The Scandal of Larry Craig

The Scandal of Larry Craig Larry Craig was arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport on a suspicion of Lewd Conduct. The date that this incident happened was on June 11th, 2007. Craig was arrested after trying to have sex with another male in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport bathroom. What he didnt know is that the man he was trying to have sex with ended up being an undercover officer, the officer was undercover because of complaints about a man trying to have sex with others in the bathroom, this has been going on for several weeks now. Larry Craig was the main person affected because of this incident, probably because he was the main person involved. Because of this incident Larry Craig lost many of his friends, a good amount of those friends were made through politics and were still in politics. One main friend he lost was Mitt Romney who was Governor of Massachusetts at the time of this incident. After the public heard about the incident, as you expected, there was a major backlash on Larry Craig and he was hated by many Americans. Many gay right activists were mad at Craig for making gay people look bad. At the time of this incident gays were trying to be treated equal to straight people because they werent equal at the time of this incident, so many people were mad for the sole fact that he interacted in a gay act like he did. In the end what really affected Larry Craig was that the incident cost him his political career. Larry Craig ended up serving the rest of his term as Senator because he refused to resign, but he did not end up running for re-election for the position because he knew just like everyone else did, that he would not win the re-election for Senator. He also was not liked by many other politicians after this incident. Another person affected because of the incident was Mitt Romney. Craig was one of the two Senators that were liaisons for Mitt Romneys 2008 Presidential Campaign. After this incident Mitt Romney was not a fan of Larry Craig, in fact Mitt Romney actually strongly disliked Larry Craig. Larry Craig made Mitt Romney look bad because of this incident, do the citizens of America really want a President that works with guys like this running the country? This ended up with Mitt Romney removing Larry Craig from anything to do with his Presidential Campaign then went on to talk badly about Craig to the public by saying Hes disappointed the American people (Hulse). The last person that was affected because of this incident was Mike Jones and the officer that arrested him. Mike Jones told the public that Larry Craig offered him $200 to have oral sex with him in a restroom. After this was told to the public and a reporter asked Larry Craig, he responded by saying Mike Jones was lying just to try to promote his new book about the incident between Mike and Ted Haggard (Hulse). So Larry Craig just said Mike was trying to just get money from his incident and that it isnt alright to do. Lastly, was the officer that arrested Craig. They never released the officers name, which is understandable because this was a big incident. Craig tried to have sex with him in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport restroom, after he made the arrest Larry Craig tried to blackmail the officer by showing his badge that showed he was a part of the government and then said So, what do you think about that? This incident occurred on August 8th, 2007. There are many facts about this government scandal. One fact is that he was arrested for disorderly conduct in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. Another fact about this scandal is that Larry Craig ended up sending a signed petition to the court and the petition pled guilty for misdemeanor charge was accepted and filed to the court on August 8th, 2007. When this was released to the public he said that he regretted pleading guilty because he was innocent. He said that he only plead guilty to the charges because he wanted this to just fly over and not go on, but it ended up backfiring and lasting along time. Larry Craig said that he just wanted to get this over as quick as possible and get on with his life and duty as one of the Senators of the United States. The time frame of this incident was in August 2007. But apparently he has been doing things like this for years but never got caught or had it released to the public until now. No one really knows if these reports about it happening in the past are true, but they know that the incident in August 2007 was real and it happened. At the time of this incident many other things were also happening in the world. One surrounding circumstance was the Phoenix spacecraft launched towards Mars. They launched the Phoenix spacecraft on August 4th, 2007. Another surrounding circumstance was that the war in Afghanistan was going on. The war in Afghanistan started in October 2001 because of the tragic incident of 9/11. This war was a long war that lasted 13 years, it eventually ended in 2014, three years after the US killed the man responsible for 9/11. The mans name was Osama Bin Laden and he was killed on May 2, 2011 in Pakistan which is a country that borders Afghanistan. He was in his hideout that he had. The last thing that was a surrounding circumstance in 2007 was the Iraq war. The US was in the middle of two wars in 2007. This war started in March 2003 because of an invasion in Iraq that was led by the United States. This war was also long but didnt last as long as the war in Afghanistan. The war in Iraq lasted 8 years. It ended in December 2011 because Obama decided it was a good idea to just end the war and pull out. In this scandal there were many rumors that had spread during this scandal. After this scandal, a gay rights activist Michael Rogers came out and told the public that this wasnt the first time that Larry Craig has done something like this. He said there were multiple similar occasions that something like this had happened to other people. The first one he has tied Craig to be in happened in 1982. Rogers also said that it has been happening in multiple locations all over the United States not just in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport where this incident took place. All these incidents were reported to a reporter for the Idaho Statesman. Michael Rogers wasnt the only person to come out and say that Craig has done this before. Up to eight other gay men came up to the reporter for Idaho Statesman saying that they had either sexual encounters with Larry Craig or him attempting to engage in sexual conduct with them. Four of the eight men gave good details about their encounters with Craig, it wasnt proven if they had happened or not but it caused some discussion. The most recent encounter that had been reported came from a 40 year old man who claimed that he and Craig had engaged in oral sex in 2004. None of these reports had been proven true nor had they been proven false. They were all just rumors and not many know if these reports had been true or not. Because of this incident the government took a huge hit. Craig has been in politics along time and he was liked by many other politicians previous to this incident. Larry Craig lost many political friends because of this and there was a huge debate whether or not if they should allow Craig to stay as Senator. They decided that Craig could remain and serve the rest of his term as Senator. Craig did end up serving the rest of his term. Many people looked at the government badly for allowing a man who did this remain the Senator and not kicking him out of his position. They were mad because they didnt want a corrupt man helping run this country, they looked at it as not right. After Craigs term was up he did not re-run in the election as Senator because everyone knew that if he did he would not win. The only one to really suffer because of this incident is Larry Craig. After this incident Craig returned to his duty as Senator of the United States. He refused to resign from his position, but after his term as Senator he lost his job and didnt re-run in the upcoming election as Senator. This isnt the only thing that that ended for him. He ended his career in politics. Another person that you could argue suffered from this incident was Mitt Romney. Craig was one of the two Senators liaisons for Mitt Romneys 2008 presidential campaign. This incident made Romney look bad and he dropped Craig from being a part of anything to do with his presidential campaign. Mitt Romney ended up losing this election and Craig didnt impact his campaign positively. Craig wasnt the main reason he lost but would Romney have gotten more votes if this didnt happen? Nobody knows. Craig probably didnt lose the election for Romney but he sure didnt help Romneys chances. The last thing that suffered because of this incident was the government because Craig had been a part of politics for a long time. He had many friends and was trusted by many people that were in politics. This incident caused a man that was high in politics to lose his job and end his career. There were many outcomes after this Scandal. Mostly it affected Larry Craig and his life. Larry Craig ended up serving the rest of his term as the Senator, then decided that he is done with his political career after this incident. He didnt re-run because he wouldve lost and he knew that. One thing that happened that is kind of interesting is that the TV show Law and Order made an episode that replicated the whole Larry Craig scandal. The episode was called Political Animal. They used things in the episode such as the foot tapping that Craig apparently did in the stalls, and when the officer in the episode arrested the councilman, the councilman yelled Im not gay to resemble what Larry Craig also did. The last thing is the stalls in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport that this incident happened in started to gain notoriety. The airport then decided that they should demolish the stalls this incident occurred in and did so. In ending, this scandal wasnt one of the biggest to occur in the United States history. But the government did take a hit and this scandal was very popular and talked about. This incident will always be remembered as a weird scandal because no one really expected Craig to do something like this, yet it has been apparently going on for years and kept quiet.