more big Meet the Press/CNN/Face the Nation Powell v. Cheney smackdown will take the GOP’s membership deep into the teens. That’s Whig-y.

Think about it: that means the Democratic Party could split in half — and both new parties would be bigger than the GOP.

It could happen.

So the RNC is making a last-ditch (and bewilderingly tone-deaf) effort to resuscitate the party by tapping into "hip hop" America’s mad bank. It must be fairly disorienting to be one of the six or seven black people in the Republican Party, with all your white peers trying to speak your "language" loudly and slowly, like tourists in a foreign land. Sheee-it, everyone knows that the African-American community enjoys being stereotyped as jive talkin’, gangsta rap-lovin’, watermelon-eatin‘ folks.

Of course, the biggest booster of all this newfound "black power-speak" is the RNC Chair, Michael Steele, who brings a genuine suburban grit to the Republican Party.

Let’s review Steele’s phat moves thus far (because yes, it is Michael "Home Skillet" Steele we’re talking about – there’s bound to be hella more coming):

2/9: On President Obama’s stimulus package: "[It] is just a wish list from a lot of people who have been on the sidelines for years. . . to get a little bling, bling." (Politico)

2/19: On his brilliant plan to convert minorities to the Republican Party: New GOP party chief Michael Steele is promising an "off the hook" public relations blitz into "urban-suburban hip-hop settings" in hopes of wooing Latinos and African-Americans. . . "We need to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets," he joked. . . "We missed the mark in the past, which is why we are in the crapper now," he said. (The New York Daily News)

2/25: On Governor Jindal: "I love it. (inaudible)…some slum love out to my buddy, gov."

And in that same interview, Steele revisits his favorite 1990’s slang: "Absolutely. There’s a lot of bling bling — the bling bling’s got bling bling in this package. That’s how bad it is."

Steele also felt compelled to prove his street cred to Curtis Sliwa: "I used to hang out in Brooklyn and in the Bronx as a teenager. I know what the real world is like. . . There you go, playa." (Politico)

2/27: Addressing CPAC: "Tonight, we tell America: we know the past, we know we did wrong. My bad." (TPM)

Steele’s act was so convincing at CPAC that even the Craziest White Lady in America, Michele Bachmann, donned her leather Baby Phat jacket and channeled Butterfly McQueen: "Michael Steele! You be da man! You be da man."

Way to get those minority votes, dawg. Because the world wasn’t damaged enough by Vanilla Ice.

[Graphic by mad genius twolf]

Among all the encomia to North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms’ "strong, principled conservatism," while Republicans across the nation laud his tough leadership and contribution to their cause, let’s not forget what the man was:

Often he was the lone voice of dissent in a Senate of 100 often like-minded members. He fought his Republican colleagues as often as his Democratic counterparts. He was the only senator to vote against confirming Henry A. Kissinger as secretary of State during the Nixon administration and Frank C. Carlucci as secretary of Defense during the Reagan presidency. And he was the only senator to vote against making the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday. His lone dissent came only after he conducted a 16-day filibuster against the King holiday, during which Helms took to the Senate floor to decry the assassinated King, a pacifist and beloved civil rights leader, for his "action-oriented Marxism."

When you hear Mitch McConnell praise Senator Helms as "a leading voice and a courageous champion for the causes he believed in," don’t forget what those causes were:

During the ensuing months the election contest played to a national audience, and Helms campaigned hard against what he described as yet another effort by liberals to give racial minorities unfair preference in employment. Among the more effective of his television ads was one that showed the hand of a white man crumpling a job rejection letter while an announcer intoned, "Your needed that job … but they had to give it to a minority."

When White House spokesperson Scott Stanzel says "the country lost a great public servant and a true patriot today," think of what our country would be like if Jesse Helms had prevailed:

In 1982, Helms fell short of pushing through measures that would have stripped the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction on cases involving abortion, school prayer, and school busing. He voted often to outlaw or restrict abortion rights and eliminate the use of busing for school integration. He also tried to do away with food stamps.

