by hilzoy
From the NYT:
“Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho opened the door Tuesday to returning to the Senate, creating another twist in his unfolding political drama and raising the possibility of an ugly showdown with national Republican leaders.
Dan Whiting, a spokesman for Mr. Craig, an Idaho Republican, said Tuesday night that Mr. Craig had not ruled out reversing his plan to step down Sept. 30. After intense pressure from Republican colleagues in the Senate, Mr. Craig announced Saturday that it would be best for “the people of Idaho” if he resigned after the disclosure of his guilty plea last month to disorderly conduct charges stemming from his arrest in June in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport bathroom.
“As he stated on Saturday, Senator Craig intends to resign on Sept. 30,” Mr. Whiting said in a statement. “However, he is fighting these charges, and should he be cleared before then, he may, and I emphasize may, not resign.””
As I’ve written before, I have mixed feelings about Larry Craig. On the one hand, I can’t see anything in what he is reported to have done that merits arrest. On the other, my sympathy for him is somewhat muted by his history of voting against gay rights, and by his conduct at the time of his arrest.
That said, I think that if he does take back his apparent decision to resign, he will come in for a lot of criticism from his fellow Republicans, not to mention a lot more scrutiny of his private life, and this time, he will have knowingly brought it on himself. Don’t get me wrong: insofar as I can imagine what might be going through my mind if I were Larry Craig, I’d be sorely tempted to reconsider too. It’s a very hard thing to throw away a career in public service, especially for something comparatively trivial that you probably shouldn’t have been arrested for anyways. It’s also very, very easy for me to imagine that he might be very angry about this, and therefore very tempted to fight it. But he should resist this temptation. It will only bring him grief. And when I try to imagine being someone who has been a politician for a long time, it’s hard for me to imagine that he doesn’t know this.
On the upside, however, it will drive Mitch McConnell bananas, which is, in my opinion, always a good thing. And, as one of Josh Marshall’s readers writes:
“If Sen. Larry Craig reconsiders and steps all over Gen. Petraeus’ week of surge, Bill Kristol’s head will explode. That Penatagon media war room they set up will be useless in the face of this cable TV zoo.”
And can anything that makes Bill Kristol’s head explode be all bad?
***
Josh Marshall also provides the transcript of a voicemail message that Craig seems to have left on the wrong answering machine right before his press conference, in which he discusses his decision. Josh says he can’t find the transcript on Roll Call, which is where the Idaho Statesman found it (according to Josh, citing McJoan.) I can’t find it in the Idaho Statesman article Josh links to, though they do quote part of it. However, it’s also quoted as being on the Roll Call website in the NYT article I linked to above, as well as this in the Washington Post.
Wheeeeee! Our long national nightmare can start!
Yayyyy!
What, me schadenfreude? OH, yeah.
Come on, Hilzoy, sit back and enjoy it. If Craig really does fight this, he won’t hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it. And just maybe, he’ll wedge a few minds open just a little more. This is win-win.
As a former criminal defense lawyer, I can tell you that a plea of guilty is the same as if the defendant was convicted after a full trial. What’s more is that the defendant is told this by the judge at the time of te plea.
I can’t tell you how many of my clients unsuccessfully tried to withdraw their plea at some point before sentencing. VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE, espesially for the indigent defendant.
Why haven’t I heard anything about this??
You know, this is the point I do not approve of in the common law system. The person may plead guilty for a variety of reasons. Therefore, it should be the job of the court of law to decide whether the defendant is guilty or not. The confession should be just one more piece of evidence, freely considered, as it is here, in a civil law country.
The other point I fail to understand is why it is considered the duty of the prosecutor to pursue the harshest possible sentence unles a plea bargain is made. Here, the prosecution is required to ask only for a reasonable sentence. Plea bargaining is prohibited. (On the other hand, the prosecution has the right to appeal from the verdict all the way to the Supreme Court.) There have even been cases where the prosecution files an appeal to get a more benign sentence when the district court is too harsh. (Nowadays, the court may not impose a harsher sentence than asked by the prosecution, so this situation is impossible.)
Of course, we consider the public prosecution to be a part of the judicial branch. Maybe that explains a lot.
And can anything that makes Bill Kristol’s head explode be all bad?
The real question is, can anything that makes Bill Kristol’s head explode be anything but all good?
[Modulo a nuclear fireball or sommat like dat. Let’s not be silly here.]
I just flat don’t believe that Craig didn’t have a lawyer while his case was unfolding, and therefore think it’s going to pretty hard to withdraw his plea. Plus, his years of being a legislator weigh heavily against the idea that he didn’t understand the form he was mailed to read and sign. His last chance to fight was before he put his name to that document.
But more power to Billy Martin if he’s encouraging Sen. Craig to keep this going.
I’m willing to believe that he didn’t have a lawyer (or didn’t actually tell his lawyer what happened) because no one who has been practicing law for more than 48 hours would have let Craig plead guilty pro se as Craig did.
Yes, Craig said he was going to get some information for his lawyer, but everything else shows that he never did get back to his lawyer. Maybe he thought that no one would notice that he had pled guilty to a misdemeanor in MSP and he was too embarrassed to talk to his lawyer or even a lawyer from the phone book in Minneapolis-St. Paul.