Monday, September 24, 2007

Cracking Craig's Cache


Let's climb down off the Larry Craig Joke Train. An Idaho combo-blogger is running an excellent journalistic series of the not-so-much-longer-Senator. Starting 9/22, Randy Stapilus started a four-part set going back to his political beginnings. It's running in the Ridenbaugh Press.

Props: He's owner of the publishing company.

For one example, in Craig in review: Roots of panic, Stapilus foretells Craig's current troubles with an analysis of an earlier, unnecessary version:
In 1982, scandal erupted in the U.S House on reports that several male pages, high school students, had been sexually propositioned by congressmen. Craig wasn’t, and never has been, among the congressmen accused; but unlike other members of Congress, he reacted publicly by declaring that he wasn’t guilty. That raised immediate eyebrows. As a matter of politics, it was a foolish move: Even if he had nothing to do with the page scandal, it suggested that Craig might be hiding something. Craig himself acknowledged later that he’s made a mistake. Why had he, alone among the 435 members of the U.S. House, made that mistake? He had panicked. Crisis had arisen and, in the pressure of the moment, he had lost the ability to deal with it rationally.
The latest installment, Craig in review: Rights and wrongs, centers on a detailed analysis of how the local media, newspapers and bloggers, covered Craig, or avoided doing so before and after the toilet mess.

I'm looking for the next two posts on this. It's all great stuff, and has lessons politicians, MSM and bloggers alike can use.

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