TODAY'S LETTERS: Readers Respond to Coverage of Senator Larry Craig's Men's Room Arrest

By: E&P Staff The big news yesterday was about Senator Larry Craig of Idaho who plead guilty to lewd conduct in a men's room in an airport in Minneapolis. A flurryof stories on E&P followed, as did the letters.

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I saw your article today online about how the media missed the arrest of this Senator. I am a gay man, and in the gay "world" this incident has been known and talked about for weeks now.

We (all Americans) are so used to the media covering Republican "problems" that it surprised me that it actually was reported this week.

Jonathon Norville


I think the non-reporting of Mr. Craig?s dalliances have more to do with his political inclinations and our national media?s preoccupation with maintaining the status & quo & furthering their concerted agenda-primarily illegal immigration & globalization.

I think if Tom Tancredo or Ron Paul had been arrested soliciting gay sex in an airport bathroom it would have been all over the media within 10 minutes.

Steve Smith


I wondered about all this immediately yesterday too. But I questioned the lapse from a different angle: not why Idaho or national papers didn't get it sooner, but why the *Minnesota* papers didn't see it on the police blotter.

It appears that the arresting officer wasn't impressed or intimidated by Craig's being a senator; they proceeded to book him nonetheless. If you're the arresting officer (or precinct commander, or chief of police, for that matter) and you've just busted a U.S. senator, wouldn't you make a point of getting that out? This is Minneapolis, after all; not like, say, an East Coast senator getting busted in rural Idaho.

Seems as if you're working the cop shop for the papers there, even a cursory glance of the June arrest logs (and then the August criminal court convictions) should have cause d a senator's name to jump out -- even an out-of-state senator.

I'm keenly interested because I'm from Idaho, I knew Craig way back when, and I work in newspapers.

K. Rocheman


Newspeople have gotten used to overlooking most of the dirt in Washington. If the news organizations spent half the time moving past politics, they'd see a wealth of news where politicians on both sides (!!) are not doing what they are supposed to.

Here's a case of a Republican getting caught dirty.

Not a problem.

How about a story on Hillary's sordid details while around the White House or bilking the taxpayers as a sitting Senator run around the country campaigning when she's supposed to be in the Senate serving the needs of her constituents in New York.

Or Diane Feinstein's husband getting lucrative government contracts because of her committe work in the Senate.

If the news community did their jobs of objective reporting most of these jerks (Dems as well as Repubs) would have been run out of the system long ago.

Michael Lyle
Chesapeake, Va.


They didn't miss it, they just didn't report it. His hometown newspaper knew of the incident and would not report it until he pled guilty in court to disorderly conduct.

Richard Watson
St. Augustine, Fl


The Craig deal is but another in an endless list of things that can happen that makes choosing your nominee/elector in mid-winter to be voted in a mid-fall convention. Many ealry primary voters will wish they had been able to save their vote until closer to the actual time of choosing.

Won't it be interesting if no clear runaway winner emerges and the later states will get the bulk of attention and money while carrying a much greater voice in the final choice. Even small states could become more important than the early big ones in the finals. Many front runners trip before the tape and those seeking the quick early shot sell their people short for that momentary attention.

Dan Thompson
Union, Ore.