A battle plan for Bishop

It's a little belated, but if I could give Mike Bishop a Christmas gift, it would be Bill Clinton's triangulation strategy.

The Senate Majority Leader looks primed at the start of the new legislative session to dig in his heels against a much more Democratic House and his arch-enemy, Gov. Jennifer Granholm. With a deficit of at least $265 million, we can probably expect a dreary rerun of the last two years of leaders' shouting matches followed by months of ignoring each other, with all the adolescent angst and maturity found on "90210."

It doesn't have to be that way. But that would entail Bishop charting a new and more realistic approach, just as Clinton did during the Republican Revolution of the '90s.

And realism is not Bishop's forte.

The Rochester Republican has his supporters, who laud him as a staunch ally of the business community, the last line of defense against tax-happy, spend-it-all Democrats. That image was tarnished, obviously, when he repeatedly allowed votes in 2007 to increase business and income taxes.

But Bishop tried to make amends last year by pushing exemptions in the Michigan Business Tax, scrapping the film industry tax cuts and making the energy package more business-friendly.

Every movement needs a boogeyman and Bishop fills that role for the left, whose three bloggers routinely disparage him for everything from eating babies to slathering copious amounts of gel in his coif. His bad-boy press secretary, Matt Marsden, also gets his share of the love.

Problem is, Bishop is so beleaguered that he really doesn't make for a fun foe like Karl Rove or George W. Bush, who smirkingly served up a constant stream of outrage for liberals everywhere for the last eight years.

Gone is Bishop's boyishness, his mirthful aquamarine eyes, replaced by his disappointed dad persona on the Senate floor ("Next dysfunctional issue," he repeatedly muttered on the last day of session). Ten years in government have taken their toll on the basically anti-government guy who looks to have run for majority leader just to see if he could do it.

Now that ambition appears to be propelling him toward an attorney general bid (even though Congress would be much more hospitable terrain). In reality, Mike Bishop would probably be happiest returning to the private sector as a real estate developer, raising his young family and making a little money.

But he has two years to leave a legacy, such as they are in the era of term limits. He fashions himself to be the L. Brooks Patterson of the Legislature, but his moderate mentor would never get bogged down in social issues like partial-birth abortion, which bore him silly. As Oakland County executive and now a potential gubernatorial contender, Brooksie takes a creative, results-oriented approach to doing the people's business.

What Bishop offers is Republican government as usual. When the Wall Street crisis hit last fall, he called a hastily organized press conference to announce a bold new economic plan.

"Our country's not the same anymore. The state can't continue in the same path," declared Bishop as he rolled out his same ole agenda of business tax loopholes and cuts.

Seriously, there wasn't a new idea in the mix, which probably means it's time for some new blood in his policy shop.

When I pressed him, Bishop insisted, "Our responsibility as the Republican Party is to stick to our core principles and we hope Gov. Granholm comes on board."

Which means he has it exactly backward in today's political reality. The Democrats aren't as strong in Michigan as they are nationally, but they've picked up nine seats in the House and have the momentum. As people watch their 401(k)s shrivel, there's a lot less of the "Get government off my back" lament and a lot more clamor for pols to get off their butts and do something.

While Bishop will win kudos from conservative stalwarts for standing his ground, he'll get as much done this session as he did the last -- just about nothing.

Wonder why we got stuck with the now-repealed service tax? Bishop wouldn't sign off on a far less destructive income tax hike. Want to know why the MBT surcharge didn't die, despite constant moaning from the Michigan Chamber of Commerce? Bishop wouldn't horse-trade.

So when you're the party out of power facing unfavorable ideological winds, you pull a Bill Clinton if you want to survive, and even thrive. Take a couple of your opposition's best ideas, tweak them with new buzzwords and make them your own. And voila! "Welfare to work."

While being more moderate is clearly a smart strategy in today's climate (despite yelps from the doyens of denial running the GOP), nabbing a few victories also provides breathing room to regroup and rebuild. Republicans actually could come up with a few fresh ideas that don't start with the phrase, "Well, Ronald Reagan did ..."

