{"id":12798,"date":"2007-09-07T09:30:26","date_gmt":"2007-09-07T13:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/12798.html"},"modified":"2007-09-07T09:30:26","modified_gmt":"2007-09-07T13:30:26","slug":"come-sept-30-if-you-dont-have-a-resolution-wait-for-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/come-sept-30-if-you-dont-have-a-resolution-wait-for-one\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Come Sept. 30, if you don’t have a resolution, wait for one’"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this point, I simply have no idea what Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) is going to do. On Wednesday, it looked like Craig was moving forward aggressively with a plan to salvage his career. On Thursday, his spokesperson said<\/a> the senator would almost certainly resign by the end of the month, and that the door to a reversal was “a very, very small door, very slightly ajar.”<\/p>\n

Craig’s lawyer, however, at almost the exact same time, had an entirely different message<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Underscoring the volatility of the Larry Craig story, one of the senator’s top attorneys told Politico this afternoon that Craig shouldn’t step down Sept. 30 as long as his legal fight is ongoing.<\/p>\n

“My view would be if something is proceeding on a good-faith basis, don’t quit until it gets resolved — whether it takes 15 days or 50 days,” said Stanley Brand, a Washington attorney who is part of a high-powered legal team assembled by Craig. “Come Sept. 30, if you don’t have a resolution, wait for one. If the ethics committee wants to open a Pandora’s box, bring it on.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, Craig’s spokesperson said the matter needs to be resolved by Sept. 30, or the senator heads home. Craig’s lawyer said the matter needs only to make some legal progress by Sept. 30, and the senator stays in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Brand acknowledged that there are contradictory messages coming from Craig’s camp, but suggested that it’s due to the fluidity of the situation. “It is a roller coaster,” Brand said.<\/p>\n

Funny thing about roller coasters — they make a lot of people sick.
\n
\nWhat’s more, Dan Whiting, Craig’s chief spokesman, added a new condition<\/a> yesterday to the senator’s resignation.<\/p>\n

Mr. Whiting said Mr. Craig would return to the Senate only if his three committee leadership posts were restored, a highly unlikely circumstance given the pressure Senate Republicans have put on him to step aside.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That actually makes Craig’s return even less likely. Unless Whiting’s comments are wrong, which seems possible given all the twists and turns, Craig will stay if a) he makes headway on the Minneapolis charge; b) makes progress with the Senate Ethics Committee; and c) gets his committee posts back to the way they were two weeks ago. That last one seems extremely<\/i> unlikely, given that the Senate GOP leadership has no reason to do such a huge favor for Craig in exchange for nothing.<\/p>\n

For what it’s worth, Craig has found at least one ally<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The American Land Rights Association has launched a boycott of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and Northwest Airlines, which has its main hub there, because the police there “ambushed” Craig, a “stand up guy” and a staunch ally of the private property advocacy group.<\/p>\n

Craig was the victim of possibly illegal “profiling,” ALRA Executive Director Chuck Cushman said in an e-mail to supporters, “and they must apologize” to him.<\/p>\n

By their actions, the airport police “are primarily responsible for greatly weakening private property rights . . . advocates on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee,” Cushman said. So “we are urging you to make all your flight arrangements avoiding the [airport] for at least the next year and probably longer,” and to urge everyone you know “to try to avoid any flights” through there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Craig and the ALRA against the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At this point, I simply have no idea what Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) is going to do. On Wednesday, it looked like Craig was moving forward aggressively with a plan to salvage his career. On Thursday, his spokesperson said the senator would almost certainly resign by the end of the month, and that the door […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}