Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho pleaded guilty this month to misdemeanor disorderly conduct after being arrested at the Minneapolis airport.

A Hennepin County court docket showed Craig pleading guilty to the disorderly conduct charge Aug. 8, with the court dismissing a charge of gross misdemeanor interference to privacy.

The court docket said the Republican senator paid $575 in fines and fees. He was put on unsupervised probation for a year. A sentence of 10 days in the county workhouse was stayed.

Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, which first reported the case, said on its Web site Monday that Craig was arrested June 11 by a plainclothes officer investigating complaints of lewd conduct in a men's restroom at the airport.

Craig, a social conservative, supported both attempts to advance a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and opposes adding sexuality to the groups covered under hate crime laws and to a bill protecting LGBT workers.

Craig said in a statement issued by his office Monday that he was not involved in any inappropriate conduct.

"At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions," he said. "I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously."

We did receive this statement from Craig's office: "At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct. I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously."

Records show the veteran Republican senator was fined $1,000, plus $575 in fees. He was placed on unsupervised probation for a year. A sentence of 10 days in the county workhouse was stayed.

Today's news about Sen. Larry Craig's June arrest at an airport in Minnesota has prompted Mitt Romney's campaign to take down a YouTube video starring the senator, who has been a supporter of Romney. The Romney campaign named Craig a co-chair of the former governor's Idaho Leadership Team back in late May, but Craig has now distanced himself from the Romney camp.

"Senator Craig has stepped down from his role with the campaign. He did not want to be a distraction and we accept his decision," Romney spokesman Matt Rhoades told us tonight.

Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho pleaded guilty this month to misdemeanor disorderly conduct after being arrested at the Minneapolis airport.

(CBS/AP) Under fire from leaders of his own party, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig on Tuesday said the only thing he had done wrong was to plead guilty after a complaint of lewd conduct in a men's room. He declared, "I am not gay. I never have been gay."

"I did nothing wrong at the Minneapolis airport," he said at a news conference with his wife, Suzanne, at his side.

Craig's defiant news conference came as Senate Republican leaders in Washington called for an ethics committee review into his involvement in a police sting operation this summer in the airport men's room.

Mitt Romney late Tuesday distanced himself from one of his top Senate supporters, comparing his actions to President Clinton's affair with an intern and a former Republican congressman's overtures to male teenage pages.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges stemming from complaints of lewd conduct in a men's room. Craig held a prominent role with Romney's presidential campaign, serving as a Senate liaison for the campaign since February. He resigned from the post.

[...]

"Yeah, I think it reminds us of Mark Foley and Bill Clinton," Romney said on CNBC's "Kudlow & Company." "I think it reminds us of the fact that people who are elected to public office continue to disappoint, and they somehow think that if they vote the right way on issues of significance or they can speak a good game, that we'll just forgive and forget."

[...]

While Romney said Craig "disappointed the American people," he didn't call on Craig to resign from the Senate.

"I haven't seen the allegations yet, I just heard that there was a guilty plea and he submitted a resignation as my liaison in the Senate," Romney said.

[...]

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, has suggested stripping the federal pensions from those convicted of using their office to abuse the public trust.

We should take no joy in the ruin of Larry Craig's marriage and reputation — even if it is well deserved and a long time in coming. The man has known for two years now he was under intense scrutiny for rumors that he's gay and has sex in public toilets. Not since Bill Clinton have we been treated to a public figure so compulsively unable to control the little head with the big one.

But you won't find me arguing that somehow Larry Craig's self-destruction is an argument for my own equality. I can think of about 533 more effective arguments we could make that don't require someone else's ruin or suggest we all share some general (im)moral equivalence. Gay Americans are entitled to equal treatment and protection against discrimination whether or not every member of Congress who voted against gay rights has an utterly umblemished sexual history.

If Larry Craig really does troll public toilets for sex, it doesn't prove his "family values" rhetoric is claptrap anymore than Bill Clinton's infidelity proved his support for gay rights was the product of his promiscuity. The case for gay rights is compelling enough on its own merits. Let's not jump in the mud and join in the muckraking.

If Larry Craig really does troll public toilets for sex, it doesn't prove his "family values" rhetoric is claptrap

While Romney said Craig "disappointed the American people," he didn't call on Craig to resign from the Senate.