This won't be easy for Bishop, who's facing considerable opposition within his own caucus from rivals Jason Allen, Wayne Kuipers and Bruce Patterson. With 31 senators term-limited in '10, the upper chamber could turn into a free-for-all as members, Bishop included, are lookin' for their next job.

Forging a new strategy would at least give the state's top Republican a record to run on.

Grace after the fire

GRAND LEDGE -- Hillary Clinton is so over it.

The primary ping-pong, that is - the bitter battles with Barack, her husband's crimson face and wagging finger, the endless wrangling over every state, every superdelegate.

It all seemed to wash away as a Zen-like Hillary took to the stage Saturday and bestowed her message on the mostly female crowd of 1,000: Move on and vote Obama.

Maybe it's the distance. Maybe it was Friday's debate and the harrowing financial meltdown that hasn't fazed the kid from Chi-town one bit, while the impeccably experienced John McCain swan-dived into a full-scale panic. But Clinton seemed genuinely impressed with Obama in a way she never was when they engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

"I'm campaigning as hard as I can to make sure he's the next president," she announced with almost maternal pride. "I think last night people saw why."

Decked in a canary suit as sunny as her demeanor, Clinton radiated a laid-back warmth to a clearly smitten crowd. (There wasn't a PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) miscreant in sight). Instead of having to make the sale for herself in a pressure-cooker primary, she could relax and merrily dispatch McCain while pumping up Obama.

Losing such a brutal, close contest was devastating, no doubt. Many pundits believed she'd hole herself up with astringent aides Lanny Davis and Howard Wolfson, resurfacing to give aid and comfort to the GOP with unhelpful comments about Obama. ("He did admire Kwame Kilpatrick immensely, I know that.")

But Hillary's grace and enthusiasm has surprised even this cynical columnist, admittedly not her biggest fan. I don't know that Obama would have been able to pull off what she has if the roles were reversed.

Often sour and steely in her own race, Clinton has transformed herself into the happy warrior. This was supposed to be John McCain's role, instead reduced to a scowling septuagenarian lecturing baby Barack that "he just doesn't understand" anything, when it's his running mate who can't name a single newspaper she reads, another Supreme Court case besides Roe v. Wade or any of his maverick reforms ("I'll try to find you some and I'll bring 'em to ya.")

Is it real? Who knows? No one can say what's truly going on in someone's head. Maybe Clinton is giving a Cannes-worthy performance and will be punching her ballot for McCain on Nov. 4 anyway. She no doubt is looking ahead to 2012, just in case, as is one Mitt Romney.

But publicly, she is all-in in '08 and apparently has told Bill to get with the program, prompting him to (finally) say nice things about Obama while barnstorming Florida this week.

No one could have predicted what an effective surrogate Hillary has become for her former rival. Indeed, she's Obama's best defender, an emissary to women, although they're flocking back on the Barack bandwagon in droves since Sarah Palin has proven to be a national embarrassment.

Clinton's sheer depth on policy issues and effortless intellect underscores Palin's indignant incuriosity and startling cerebral shallowness, which even a skeptic like me underestimated. The McCain campaign clearly chose style over substance, but to flagrantly do so with someone a heartbeat away from the presidency is political malpractice.

But even on the surface, Clinton's down-home "I feel your pain" routine plays better than Palin's faux populism, since she's not really concerned with building "Joe Sixpack" up, as she refers to her constituency, but on cattily tearin' the elitist haters down. I believe we refer to that as goin' for the lowest common denominator.

What the 2008 election will ultimately mean for women is anyone's guess. I tend to believe that Clinton coming so close will motivate more women to jump into public life and push harder for a female president next time. That's one reason why so many women were initially drawn to the McCain-Palin ticket, before they came down with buyer's remorse.

