Media World: How Larry Craig took the heat off Hillary Clinton

Posted Aug 31st 2007 3:36PM by Jonathan Berr
Filed under: Television, Rants and Raves, Columns, Money and Finance Today, Media World, Politics, Presidential Elections

Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton owes her fellow Senator Larry Craig a huge debt.

The scandal involving the Idaho Republican has deflected the media's attention from the revelations of dodgy campaign contributions her campaign received from fugitive California businessman Norman Hsu. Craig is a much better story. For one thing he's a conservative Republican with close ties to social conservatives who is so out of touch with reality that it's comical. His "I am not gay. I never have been gay" statement convinced no one.

What makes Craig's downfall so dramatic is that it came from a high perch of moral superiority that Republicans seem to like to inhabit more than Democrats. There also have been rumors about Craig's allegedly secret gay life since the early 1980s when there was a scandal involving members of Congress having sex with male pages. Craig, a Congressman at the time, issued a statement denying rumors that he had been implicated. He reportedly is now close to resigning.

This is more bad news for the Republicans during a week when they should have been basking in the media spotlight.

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reported that one of the biggest donors to the Clinton campaign was the blue-collar Paw family of Daly City, Calif. It turns out that Hsu listed the Paw's tiny, lime green bungalow as his home address, according to the paper. Later, it turned out that Hsu was a fugitive from justice for 15 years who fled from California after pleading guilty to defrauding investors in a Ponzi scheme. Clinton and other Democrats are giving away the money Hsu gave them to charity. Perhaps they might want to consider donating it to his victims.

Is it fair that the media seems to be more interested in Craig's problems than Clinton's? They both are good stories but Craig's has the added element of hypocrisy. His private deeds didn't match his public character. As for Clinton, the Hsu affair is more of the same shenanigans that the public has grown accustomed to.

Tags: hillary clinton, HillaryClinton, idaho, larry craig, larry craig scandal, larry craig sex scandal, LarryCraig, LarryCraigScandal, LarryCraigSexScandal, norman tsu, NormanTsu, political fundraising, PoliticalFundraising, presidential election, PresidentialElection