I have an idea for how Larry Craig can make lemonade out of his current nightmare.
With a scandal so tacky and tawdry, keeping a low profile doesn't offer much potential as a path to redemption, assuming Democrats and the media would even allow such. Instead, what Craig needs is a flashy, buzz-generating, I've-learned-my-lesson crusade--something akin to John McCain's using his Keating Five nightmare to become a loud-mouthed government reform advocate.
The most logical cause for Craig to take up would be gay rights. Alas, everything we've seen and heard from the Idahoan post-downfall suggests he's not ready to reassess his own sexuality, much less his views about other people's.
But in his sit-down last week with master interrogator Matt Lauer, Craig did make reference to his new understanding of the perniciousness of profiling. (FF to 6:17)
I now know that this cop is--this officer is a profiler....Now I know all about profiling. I know what people feel like when they're profiled, when innocent people get caught up in what I was caught in as an innocent person. It's very angering at times.
Oh, how true this is. Now, armed with this new empathy, Craig should become an anti-profiling crusader--or maybe a profiling reformer. Depending on what area most interests him, the senator could focus on the perils of racial profiling. Alternatively, in light of his experience with how overzealous airport personnel can be, he could address the terrorism profiling being done in terminals across the country. How should the current system be improved? Search me. But presumably the senator has some keen first-hand insights.
And if no one took him seriously, who cares? If nothing else, his efforts would make Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, and all his other fair weather compadres apoplectic.
That's got to be worth something.
--Michelle Cottle