But the failure of Palin could have the opposite effect. Some women who remember the Gerry Ferraro days tell me that Sarah's set up to be the fall gal when McCain goes down. She's the airhead hottie who never could be trusted with the launch codes, scuttling the chances of an honorable war hero who could have restored this country's glory.

Chicks, huh?

Forgive and forget, part II: Republican Joe Schwarz has broken his silence about the 7th District congressional race and endorsed state Sen. Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek. This won't come as a shock to anyone who watched the bloody GOP primary two years ago when U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, and his Club for Growth overlords disemboweled him as a liberal, baby-killing freak.

But it did catch longtime pundit Bill Ballenger a little off guard.

"Schwarz and Schauer are supposed to be good buddies, though Schauer screwed him over a few times," he observes.

Like Mark recruiting the former congressman to run as a Dem, swearing he wouldn't run himself (oops)? Or neglecting to give him credit for keeping open the Battle Creek Air National Guard Base?

I hope Mr. Schauer manned up said he's sorry. Because Schwarz just did him a huge favor, at his own political peril.

So much for the safe choice

Let's pause for a minute amidst the scatty cacophony to John Edwards' affair with his flighty "videographer," who no reasonable person would pay to film paint dry.

There's an irony here that's been completely overlooked - and I don't mean the obvious one that the multimillionaire thought he could get away with schtupping the help and still become the Leader of the Free World in an age of 24/7 media.

No, it's the fact that the down-home son of a millworker with his lazy Carolinian drawl (and lily-white skin) was supposed to be the safe bet for the Democrats. Jaded liberals squawked that America would never go for the ballsy chick or the black dude, so you'll vote for Edwards and you'll like it.

That's the best we can hope for. America's just not ready and all that.

Of course, folks in Iowa didn't listen to the conventional wisdom and the rest is history. But even after Barack Obama secured the nomination, a pundit here or there would sourly mumble that he was floundering because of that black thing, needling that John Edwards would be blowing John McCain out of the water.

Which amounts to a nice theory for political science students to contemplate in between Jager bombs at the bar. Those of us in the real world rejected the Plastic One because we didn't know who he was (even after being a few thousand votes in Ohio away from the vice presidency in '04) and didn't trust him.

After observing and interviewing Edwards at political events since 2003, I can say that he was heavy on sheen and light on substance. He said all the right things, repeating Democratic talking points in his artful, aw-shucks way. The father of three was great at kissing babies.

But there was no way His Contrivance seemed ready to take that 3 a.m. phone call. (Although I would vote for him to play the president on tee-vee. His coif is killer).

So maybe that's why few of us were shocked at his revelations that yes, he actually did dally with Rielle Hunter, who still sports '80s Madonna hair as a nod to her days as a coked-out New York clubhopper.

John Edwards lie? Stop the presses.

In a truly classy move, the pretty boy heaved his party girl-cum-paramour under the bus ("I didn't love her") and stressed that he timed his infidelity between his wife's bouts with cancer, something the brilliant Maureen Dowd skewered as being "oncologically correct."

To think that Elizabeth Edwards (who Rielle sniffed "didn't give off good energy") will have to spend her last years shuddering from this humiliation is just vile. Monsieur Edwards claims he told his family, which presumably includes his eldest daughter, Cate, a Harvard law student. Maybe his other two kids, 8 and 10, can find out as a Christmas present later after Mommy's passed away.

Edwards, who nailed himself in an ABC interview as a narcissist, has cringingly insisted there's nothing more for anyone to say as "I've stripped myself bare." Well, there are questions of the paternity of Hunter's daughter and if this was the first time the senator strayed.

But that's just a measure on the hypocrisy scale. It's the political implications that I'm interested in.

Just think for a moment if he were the nominee. This would be game-over for the Dems. You can argue that McCain dumping his disfigured wife for an Anheuser heiress 18 years his junior would become an issue. Perhaps. But that was almost 30 years ago and all we see now is silver-maned Cindy, doting mother of seven.

