On Bloomberg Television today, right-wing pundit Robert Novak revealed that “sources in the Senate” have told him that Senate conservatives had prior knowledge about Sen. Larry Craig’s (R-ID) “problem” but intentionally kept it “in the closet”: “I have talked to several of my sources in the Senate, and this came as a surprise to me…They knew about it. They knew that he had this problem, and it was in the closet. And it was not just a homosexual relationship. It was this weird conduct. They didn’t do anything about it.”
So far, the Larry Craig story has been kind of silly – another quirky Republican being exposed as a hypocrite. But this revelation, if true, turns the story in a different direction. It points to a culture of active deception – a culture in the Republican Party that is more surprising as time goes on. It’s a story of massive ruse served up as "family values" which is more and more appearing to be nothing but a Talking Point to pull the wool over the eyes of decent but gullible people. It’s no longer about Larry Craig, a conflicted, closeted gay guy. It’s about the righteous facade of the Religious Right/Conservative alliance being fabricated as a front for way too many improprieties. Larry Craig is lying, outright. And his lies have been supported by the silence of the Republican Party. Like many other lies…
Novak also in an interview about Craig said that Wilson didn’t act like revealing his wife’s identity would be that big a deal. Don’t quote me about the words but that was what Novak inferred. I wouldn’t trust him on anything. The Republican insiders might have given him something about Craig to scare the senator into quitting the Senate for real this time. They probably took a calculated risk giving Novak this damaging information. I don’t trust any of them either. The other remote possibility is that Novak a convert to the Catholic church may have moments where he has to tell the truth or go to confession or both and his penance is to tell the truth for his redemption. Remember I’m a former dropout of the convent, I know a little bit about confession and penance. When Craig came back he voted against gays in a bill to signal that even though they throw him off the ship, that he would still be one of them. They didn’t take the bait . They want him out long before anyone in the next election uses him to get at them.