Jesse Helms excoriated every American leader in his lifetime who took steps to make our world a safer place:

His obstinacy in foreign policy, where pragmatism often guides policy, was remarkable. Few administrations escaped his wrath. He condemned President Nixon’s historic 1972 trip to Beijing as "appeasing Red China." He castigated President Carter, saying he "gave away the Panama Canal." And after the newly elected President Clinton proposed that gays be allowed to serve openly in the military, Helms said Clinton "better have a bodyguard" if he visited North Carolina.

And the world is a less safe place because of direct steps he took to stop progress in its tracks:

Because of Helms, several major treaties never became law: the Kyoto Protocol against global warming, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the proposed land mine treaty — all were stopped at his insistence.

Finally, Jesse Helms had a special place in his black heart for LGBT Americans (although I know for a fact he employed several in his Senate office during his long tenure there):

Helms’ demagoguery was a lightning rod for liberals. He called homosexuals "weak, morally sick wretches." During debate on a 1988 AIDS bill sponsored by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), Helms said, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."

While Jesse Helms will command respect and teary-eyed testimonials from modern Republicans today, he was among the greatest of the big-time GOP electoral money cheats and a world-class vote-suppressor as well, creating a political action committee that freed him from the national party’s fundraising legalities:

But respect only goes so far–so the Helms campaign hedges its bets by cheating. In 1986, the Federal Election Commission penalized the North Carolina Congressional Club $10,000 and ordered it to reorganize, saying it had illegally subsidized Helms’ 1984 campaign. Last year, a decade after the race, the FEC penalized the Helms for Senate committee $25,000 for accepting $700,000 in illegal contributions. And in 1992, the Helms campaign and the Congressional Club settled a Justice Department complaint over a pre-election mailing of postcards falsely threatening 125,000 black voters with jail if they went to the polls.

By double-checking the dates, you will recognize that these vast Helms illegalities were discovered during GOP Presidencies, long after he’d been re-elected.

In the mid-nineties, Jesse Helms made clear that he was a creature who created himself in the media for purposes of the media, not to add any significant positive accomplishments to America’s resume:

Helms also keeps the media guessing. His staff refused an interview for this article, but Helms recently exhibited his disdain for journalists when a Washington Post reporter asked him what he considered his biggest accomplishment as senator. "Raising the blood pressure of reporters and editors like you so easily and so often," Helms replied.

So, don’t let the Independence Day paeans fool you. Jesse Helms was a bigot, a racist, a homophobe — and a media charlatan. America would be a much worse place if he’d had his way on his many signature issues. Our nation’s birthday is brighter for him not in it.

Tbogg has more. 

{YouTube of Jesse Helms’ re-election ad "Hands" courtesy of SnakesOnABlog}

Your Editor

If you are writing for a quality publication with a history of being about ideas and keeping things on a higher plane there are probably lines you would not cross.

On the other hand, when you write for the National Review, there simply are no lines, it is all one big vacuous sphere of stupid.

Therefore, if you want to talk about the 60’s and a Democrat why not make use of the ol’ reliables racism and communism. Make the smear as broad and wild as possible.

Congratulations Lisa Schiffren:

Obama and I are roughly the same age. I grew up in liberal circles in New York City — a place to which people who wished to rebel against their upbringings had gravitated for generations. And yet, all of my mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific unions. They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my circles, she was usually Jewish, but elsewhere not necessarily) and usually a highly educated black father. And how had these two come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics. No, not the young Republicans. Usually the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.

Oh no, Obama’s a Commie! He must be, because clearly his parents were commies…not that she knows, but let’s just put it out there because of the "real world experiences" and clear empirical research of one Lisa Schiffren.

But wait…that’s not all?

Political correctness was invented precisely to prevent the mainstream liberal media from persuing the questions which might arise about how Senator Obama’s mother, from Kansas, came to marry an African graduate student.

Golly, I had no idea it was so effing specific. Wow, aren’t we pinko commie socialist america hatin’ terrorist lovin’ liberals incredibly strategic in our thinking [Mark Penn & Howard Wolfman excepted]? And here I thought it was to make it discourteous to use the "N" word, the "K" word, or the "F" word amongst others. Damn, we are good.

