LARRY CRAIG: BEAM HIM UP

Here's the lead sentence in WaPo's  coverage of Larry Craig's legal efforts kaput [emphases mine]:

After repeated attempts to clear his name, former senator Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) is giving up on his effort to withdraw his guilty plea stemming from his 2007 arrest in a Minneapolis airport bathroom in an undercover sex sting.

The article says Craig might open a consulting firm with his former chief of staff, but chances are good that the next news we hear about Larry Craig is that he has died.

And we know that his obituary will feature the fact that Craig was a public toilet sex creep.

Poor Larry had to utter, on national TV, one of the worst lines imaginable:

I am not gay.

Like, this will be carved on his tombstone

If Larry wasn't doing a sex thing in the airport toilet stall, then the only reason to plead guilty is because he was actually doing something worse.

For instance, a killer with dead bodies in the trunk of his car gets pulled over for rolling through a stop sign.  Even if the killer was sure he made a full stop, he's not going to dispute too much with the cop, lest it lead to a trunk inspection.  No, the killer signs the ticket, apologizes, and continues to the planned disposal site.

So, what was Craig doing, if not sex?

Espionage comes to mind.  Could Craig have been passing FBI files to a posse comitatus? Nuclear secrets to Iran? Misdemeanor mensroom sex would be a good cover story for more serious felonies, which he has presumably gotten away with.

Still, it's gotta be difficult for a gruff, businesslike, man's-man kind of guy like Larry Craig to keep up his dignity when everyone knows he's a fruit. Like, in Idaho!

Not only will Craig's obituaries mention the sex sting, his death will prompt many late-night jokes, great mensroom  in the sky stuff.

We're not supposed to laugh when a guy dies, but this will be irresistible.

There is, however, a way for the former senator to dull the sting. He should follow Tonya Harding's example, and cover up the one embarrassing event with many additional embarrassing events.

Tonya was in danger of being remembered for only one thing--kneecapping her ice skating rival.

But, thanks to her  irrepressibility, Tonya will also be remembered for managing a professional wrestler, and for her second sports career as a professional boxer.

And her numerous run-ins with the law have endeared her to many of us a a troubled, bad-lucked, but basically sympatico young woman.

The attack on Nancy Kerrigan is just one item in a list.

So, what could Larry Craig do?

For starters, how about Sumo for Seniors.

It's a natural lead in from  the "wide stance" defense. Wide stance is definitely an asset in sumo.

Larry could promote this new fitness sensation as a health program for older people, especially those who are overweight.

It's not just a physical health thing, but also a positive body image thing, a love-your-lard thing.

When Larry Craig starts showing up on Oprah to demonstrate Sumo for Seniors, wearing just a mawashi, no one will remember the mensroom thing.

William Shattner has totally redeemed himself through self parody. Heck, if Shattner faced the same circumstances he'd turn up doing bathroom fixture commercials.

Anyway, just as Tonya Harding has become America's favorite trailer trash, Larry Craig could transform himself from pathetic old closet-case into our favorite old perv, harmless, kind of amusing.

----- o -----