We can have a robust debate whether extramarital affairs should have any place in political discourse. I vote no, but I'm a journalistic curmudgeon, in spite of my Gen X birthday and the fact that I'm paid to blog. But Edwards' tryst is out there (and how). Given the appalling scenario with his wife's metastatic cancer, I don't really feel like doing him any favors by ignoring the political fallout.

The reality is that this kind of salacious scandal is ruinous for politicians, especially when it reinforces the very doubts people had about the candidate in the first place. Edwards knows this, having watched Bill Clinton implode (and castigating him for it).

Which is another crisis likely averted by not picking Hillary as the nominee, besides the fact that she could unite the right in a way McCain never will. Who knows when Bill's next bimbo eruption would strike, not to mention his less sexy, but far more troubling dealings in Dubai. That's the real reason Clinton's not on Obama's veep short list, not bad blood after a bruising primary.

When it comes to arrogant politicians' penchant for extracurricular activities, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

And so a skinny black guy with big ears, a funny name (and the magazine-cover perfect family) is not only the voters' choice, but has turned out to be the Dems' safest bet for presidency.

Who would have thunk it.

Puerile patriot games

PHILADELPHIA - Fourth of July has never really tripped my patriotic trigger.

Even as a kid, I found the star-spangled napkins, cookies and God forbid, swim trunks garish and empty. Most holiday barbecues I've attended over the years have featured good burgers, beer and the requisite fireworks and exactly zero discussion of America, Thomas Jefferson or the Declaration of Independence.

Now I get that I'm a history geek and most people are content on a rare day off to grouse about the Tigers' trades instead of debate whether property should have been listed as an inalienable right.

But I do deeply love this country. And it makes me a bit queasy to have such a disconnect with that on Independence Day of all days.

When I am filled with absolute wonder and gratitude for our still nascent nation is while reading tomes like Tom Paine's "Common Sense" or David McCullough's "1776," so I've spent many a Fourth with my nose buried in a book.

And there's nothing quite like stepping foot in defining landmarks to make our brief history hit home. So for the past three years, I've observed the birth of our nation at Fort Mackinac, the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and now the City of Brotherly Love.

Standing in the sweltering silver-swathed room where the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration 232 years ago today, I thought it wouldn't be such a bad thing if every American was required to spend the holiday at a museum or significant site before kicking back with a brewski. It isn't a substitute for teaching civics in school like in the days of old, of course, but it's a start.

Given the popularity of Williamsburg, Valley Forge, the National Mall in Washington, Salem, Mass., and The Henry Ford in Dearborn, there's hope yet.

What gives me pause, however, is that patriotism has become a hot topic in the presidential race when most citizens can't name five signers of the Declaration or when most did so (Aug. 2, 1776).

My first reaction when this cropped up during the Democratic primary was that this was one of those idiotic non-issues that would disappear in a few news cycles. With spiking unemployment, $4-plus gas and war in two countries (three counting Iran, according to Sy Hersh) who cares if Barack Obama dons a flag pin?

But then Bill Clinton weighed in about the glorious matchup between his wife and John McCain, musing, "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election between two people who loved this country."

And Michelle Obama's remark that, "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback" continues to be reverberate in the right-wing echo chambers online and on the airwaves as proof that she's an angry black woman who hates America.

In her less-than-finest hour, Cindy McCain attempted to furrow her tightly lifted brow and cattily responded, "I'm very proud of my country." Well, isn't that special.

I think first lady Laura Bush got it about right when she discussed the pressure of being a new public figure and said Michelle probably meant she was "more proud." It's refreshing to see a little grace in politics.

What this really comes down to is trust. That's what the Swift Boat ads were about with John Kerry - could we really trust his military record and his ability to lead the country in an age of global terror? Three years after 9/11 (and a year of his conflicted, lumbering campaign), we got our answer.

So do we trust the half-white, half-black, Hawaii- and Indonesia-raised son of a Kenyan Muslim and Kansan Christian? Is he American enough? Or is Obama the Other who couldn't possibly be entrusted to lead our nation?

