Minneapolis Airport

Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star Tribune

It's hard to contain myself. Senator Slimy, aka Larry Craig, was caught trolling for sex in a men's room in the Minneapolis airport. Seems ol' Larry comes through the Twin Cities regularly on his way back to Idaho to service (ahem) his constituents. He knew exactly where to go. What the Star Tribune and other fine journalistic organs did not tell you is that the location of this men's room is really not on the way to any gate. It's in the main concourse right outside security. If you just landed from Washington and you need to transfer to Boise or Pocatello, it's a good bet that you don't need to walk through the main concourse.

So, Star Tribune, get on the stick. Find out what Larry's flight numbers and gates were. And, while you're at it, tell us why you didn't break this story in June or July. Have the cuts made in the Strib reporting staff been so severe that you aren't able to have someone review the court cases for newsworthy and titillating stuff? You were scooped by a Washington insider paper.

That the airport uses its security resources to have an officer spending his shift in the men's room, sitting on the toilet and reading the paper, is a sad commentary on so many things that I don't know where to begin. But having a moralistic, gay bashing, conservative being caught with his pants down, so to speak, is too good to be true.

And Alberto Gonzales is no doubt thanking his lucky stars, if he has any, that Americans don't really care about substantive matters. Sex scandals trump violating the Constitution every time.

Congressman Foley and sexual harassment

Poor Congressman Foley. But nobody gets what is going on. I find myself infuriated that this matter now seems to be about everything except the kitchen sink. The pundits talk about pedophillia, predatory behavior, and who knew what when. This last is the most on target, but everyone still misses the point.

What Congressman Foley did was sexual harassment. I'm no lawyer, but I believe that sexual harassment is when someone in a position of power requests sexual favors in an explicit or implicit quid pro quo. Teachers (you'll get an A), clergy (I won't tell your parents), employers (you say you want a corner office?), or congress persons (would you like to meet the President?). Co-workers and managers (i.e., Dennis Hastert) can be liable for sexual harassment even if they didn't do anything themselves, but allowed someone else to continue to harass employees, students, or pages. Both harassment, and allowing harassment, are in violation of federal employment law.

I'm so sick of people focusing on Congressman Foley's homosexuality, or the morality of his behavior, or the general tone of Congress. That has nothing to do with this. It's harassment, and Hastert should get out while the getting is good. It happened on his watch, he knew about it, and he did nothing. Whew!

Foleygate and the Star Tribune

The Minneapolis Star Tribune, lovingly known to locals as the Strib, carries a horrible column by Jonah Goldberg, son of Lucienne Goldberg, the eminence grise behind the Monica affair during those halcion days of yore. Anyway, the Strib should be ashamed to run his stuff, but they, like every other quasi-liberal media outlet, pander like crazy.

Case in point. Today, ol' Jonah went on a rampage about the hypocrisy of Democrats, who, he believes, allowed Bill, Gary Stubbs, and other ghosts of a bygone era to get off scott free (censure? impeachment? scott free?), while taking poor Mr. Foley to the cleaners. I think Jonah missed the point. I don't remember that the Democrats campaigned on their so-called family values, their hatred for gays, or their religiosity. The Republicans did that. So, when they are hoist on their own petard, the GOP and their holier-than-thou supporters resoundingly deserve the label of hypocrite. There are certainly hypocrites in this story, but they ain't Dems. Take that mote out of your eye, Jonah. And Strib, stop wasting ink.