So he’s probably an atheistic commie — like his parents probably were (lack of evidence notwithstanding) …and all this time I thought we were supposed to think he was a Muslim fundamentalist terrorist educated in a bomb-making madrassa (lack of evidence notwithstanding)?

But wait, now how much would you pay?

Before readers level cheap accusations of racism — let’s recall that the very question of interracial marriage only became a big issue later in the 1960s.

Oh, please Lisa, I’ll have you know I would accuse you of racism for free. In fact, having read your tripe, I would suggest you pay me.

Yes, if only those long-standing anti-miscegenation laws were not on the books, biracial marriages would never have become an issue.

Lisa Schiffren’s depth of personal experience doesn’t even include hearing about the plot of ‘Mandingo‘. But that does not stop her — it never stops them.

But all-in-all, kudos to Lisa Schiffren for entering the National Review Hall of Shame, a MASSIVE place displaying more than fifty-years worth of embarrassments. Lisa’s work can go into the "Antebellum Room" where her piece can be exhibited with this classic from 1857, er, 1957:

The central question that emerges … is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes — the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race.

Or maybe we can put it next to this piece from 1965:

“For years now, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and his associates have been deliberately undermining the foundations of internal order in this country. With their rabble-rousing demagoguery, they have been cracking the ‘cake of custom’ that holds us together. With their doctrine of ‘civil disobedience’ they have been teaching hundreds of thousands of Negroes … that it is perfectly all right to break the law and defy constituted authority if you are a Negro-with-a-grievance… And they have done more than talk. They have on occasion after occasion, in almost every part of the country, called out their mobs on the streets, promoted ‘school strikes’ sit-ins, lie-ins, in explicit violation of the law and in explicit violation of the public authority. They have taught anarchy and chaos by word and deed …”

There are a lot of exhibits, this could take some time — be fear not Lisa, your piece most definitely belongs.

Yet another married Republican politician has been outed due to his relationship with a rent boy.

Howie has the details, if you care. I’m going to save us all some time and effort and urge you kids to insert your own foot-tapping, Village People, and wet-suit jokes here.

Although, I think a word to the Republican party from Conservative apostate John Cole might be in order:

Go fuck yourself. To death.

I am tired of being patient with you nannies and your stupid self-serving rules and your slippery slopes and your bullshit and your need to be tough on crime and your earnest concerns about society. Mind your own business, get your own house in order, stop fucking interns and little boys and cheating on your wives and on your taxes and being found dead wearing two wetsuits with a dildo shoved up your ass. Just mind your own damned business, and let people do what they must to deal with their own screwed up lives, and let people handle their pain the best way they can.

I’m starting to really like that guy.

Not only is Idaho Senator Larry Craig too damn mulish (and stupid) to step down and go quietly into GOP Rehab and at least make a show of praying away The Gay, he’s simply pretending that the judge didn’t toss out his effort to withdraw his guilty plea and just carrying on with his usual rounds of photo-ops and public appearances. In fact, the folks back home in Idaho just awarded him a very special honor.

Think Progress:

Larry Craig, Hall of Fame inductee.

Sen. Larry Craig has been chosen for induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame. Some Republicans said the honor is inappropriate now. Kootenai County Republican precinct committeeman Phil Thompson said Idaho Hall of Fame officials should consider at least postponing the induction. ‘Maybe in 10 or 15 years we can think of this hall of fame stuff. Now is not the time,’ he said. ‘It’s a sad day to be a Republican.’” October 7, 2007 8:00 pm

Have I been blogging too long that the first time I saw that I thought it was a joke nomination by a gay group inducting Craig into their Hall of Flame?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

At press time, my sources have been unable to confirm whether a mysterious spiderweb spelling out the words, “SOME PIG” outside Senator Craig’s pen had anything to do with the Hall of Fame’s decision. Oh, and Phil Thompson, sir, with all due respect, every day is “a sad day to be a Republican”.