That is the crass question. And in the blogosphere and viral e-mails, it's put in shockingly racist and bigoted terms.

In case you thought our politics couldn't sink any lower, the left netroots have started to strike back, questioning McCain's flag-waving credentials. This, of course, is one of his unmitigated strengths, as a storied Vietnam War hero Americans trust by double digits to better handle terrorism.

But bloggers like Julie Powers on MichiganLiberal.com are willing to swan dive into the cesspool and actually slander McCain's heroism.

"So John, how exactly does sitting on your ass in a POW camp for five years (and then returning only to cheat on your disabled wife and dump her for the Budweiser Barbie) exactly make you such a military expert?" asks Powers, who does PR for gay rights Equality Now group, which I doubt sanctions her inflammatory rhetoric.

OK, then, Jules. Let's throw your butt in the Hanoi Hilton, break your arms and subject you to psychological trauma even worse than reading your own posts and then we'll talk.

On this Fourth of July, I suggest we take a much-needed break from letting the fringes dictate the debate. And let's celebrate our country, which gives people the freedom to say whatever they want, no matter how asinine.

Gambling on the Clintons

Bill Clinton is back, scarlet-faced and shaking.

He’s everywhere on the campaign trail, browbeating reporters, unloading wild accusations of voter fraud and smearing his wife’s “fairy tale” opponent, that uppity Barack Obama.

Since leaving the Oval Office, Clinton’s gone the Jimmy Carter redemption route, embarking on admirable ventures to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, stop global warming and assist those suffering with AIDS.

Now he seems ready to chuck that all just to play Boss Tweed.

Clinton clearly is on a mission to preserve his legacy via Hillary and take back their rightful place running the country.

With all due respect, Mr. President, there are sick children in Africa who need you a hell of a lot more than we do.

Clinton’s conduct is unbecoming for a former commander-in-chief. He’s the junkyard dog of the most despicable presidential campaign this cycle that’s floated falsehoods like Obama is a Muslim drug dealer.

Not one, but two racial stereotypes. The Clintonites are setting us back 50 years and fracturing the country.

More importantly for them, they’re dividing the Democratic Party.

On paper, it looked like there was no way even the Dems could screw up losing the White House this year.

The economy’s tanking, the Iraq war remains unpopular and our Republican president largely is considered a colossal failure.

GOP presidential hopefuls are hacking each other apart. No one’s conservative, pro-life, anti-immigrant, pro-tax cut or religious enough, leaving them to squabble like, well, Democrats and split up the primaries.

Meanwhile, the Democratic field was an embarrassment of riches with charismatic, cerebral candidates and boatloads of cash to boot.

As always, we’ve underestimated them, thanks to the Clintons’ scorched earth tactics.

If they can’t have the presidency, no Democrat can.

Obama recently came under fire for telling the truth (just as John McCain did when he told Michiganders to say auf Wiedersehen to many auto jobs).

“I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10 to 15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom,” Obama told a Nevada newspaper.

Absolutely. It was former Speaker Newt Gingrich who led the charge on the Contract with America. Republicans pushed to end welfare as we know it, privatize Social Security and christen the Department of Homeland Security.

Obama didn’t say these were brilliant ideas or remotely beneficial for this country. But there was vision.

What was Bill Clinton’s agenda? He never bothered crafting a New Deal or Great Society. His centrist Third Way was all about getting elected. There was no blueprint for governing, which is why his grandest initiative – Hillary’s health care plan – fell flat.

And that’s why, even in my Communist college days, I could never pull the lever for him.

In the end, the Clinton presidency was defined by the GOP – their Contract, their government shutdown, their impeachment of him. Even if you see him as the wronged hero, that still doesn’t make him a leader of great fortitude.

Obama further committed heresy by adding:

“I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.

“I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. … He just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was: We want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

Poor Sen. Obama. While these are undisputable historical facts, he found out there’s no room for that sort of thing in elections.

Not when you’re gambling against the Clinton machine, which painted him as a born-again reactionary. (He promptly lost the slot machine state).

