It's no secret I have no use for Sen. Larry Craig, the Republican who was caught with his pants down by a Minneapolis vice cop.
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I've called for his immediate resignation because he is clearly unfit for office and his story is not credible. I've repeated that call because even if his story of complete innocence is true, his response to his arrest demonstrates such utter lack of judgment that he cannot be trusted to be one of 100 U.S. senators.
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In fact, I was so curious about this amazing case, I decided to do what no other reporters have done – find out what Larry Craig was doing at the time in Minneapolis during a session of Congress and where he was going.
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What I found out shocked me. He was heading back to Washington to vote in the Senate.
What's surprising about that?
Well, if Larry Craig was at all familiar with the U.S. Constitution, he would have known that Article 1, Section 6 absolutely prohibits the arrest of any member of Congress while on his or her way to a session or on his or her way home.
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This tells me there is yet another reason to demand Craig's departure from the upper house – he doesn't understand the most rudimentary components of the law of the land, even those that pertain directly to his own work as a member of Congress for the last 27 years!
Don't get me wrong. There are members of the House and Senate who are more dangerous than Larry Craig. There are members of the House and Senate who are guilty of even worse behavior. There are members of the House and Senate who are bigger hypocrites and know-nothings.
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But that is hardly an excuse to draw the line and demand accountability and responsibility and standards of behavior among our elected officials.
Some suggest as long as Ted "Chappaquiddick" Kennedy is permitted to be seated year after year in the Senate, then all standards of decency and honor must be discarded.
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I disagree.
Citizens must demand elected officials live up to a standard of ethics higher than the lowest common denominator.
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We can't allow Kennedy to set the standard. We can't allow Alcee Hastings to set the standard. We can't allow Barney Frank to set the standard. We can't allow Hillary Clinton to set the standard. Otherwise, there are no standards at all.
Is rudimentary comprehension of the Constitution, a document these elected officials swear to uphold upon being seated, too much to ask?
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Apparently so.
Had Craig ever bothered to read the Constitution, if he had a schoolboy's knowledge of Article 1, he would have told the vice cop he had immunity from arrest. That would have been the end of it.
So Craig is disqualified from being a U.S. senator for another reason – the biggest reason of all – not knowing the Constitution.
Am I angry about Craig? You bet. He has been a completely undistinguished member of Congress for years. He's not a leader. He most recently let the American people down by supporting President Bush's amnesty program.
The man is hopelessly out of touch with the American people and his own constituency.
It's time for him to go.
Not on Sept. 30. Not if he is unable to clear himself from the embarrassing charge of soliciting sex in a public restroom. Not tomorrow. But today.
America doesn't need clowns like Craig distracting us from issues of vital importance – issues such as national security, national sovereignty, cultural decay and getting the country back on a constitutional footing of limited government and restoring freedom.
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