You poor slobs are just now figuring out what sensible people in this country have known for years, I guess. The Republican/Conservative lifestyle is a sad and lonely place built on superficiality, illusion, and lies. It has no place in our schools, our churches, or in our lives. It is a threat to our children and to the great values that our nation was founded on, i.e., religious tolerance, a secular government, and the rights of the individual, etc.

Need more proof? Well, okay, here’s a riddle. What do Larry Craig and Ted Haggard have in common? No, no, not that they’re both closeted hypocrites who preach one thing and do another, although you’re close. No, not that they both have utterly miserable, long-suffering wives, either, although the Russian judge says he would need to see a photo replay to disqualify your answer.

Give up?

Both men allegedly sought the services of the same muscle-bound gay escort.

The male escort responsible for the downfall of Christian evangelist leader Ted Haggard is now alleging that embattled Senator Larry Craig also came to see him.

File this one under “Things That Make You Go Ewwww”. Mike Rogers of BlogActive says that Mike “Meth and Man Ass” Jones is fibbing about this, but that’s not stopping me from clapping my tiny forelimbs in delight and squealing, “Oooooh, details!“, at least until I have seen persuasive evidence from one side or the other.

Jones is not alleging that he has had sex with Senator Craig but that he is alleging the senator came to see him.

“One of the things I was good at was figuring out what people did for a living when they came to see me by things they said or their actions,” Jones said on-air Wednesday night.

“So be in a position where you have to guess what people did for a living, occupation-wise. Someone comes in to you and the first question they say to you is ‘do you follow politics?’ and you would say, ‘yes’. ‘Oh.’ ‘the weather is cold outside, isn’t it? What would you think that person is involved with?

“I will just tell you a gentleman came in and said that exact thing to me.

“Did he look similar to Senator Craig?” Feingold asked.

“I’ve been with many politicians and all I can tell you is for a fact, that Larry Craig is a hypocrite.”

Well, duh. He’s a Republican, isn’t he? That’s kind of part of the job description. “Must type at least 40wpm, chew with an open mouth, and indulge in desperately filthy sexual behaviors and lie about it while viciously attacking people for having normal, healthy sex lives.”

About covers it, I should think. Hey, send your resumes to the RNC. There’s no telling how many of their presidential candidates will get busted doing something unspeakably perverse in a public toilet, a sleazy hotel room, or in the Capitol’s parking deck between now and primary season. You just might have a shot at the nomination.

You couldn’t do much worse than their current batch of hopefuls. In spite of the entry of Hollywood Fred Thompson into the race, “I Don’t Know” and an Asian chop salad from Houlihan’s are still placing ahead of the front-runners in a recent poll of registered Republicans. And that’s before the Dobson Party have launched their own candidate, an Only Evangelicals Can Be This Stupid move that promises to provide every liberal blogger in the country with a veritable bonanza of material. And that’ll all be fun and games until their guy gets busted with a couple of teenage hustlers and an eight ball of crystal meth in a raid on some seedy DC bath house.

I can hardly wait!

Via the New York Post, we learn that the architect of several famous boy bands, Lou Pearlman, has allegedly taken something more than a professional interest in the talent he’s, er, mentored, over the years. He’s currently in federal custody on other charges related to a ponzi scheme, wherein he scammed more than one thousand investors of more than $315 million. According to Wikipedia,

After being on the run since December 2006, Pearlman was finally arrested in Indonesia on June 14, 2007 after being spotted by a German tourist couple. Pearlman was then indicted by a federal grand jury on June 27, 2007.

I wonder what he may have been up to in Indonesia? But now, according to the New York Post, there’s even more news (emphasis in the original):

October 2, 2007 — LOU Pearlman – the hog-fat, boy-band honcho who created *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys and launched the careers of Justin Timberlake and Nick Carter – was a pervy pedophile who preyed on the young men he mentored, Vanity Fair reports.