Ah, but the "clever" forces of the Republican right have indeed called on Mr. Craig to resign tonight. So sayeth our local news reporter.

Sens. Norm Coleman (R-MN) and John McCain (R-AZ) have become the first members of the Senate to call for Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) to resign over his arrest for alleged “lewd conduct” in an airport bathroom. Craig, who was arrested in June, pled guilty to “disorderly conduct” charges on August 8, though the plea was kept secret until Roll Call newspaper broke the story on Monday.

The AP reports, “Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, where Craig was arrested, became the first Senate Republican to say Craig should leave office. ‘Senator Craig pled guilty to a crime involving conduct unbecoming a senator,’ he said in a statement. ‘He should resign.’”

In an interview with CNN’s John King this afternoon, McCain said he thinks Craig “should resign”

Like many gay people, I have mixed feelings about outing. Larry Craig has opposed legislation like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, ENDA, that would benefit gay and lesbian people, and he has been a vocal supporter of several anti-gay bills. Craig voted for the Defense of Marriage Act. He supports a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. If he’s gay, then he’s a shade of Roy Cohn, and I believe he should be exposed as a self-loathing hypocrite. If he’s had sex with other men, then he’s been playing a very nasty political game. He has attacked his own to advance his career within the fundamentalist, gay-bating GOP. If Larry Craig is a closeted homosexual, then I am in the awkward position of having no fellow feeling for him whatsoever. I’m a lesbian, and I was once closeted, but I can’t sympathize. Why? Because I didn’t toss rocks at other gays and lesbians from the safety of my closet. I didn’t hide behind closed doors in my glass house and do active harm to my GLBT brothers and sisters.

I feel no pity for Larry Craig. Like Mike Rogers, the blog writer who has theoretically and allegedly "outed" Craig, I would show the Senator no mercy. Craig has done nothing whatsoever to deserve it. On the contrary, he has courted our anger and our scorn. And yet outing is such an odd and unsettling thing. Why is it that being gay is still so shocking? Why is the private life of a boring, dull, workaday politician like Larry Craig suddenly front-page news? Does it really still surprise us that public figures lie about their private lives or that conservative Republicans really do come in all races, creeds, and sexual orientations -- they just hide it to get ahead in a homophobic and heterosexist world?

BOISE, Idaho, Aug. 29 -- Sen. Larry Craig went on vacation with his wife Wednesday, according to aides, as calls for his resignation intensified, Republican leaders stripped him of his committee assignments, and support in his home state appeared to be eroding.

On the day after Craig dismissed having pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct in an airport restroom as an overreaction to a mistaken arrest, and insisted that he is not gay, even longtime supporters expressed disappointment.

...

Senate GOP leaders said that Craig "agreed to comply" with their request that he step down as the ranking Republican on the Veterans' Affairs Committee and two subcommittees while the ethics committee assesses his case. The move, they said, was for "the good of the Senate."

The intensity of the Republican leaders' assault on one of their own was stunning, if for no other reason than its unusual -- un-senatorial -- nature. Several ethics lawyers and experts could not provide an example in the past two decades of one senator calling for the ethics committee to investigate a colleague.

...

"You know, I don't understand if he just touched somebody's foot why he pleaded guilty," Anderson, the beautician, said as she prepared for her first customer. "We're a Republican state. We're Idaho. He's dishonored us."

“The real question for Republicans in Washington is how low can you go, because we are approaching a level of ridiculousness,”said Mr. Reed, sounding exasperated in an interview on Tuesday morning. “You can’t make this stuff up. And the impact this is having on the grass-roots around the country is devastating. Republicans think the governing class in Washington are a bunch of buffoons who have total disregard for the principles of the party, the law of the land and the future of the country.”

What is puzzling me is why all those closeted guys in the politics are married. We have had a couple of closeted conservative homosexuals here as well, but they were all "bachelours" and refrained from anti-Gay rhetorics.

Republicans think the governing class in Washington are a bunch of buffoons who have total disregard for the principles of the party, the law of the land and the future of the country.

Apparently, it seems quite impossible to make a political career in the US for an unmarried man - correct me if I am wrong. This would resemble very much the situation in the big business here.

Apparently, it seems quite impossible to make a political career in the US for an unmarried man - correct me if I am wrong. This would resemble very much the situation in the big business here.