Goodbye Larry (Or, Idaho's Latest Potato Head)

Late word today is that Senator Larry Craig, Republican of Idaho, will announce his resignation from the U.S. Senate at the urging of his fellow Republicans for soliciting sexual perversion in an airport bathroom even as rumors of similar behavior from this time in the House of Representatives and a similar incident in 1994 (he was first elected to the Senate in 1990) have (re)surfaced. Good riddance - not for his sexual peccadilloes, but for his unwavering support for the National Rifle Association, of which he is a member. So when people say Craig has a history of gratifying himself, they're not kidding!

As shocking as all of this is, the most incredible thing about Craig is that he is not the only embarrassing politician to come out of Idaho, or even the most embarrassing one. Consider this list of other Idahoans who have undistinguished themselves in Washington:

Steven Symms, who served in the House in the seventies and represented Idaho in the Senate from 1981 to 1993, famously said in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Soviet Union, "I'm sorry it didn't happen closer to the Kremlin." He also insisted during the 1988 presidential campaign that there were pictures of Michael Dukakis's wife burning the American flag at a demonstration, though he admitted that he hadn't actually seen them. As a House member, Symms bought guns into the House chamber to demonstrate his opposition to gun control.

James McClure, who was on the Senate Iran-contra committee in 1987, explained his reaction to the scandal by quoting a passage about dysentery from the play "Butterflies Are Free." This, too, did pass. :-O

The late Representative Helen Chenoweth, noteworthy for her paranoia, insisted that the United Nations was sending black helicopters to Idaho to spy on the state in its bid for world government.

Dirk Kempthorne, a one-term senator from Idaho from 1993 to 1999, distinguished by his insufferably Anglo-Saxon name, currently holds a job in the Bush administration in which he oversees environmental destruction, oil drilling and mining on public lands, and general disregard for endangered species. In other words, he's the Secretary of the Interior.

It's no wonder that state pride in Idaho centers on . . . the potato.