“I would absolutely say the guy was a sexual predator. All the talent knew what Lou’s game was,” Steve Mooney, an aspiring singer who was Pearlman’s assistant, told VF’s Bryan Burrough. “Some guys joked about it. I remember [one singer] asking me, ‘Have you let Lou [fellate] you yet?’ “

Mooney said he once asked Pearlman, who was known as “Big Poppa,” what it would take for him to get into a band. “I’ll never forget this as long as I live. He leaned back in his chair, in his white terry cloth robe and white underwear, and spread his legs,” Mooney told Burrough. “And then he said, and these were his exact words, ‘You’re a smart boy. Figure it out.’ ” Mooney added that a singer groped by Pearlman told him, “Look, if a guy wants to massage me, and I’m getting a million dollars for it, you just go along with it. It’s the price you got to pay.”

Phoenix Stone, an early member of the Backstreet Boys, tells Vanity Fair Pearlman was “definitely inappropriate” with Nick Carter. Nick’s mom, Jane Carter, wouldn’t get into specifics, but said, “Certain things happened and it almost destroyed our family. I tried to warn everyone. I tried to warn all the mothers . . . I tried to expose him for what he was years ago.”

Tim Christofore, a member of Take 5, recalls that during a sleepover at Pearlman’s house, the music czar swan-dived onto his and another boy’s bed and wrestled with them wearing only in a towel, which came off. “We were like, ‘Ooh, Lou, that’s gross.’ What did I know? I was 13,” Christofore told Vanity Fair.

Rich Cronin, lead singer of LFO, recalled Pearlman told him of an “ancient massage technique that if I massage you and we bond in a certain way, it will strengthen your aura.”

Um, say it with me. . . EEEEEWWWWWW!!!!!

But I didn’t come here to tell you that tonight. I came here to share with you what I found out about the past political donations of one Louis Pearlman of Orlando, Florida:

According to Open Secrets:

Contributor	Occupation	Date	Amount	Recipient
PEARLMAN, LOUIS ORLANDO,FL 32819	TRANS CONTINENTAL COMPANIES/EXECUTI	6/5/2002	$1,000	Keller, Ric
PEARLMAN, LOUIS ORLANDO,FL 32819	TRANS CONTINENTAL COMPANIES/EXECUTI	6/5/2002	$1,000	Keller, Ric
PEARLMAN, LOUIS ORLANDO,FL 32819	TRANS CONTINENTAL COMPANIES/EXECUTI	6/11/2003	$1,000	Keller, Ric
PEARLMAN, LOUIS J ORLANDO,FL 32819		12/19/1997	$3,750	National Republican Senatorial Cmte
PEARLMAN, LOUIS J ORLANDO,FL 32819		1/3/2001	$1,500	National Republican Congressional Cmte
PEARLMAN, LOUIS J ORLANDO,FL 32819	TRANS CONTINENTAL COS INC	3/7/2001	$1,250	National Republican Senatorial Cmte
PEARLMAN, LOUIS J ORLANDO,FL 32819		9/9/1998	$1,000	National Republican Congressional Cmte
PEARLMAN, LOUIS J ORLANDO,FL 32819	TRANS CONTINENTAL COS INC	4/4/2001	$500	National Republican Senatorial Cmte
PEARLMAN, LOUIS J ORLANDO,FL 32819	TRANS CONTINENTAL CO./CHIEF EXECUTI	1/27/2003	$500	National Republican Congressional Cmte
PEARLMAN, LOUIS J ORLANDO,FL 32819		12/20/2000	$350	National Republican Congressional Cmte
PEARLMAN, LOUIS J ORLANDO,FL 32819		11/19/1997	$250	National Republican Congressional Cmte
PEARLMAN, LOUIS J MR ORLANDO,FL 32819	TRANS CONTINENTAL COMPANIES/CEO	6/29/2000	$1,000	Keller, Ric
PEARLMAN, LOUIS J MR ORLANDO,FL 32819	TRANS CONTINENTAL COMPANIES/CEO	9/22/2000	$1,000	Keller, Ric
PEARLMAN, LOUIS J MR ORLANDO,FL 32819	TRANS CONTINENTAL COMPANIES/CEO	10/27/2000	$1,000	Keller, Ric
PEARLMAN, LOUIS J MS ORLANDO,FL 32819	TRANS CONTINENTAL COMPANIES/EXECUTI	3/7/2002	$1,000	National Republican Congressional Cmte

Look at all that money for Republicans!