But Reagan was the maestro of messaging: Government is the problem, not the solution. That’s the paradigm in which we still live. It defined Michigan’s budget battle last year – and it’s why some courageous lawmakers might lose their jobs.

Democrats need to learn from the past – the successes of Reagan and FDR – and grapple with new realities of terrorism, globalization and failing schools. They can’t afford to play the race or gender card.

They need, at long last, to develop a vision. They won in 2006 without one due to revulsion over the war and Republicans being dragged from the Capitol in handcuffs. But luck never lasts long.

Bill Clinton lectures that voting for Obama over Hillary’s experience is a “roll of the dice.”

Four or eight more years of nonstop politicking and reactive policy? If I were a Democrat, I’d bet on Obama.

Jumping through hoops for the caucus circus

Take it from an Iowa girl, or at least one who lived there long enough to know better: The presidential race ain't over.

You can forget about the coronation of Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.

The battle really has just begun.

This is distressing news to sane folks who believe two years is about 21 months too long to be bombarded by the smug mugs of all 698 aspiring leaders of the free world.

Of course, the two frontrunners have been barnstorming for far longer — Giuliani since Sept. 12, 2001, and Clinton since 1974 or so.

Polls show Clinton is losing ground, perhaps because of her campaign's clumsy claim that her opponents are "piling on" because she has ovaries. Some punches thrown by Barack Obama and John Edwards have landed.

Clinton's negatives always have been her Achilles heel. Powerful Democrats may worship her — but too many Republican and the all-important independent voters saw enough of her in the 1990s and won't back her at any cost.

Why do you think the GOP spends so much time cheerleading Hillary as the "inevitable nominee"?

The race is even more muddled on the Republican side, with the Religious Right juggernaut now hopelessly off-kilter.

When Pat Robertson comes out for the thrice-married guy who supports abortion and gay rights, you know there's a full-blown GOP identity crisis.

Giuliani might have the reverend and a lead in the national polls, but Mitt Romney's got the money ($17.5 million of his own and counting) and has stubbornly courted the early voting states. And there's stiff competition from John McCain, Fred Thompson and even Mike (who?) Huckabee.

It's still anyone's game.

Four years ago at this time, Howard Dean seemed to have the Democratic nomination sewn up. If you want to see how his dream fell apart, look no further than the bizarre "I have a scream" speech he belted out after a surprise upset in the Iowa Caucus.

Iowa and New Hampshire remain the epicenters of the electoral process, despite power grabs by bigger states like Michigan and Florida.

Although New Englanders won't take kindly to this, I'll fill you in on a secret: Iowa is more important. It's first, it's a caucus (stay with me) and it's kookier.

Politicians who have shunned Iowa's corn-fed goodness for the Granite State have rued the day, like Joe Lieberman and Wesley Clark. It's hard to regain momentum out east after eight days of nonstop news coverage that you're irrelevant.

John McCain is a notable exception back in 2000, but he's not pressing his luck this time around, busily pressing the flesh of voters from Boone to Bettendorf.
All politics is local in the Hawkeye State and it isn't glamorous.

I've talked to Bill Clinton after he slurped down a milkshake and Dennis Kucinich after he grabbed a veggie burger to go at one of my favorite Iowa City haunts, the Hamburg Inn No. 2. It's a must-stop on the stump where waitresses still invoke the lore of Ronald Reagan (a good tipper) and curse Pat Buchanan (who evidently was not.)

But the Burg isn't unusual, even if its soggy tan booths and wilted laminated menus worked their way into a "West Wing" plot. Any dowdy Maid-Rite diner or chili cook-off in a church basement will draw contenders as quick as $1,000-a-plate dinners. Which is actually the most refreshing part of the circus.

Regular folks do rate.

They have to. Caucusing is a commitment.

The date always changes, but it inevitably falls on the coldest night of the year. That's enshrined in the Iowa constitution. A foot of snow is always a nice touch.

