The only credit to be given Larry Craig is that so far he hasn’t confessed to the demon Rum making him do it, or plans to find Jesus or promises to go into drug rehab. But the story is still early, so who knows.

On the subject of hypocrisy. We all know what Democratic hypocrisies are all about–a Kerry in camouflage or Edwards in blue jeans preaching a gospel of down-home populism while enjoying the fruits of hardball capitalism and the rarified lifestyle that go with it.

But the equivalent for Republicans?

Apparently it’s a ‘family-values’ kind of guy like Larry Craig, Mark Foley, or the odious Ted Haggard, not just getting caught in homosexual scenarios at odds with their rhetoric-but in particularly disgusting acts such as bathroom trolling, solicitation of teenagers, and drug use with a male prostitute. The problem is not that these creepy people are confessing to be gay, but rather denying just that while engaging in behavior that is bizarre and repellent regardless of orientation.

Foley and Haggard had a long history, and apparently Craig as well, who, unlike the other two, pled guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct in a bathroom-whatever that means.

The Democrats raise the bar on “fairness” and “equality” and so suffer accordingly when they have mansions that gobble energy or fight wind-power derricks that obstruct their vacation home views. In the same fashion, a Craig or Foley is equally ridiculous-but with one mportant difference, one far worse: a Craig or Haggard (and maybe Foley) violated the law.

In the lala land of these conservatives, congressmen would be routinely e-mailing smut to pages, Senators playing hide-and-go seek in bathroom stalls, and evangelicals hooking up for drugs and sex in motel rooms with male prostitutes-all right out of Petronius’s Satyricon.

The voters of Idaho can decide what is a forgivable offense, but in the meantime the Republicans should ostracize Craig and strip him from all committee assignments, and anything else to distance themselves from this smelly albatross.