Before he hit the beaches of Bali to scout for new talent, Open Secrets documents $16,100.00 given exclusively to Republicans between 1997 and 2003. Hoo, boy.

What with all the high profile Republicans of late demonstrating a lively interest in the comely lads, I can’t really say I spot a trend here, do you?

After all, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

Turns out that, as I’d expected, these aren’t exactly a sure thing:

Facing untimely resignations, an unpopular war and a troubling 2008 election landscape, Senate Republicans didn’t need another headache this week. But they got one anyway when Sen. Larry Craig vowed Thursday to serve out the last 15 months of his term, despite a court ruling that left intact his guilty plea in a sex sting operation.

The Idaho Republican’s decision gives his GOP colleagues two unpleasant choices. They can resume pressuring him to leave, and risk being seen as disloyal politicians who go harder on alleged homosexual misdeeds than on heterosexual wrongdoings.

Or they can basically ignore him for months, and endure more TV comics’ taunts about a conservative senator convicted in a case involving public bathroom stalls.

Judging from comments in the first hours after Craig’s announcement, Republican senators were unsure exactly where to land. Outright confrontation with Craig, however, seems unlikely.

Now, why, pray tell, would that be? Craig’s lawyer gives us a hint:

Craig’s lawyer Stanley Brand said the Senate traditionally has shied away from disciplining members for misdemeanors unrelated to their duties and might be unwise to cross that line now.

“Are they going to begin to take up misdemeanor cases as a matter of course?” Brand said Friday on NBC’s “Today” show. “That’s going to put a lot of other people in serious jeopardy down the road.”

And again, there’s that little matter of the Brent Wilkes case — and the subpoena that Larry Craig will find much easier to fight if he remains a sitting Senator.

I just love watching Barney Frank take Patrick McHenry (R-Hostel for Strapping Young Republican Lads) to school on what is and what is not a parliamentary inquiry. This is a man who enjoys his work on the Speaker’s dais entirely too much for his own good. What a wonderful Congressman he is.

This is the kind of Friend of Dorothy America needs in our People’s House. More and Better Democrats, please!

The site of Officer Dave Karsnia’s takedown of GOP Senator Larry E. Craig (R-ID) is inundated with tourists snapping photos on their cell phones.

The restroom in the Lindbergh terminal at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport where Sen. Larry Craig was arrested in June has become a stop for travelers flying through, the Idaho Statesman reports.

A Minneapolis couple flying to Guatemala took the opportunity to see the infamous restroom. “We had to just stop and check out the bathroom,” Sally Westby told the Statesman. “In fact, it’s Jon’s second time – he was here last week already.” Jon, Sally’s husband, said, “I checked it out. It’s the second stall from the right.”

[snip]

Airport employees and vendors have been getting many requests for directions to the spot that has resulted in one of this year’s biggest political scandals. “There’ve been a lot of people coming to see it,” an employee of Inmotion Entertainment told the Statesman. “I’ve been asked several times to take photographs of people in front of the bathroom.”

Gee Butler of Royal Zino Shoeshine added, “People have been going inside, taking pictures of the stall, taking pictures outside the bathroom door – man, it’s been crazy.”

That’s gotta cut down on the romance factor. Wonder what sting Officer Dave K is up to now?

(youtube of the Erie Players’ “Officer Krupke” scene from West Side Story)

UPDATE: Howie’s got more, including the reminder that delegates to next year’s GOP presidential nominating convention will be able to stop by the newest airport tourist site on their way to vote for a nominee!

UPDATE NUMBER TWO: FDL Book Salon guest author and ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero announced that the ACLU has filed an amicus brief in Senator Craig’s case, saying that the foot-tapping was protected speech:

“We clearly lay out what is the doctrine in terms of what speech is and is not protected,” Romero said. “To be able to solicit sex in private, in public spaces, for instance, is constitutionally protected speech.”

Jeralyn Merritt notes the irony of Craig, not always a friend of civil liberties, being befriended by the ACLU in his current case.