Black Box Report

Fellow GOP Senators Norm Coleman and presidential candidate John McCain has called for Larry Craig's resignation. So has Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra. Republican senate leadership even stripped him of his committee posts. The GOP is wasting no time responding to this new scandal, having learned their lesson from dragging their feet in the Mark Foley scandal last year. Or have they?

If 2006's lessons had really taught the GOP to "respond with lightning speed" to scandals, Sen. David Vitter would have faced real scorn after his prostitution scandal and Sen. Ted Stevens would have been isolated after FBI agents raided his house. But that clearly didn't happen.

Clearly not. Because what we have here is a double standard:

I can imagine distinguishing between these cases, but I would think that any difference would tend to cut in favor of Craig rather than against him, since paying prostitutes for sex is a real crime and it's still unclear to me what it is Craig's guilty of -- he mostly seems to have been brought up on charges of "being gay in the Midwest."

But maybe it's not about the double standard, or homophobia. Maybe it IS about standing on principle - political principle:

Louisiana's governor is a Democrat, and Idaho's is a Republican. Craig resigning would mean a Republican incumbent going into the 2008 election; Vitter resigning would mean another Democratic Senator. So no conservative...should get credit for standing on principle for demanding that Craig resign, and that goes triple if they haven't made the same call for Vitter.

But that won’t happen. Ever. Why? Because that would require the rightwing moralists to put their money where their mouths are:

The only kind of "morality" that this movement knows or embraces is politically exploitative, cost-free morality. That is why the national Republican Party rails endlessly against homosexuality and is virtually mute about divorce and adultery: because anti-gay moralism costs virtually all of its supporters nothing (since that is a moral prohibition that does not constrain them), while heterosexual moral deviations -- from divorce to adultery to sex outside of marriage -- are rampant among the Values Voters faithful and thus removed from the realm of condemnation. Hence we have scads of people sitting around opposing same-sex marriage because of their professed belief in "Traditional Marriage" while their "third husbands" and multiple step-children and live-in girlfriends sit next to them on the couch.

For the party of family values, the defenders of "traditional marriage", being gay trumps adultery, divorce, even pre-marital sex.

It has to. If it didn't, they'd hardly have any presidential candidates left

And so the double standard continues, and there seems to be only one question left regarding the sad tale of a closeted gay senator from a red state:

Will he jump, or will he be pushed?

With the rumors of Sen. Larry Craig's impending resignation now reaching deafening levels, it appears he's been given an ultimatum. Pull the trigger yourself, or get fragged by your own party:

This is big: Republican sources are telling CNN that the Republican National Committee was all set to release a statement calling on Larry Craig to resign.

But the RNC held back, these sources say, because they'd gotten reliable indications that the Senator was genuinely considering stepping down himself.

By threatening to release such a statement, and more to the point, by leaking word of such a statement and leaking word that the Senator is considering resigning himself, the RNC is actively pushing one of its own senior Senators out of office, basically sealing the deal on Craig's fate.

The good Dr. Taylor notes the speed and manner in which this push has developed is anything but business as usual:

Even when party hierarchies want someone to resign, they usually don't go public, relying rather on back channels and public pressure. The vehemence here is therefore surprising. Heck, the GOP establishment stuck with Mark Foley for longer than this.

Even Captain Ed doesn't think this passes the smell test:

Others serving in Congress at the moment have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors of more import than disorderly conduct without being forced to resign. If morality and credibility are at issue, why isn't Vitter being held to that standard? It's either that Louisiana's Democratic governor would appoint a Democrat in his place, or that Vitter's transgressions involved heterosexual sex and therefore are less objectionable.

...or a little of both. That and Craig's guilty plea gives everyone sufficient cover. A beard, if you will. Finally, Hot Air wonders why Criag didn't just quit earlier and save them the embarrassment:

Sounds like it was John Ensign, head of the Republican Senate re-election team, and the RNC hitting the gong in tandem that sent him off. Although he would have certainly announced next month anyway that he wasn't going to run again, so I'm not sure why he didn't just quit straightaway at the presser two days ago. Pride, I guess.

Just not gay pride.