Caucus-goers don't just punch a ballot behind the curtain and go home. It's mayhem at many of the 1,784 precincts starting at 7 p.m. If you're a Republican, you take part in a straw poll, declaring to all your undying love for Tom Tancredo.

Democrats are less organized (surprise!). Typically, you line up in a school gym for your chosen candidate, in front of God and everyone.

Your friends and neighbors can (and will) cajole you into coming over to their side, especially if you stand with a non-viable candidate (who has less than 15 percent support.) If you don't, prepare to be catcalled and find their pizza boxes strewn across your yard in the morning.

And so come Jan. 3, politicians will defile their Prada shoes, trekking across frozen tundra while chugging a coffee and Dayquil cocktail until the caucuses begin.

In a process this peculiar, you never know what's going to happen.

For political junkies, it's still the greatest show on earth.

A sex scandal to make you squirm

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — Through the thrush of evergreen forest and the Salmon River Mountains, it's about 319 miles to Larry Craig's hometown.

I will not be making a pit stop there — I have a date with the azure shores of Crater Lake — but I wonder how the locals view the voyeuristic feeding frenzy about their favorite son.

Because it's been making me queasy, and I don't even know the guy.

In case you've been even more lost in the wilderness than me, Craig was busted for allegedly putting the moves on a fellow stall dweller in an airport men's room.

The guy turns out to be a cop, the Republican senator cops to disorderly conduct and the sordid story turns out to be just what we all need to survive the Indian summer doldrums, since there are no shark attacks or abducted little girls to terrify us.

And what, evidently, could be more petrifying than a gay guy who likes to get it on in the filthiest of public places? Deadbolt those bathroom doors, gentlemen. No one is safe.

After a couple days of crucifixion and callow mockery ("Ooh! Craig called Bill Clinton a 'nasty, bad, naughty boy' and he is one!") the sexagenarian senator was forced to step down.

Look, Craig pleaded guilty. His explanations seem confused at best. Politicians should be held to a high standard.

But I'm having trouble understanding how his minor offense warranted automatic ejection from the Senate. And I find it amusing that the GOP was so eager to throw one of its own under the tracks quicker than posturing Democrats.It's not because it's sex.

If that's the case, what in God's name is David Vitter still doing in Senate chambers after admitting "a very serious sin" involving a D.C. cathouse? Where was the stampede to throw the deviant out?It's because it's gay sex — the ickiest kind. The kind the Religious Right — which still holds a noose around the GOP — believes is a randy rest stop on the highway to Hades.

Cavorting with a buxom hooker is a sin they can understand (remember that tramp, Mary Magdalene?) It's practically a beltway rite of passage.

But man-on-man congress in the public sphere, no less? That's incomprehensible. And wrong.

And it's precisely that kind of muddled thinking, masquerading as morality, that has turned so many people off of what used to be the Party of Lincoln.

As for the media, the Craig case brought out our worst.Sex scandals seduce networks into actually covering politics — if you call it that, and I don't.

Why bother delving into the specifics of Hillary Clinton's health care plan or Fred Thompson's views on anything besides playing tough guys on TV?

If the president boinks an intern or a congressman solicits a page, that's something we all can understand, right?

Sure, if your goal is winning the race to the bottom instead of informing and inspiring debate. We have so many things to report. Why is it that the cheap and tawdry win out every time?

That's why while I have written my share on political personalities, I have never touched stories shopped around by operatives about Senator X's sexual proclivities.

My questions always are: Do you have proof? How is this relevant to the campaign or the office? If the flacks can't answer them, then I ain't buyin'.

There was a right way to report on Larry Craig. And it wasn't news anchors feigning outrage at the hypocrisy of the senator's anti-gay votes, just to take a break from the illicit gay sex storyline.

The story could have been a textured exploration of public figures who preach family values and practice more profane ones. We could have asked the big questions, like what this says about our real ethics.

At least that way, my only reason for nausea would be writing this column while whipping around a wriggly mountain road.