Idaho Senator Larry Craig obviously did a very bad thing in a men's restroom at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport in June.  Whatever took place between Senator Craig and an undercover police officer was bad enough that Senator Craig tried to hide it from everyone around him, public and private.  It was bad enough that he pled guilty, hoping it would stay buried forever.  There are many things about this affair that have made him politically radioactive, and fatally so. The press statement he gave to the media earlier Tuesday afternoon did not help make his predicament any less dire.  In fact, it made it worse.  

Senator Craig said very strongly that he did not do anything wrong, that he is not gay, and that he is not ruling out running for re-election next November. Here's what else Senator Craig has not done.

He has not estimated highly enough that his 'I shoulda hired a lawyer instead of trying to solve this myself' excuse doesn't fly with the American people.  If there is one steadfast rule in politics, it often isn't the original crime that gets you, it's the covering up or attempting to bury it that does you in.  Senator Craig did not appear as being remotely honest and forthright today.  He came across as arrogant, defiant, and the victim of bad decision making because news stories about him.

He has not realized how badly he hurt the Republican Party's chances in '08, especially in the Senate, by his actions both in June and especially now in the last 48 hours.  By not facing up to the music and simply announcing he will not seek re-election, or saying today that in order to make sure that Idaho is represented in the manner they deserve, he is resigning immediately, he has now virtually guaranteed that the Republicans can't win back the Senate in 2008.  

Although the members are still in their home states enjoying the last couple of weeks of their August recess, I've had many conversations today with Hill staffers on the Republican side who can't emphasize clearly enough how steamed their bosses are at Larry Craig.  Consider for a moment the plight of Nevada Senator John Ensign, who drew the short straw this cycle as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.  He has 22 Republican Senators up for re-election next November, and his task is to try and raise funds that many of these Senators are going to rely on in part to hold onto their seats.  If Larry Craig remains defiant and opts to run again, as he strongly hinted today, he's going to be in line for some of that money. And unless Ensign can effectively create a way in the NRSC charter to legally raise money specific to one candidate or another, he's not going to raise a dime if Americans believe that there's a good chance it's going to someone convicted of illicit behavior in a public restroom.

What's Ensign's fundraising letter going to look like?  It's an uphill battle because of how many seats the Republicans have to hold this time versus how many the Democrats have to hold, and having our own version of Senator Mark Foley doesn't make Ensign's job any easier.  

Senator Craig, if you watch his statement today, is still trying to cover something up.  He doesn't appear to have learned anything. He's running the Bill Clinton crisis management play, except he doesn't have the charisma to pull it off, and the media certainly isn't on his side to help downplay it.  Alternative media broke the scandal about Bill Clinton and the intern, but even when the media did finally report on the details, it still did so with the spin that private life should be different from public life.  What Bill Clinton did then was something disqualifying of public office.  Larry Craig's behavior, regardless of what he pled down to, is just as disqualifying. And he's not going to have the media on his side to try and dampen the level of criticism like they did in the Clinton matter.  

If Craig had really done nothing wrong as he stated again in his statement today, he would have recounted exactly what did or did not take place in that restroom, exactly what he was charged with, how long the process between when he was charged and when he pled, and stood there fielding every question the press had for him.  If he's truly innocent, a prospect increasingly hard to believe, he should having nothing to hide and his political career depending on him coming clean with the voters of Idaho.  

Senator Craig complained about a witch hunt and viscious treatment by the Idaho Statesman in their doggedness about reporting stories about Senator Craig.  What Senator Craig did not do in today's statement is stop the death of a thousand cuts that awaits him in future editions of the Statesman that's going to make him completely ineffectual and utterly unelectable by next November. 

So where do the Senate Republicans go from here? First, in Senatorial terms, the Republican leadership threw Larry Craig under the bus Tuesday by immediately calling for the matter to be referred to the Senate Ethics Committee, which considering all the alleged collegiality in the upper chamber, is a fairly radical move.  The last two times I believe it's been done before was in 2002, when Robert Torricelli was referred to the Ethics Committee over bribery implications.  Before that, back in 1994, Republican David Durenberger was implicated in unethical behavior concerning outside income, was referred to the Senate Ethics Committee, was disbarred for his actions, and did not run for re-election.  So a referral like today's to the Senate Ethics Committee, based on previous examples, does not seem to bode well for Senator Craig's future in the Senate.

While it may be a while before another Republican Senator speaks publicly about Senator Craig, or calls for his resignation, look for one Senator, if not more, if Craig remains stubborn and returns to Washington in September, to play hardball with him behind the scenes and help show Senator Craig quickly and quietly to the door.

With General Petraeus coming to the Hill to discuss serious matters like what we do or not do in Iraq for the next six months, it doesn't seem fair to the General, the troops in the field, or Americans concerned about this debate to try and conduct it in an environment where there is an ongoing circus involving an egotistical Senator bent on protecting a busted political career.
 
Senator Craig can stop the stories, stop the Ethics inquiry that's sure to embarrass him further, and stop the humiliation of an almost sure defeat in Idaho next November.  It all stops for him if he resigns immediately, something Larry Craig, unfortunately, did not do Tuesday afternoon in Idaho.