Senator Craig Back in the News

Well, as I suspected weeks ago, Sen. Craig is again backtracking on his announced decision to resign from he US Senate in the wake of his bathroom arrest in Minnesota. Please understand that whether or not he resigns is not the core issue and whether or not he solicited sex is not the core issue either. At issue here is a far greater principle -- that of integrity. Senator Craig announced publicly that he would resign his Senate seat on September 30. Then a few days later he amended that to say "may resign". Now he is saying that he will not resign until the Minnesota court rules on his request to reverse his guilty plea. If I lived in Idaho, I would be asking myself, "What else is Larry Craig saying that I cannot believe?" The man has exercised poor judgment and wavered throughout the course of this silly issue. He plead guilty and then backtracked saying that he just did it to hush it up. He seems to want to blame anyone and everyone rather than step up and say, "I did something wrong." It is not unlike a certain Democratic President who lied about sex in the Oval Office. Again, I don't care that the sex occurred -- more power to them all. Sex is healthy. What I care about are two things: 1) the perceived need to lie about it, and 2) the American public clamoring to condemn people for doing the same things that many of them are doing. The difference is a matter of position and of who gets caught. Anyway, a note to Senator Craig: "Make a decision, announce it, and stick to it." Integrity and trust are next to impossible to regain once they are damaged. If you are going to resign, do it. If not, take the high road and say something like, "My earlier announcement was hasty; I made a mistake; please forgive me." and then stand by it regardless of the consequences. Your wavering and backtracking damages not only you but the integrity and respect of all elected officials. AND that's the way I see it.