Here’s an interesting interview between wingnut Neil Cavuto and wingnut Ben Stein on the topic of Republican Senator Larry Craig, via Crooks & Liars. I mention this not because it is unique, but because it is not unique. I have heard similar sentiments voiced recently by the right wing. Here are a few things that are seriously wrong with such arguments.

1. What happened to Craig at the airport was “pure police harassment and thuggery… a policeman drags him off… starts browbeating him, essentially threatens he’s going to ruin his career if the guy doesn’t plead guilty right away. This is Gestapo tactics…. Gestapo, Gestapo, Gestapo, it’s not America.”

Okay, this is the first big problem. The way Craig was treated was not thuggery, according to conservatives describing police interrogations of people who are not Republican politicians. If anything, it was likely more gentle and easy than most criminal suspects are treated. But Stein’s reaction to what happened, like so many conservatives, sounds so naive as to make you think that these guys are either disingenuous or that they’re idiots.

One common fact about police interrogations is that they are designed to bring about a confession. The policemen involved will wheedle, they’ll coax, they’ll challenge, they’ll threaten, they’ll lie… they’ll tell you that you’ll look guilty if you don’t talk to them, knowing that the more you talk, the more guilty you’ll look. They are specially trained to elicit responses, to keep a dialog going, to make you feel like you’ve got to talk, and to ensure you that it’ll help you, when they know it’ll hang you, even if you’re in fact innocent. Which is why lawyers always tell you to shut up, and why police always tell you that asking for a lawyer will make you look more guilty. What do right-wingers like to derisively call it? “Lawyering up”? So do the police; they believe you’re guilty, so anything to make you sound that way to a jury is what they want. If you’re innocent, then the smartest thing you can do is not talk, instead get a lawyer to navigate the system for you. But the police want you to gab away, and will do everything in their power to make you look guilty, including lying and browbeating.

And all of that is perfectly legal because conservatives have fought to make it so. And when it’s not a Republican who they favor who is being grilled, conservatives will be incredibly happy to see it happen, and will nod approvingly when such tactics can get a confession out of someone. But when it happens to one of them, suddenly it’s “entrapment” and “thuggery” and it’s unforgivable.

Please.

2. “The police have real work to do at the airport… hey, it’s an airport, hello? There are security problems at airports, al Qaeda, are you listening?”

Hmm, security people at airports trying to stop gay men from having sex in public restrooms. What kind of idiots could possibly have been responsible for setting policemen on that kind of task? Oh, wait–I know–conservatives just like you, you dumb fool! Who do you think it was, Ted Kennedy? He’s they guy you scream at if police are kept from trolling men’s rooms trying to catch gay sex solicitation.

Now, I don’t think that there are too many men who are not seeking gay sex who want to have that kind of thing happening in public bathrooms, whatever they may feel about homosexuality. But the reason that it’s in the restrooms in the first place is because conservatives made that one of the only places such solicitation is likely. And the reason why foot-tapping and hand-sliding is used to signal an encounter is because the police will arrest you more easily of you straight out and ask for sex.

Talk about creating a problem and then complaining about it.

3. “Our security people are entrapping perfectly honest U.S. senators.”

Yes, that’s right–policemen are going and staking out bathroom stalls in airports for the specific reason of catching perfectly honest U.S. senators. That’s the mission, as I understand it.

4. “This guy went in there, as far as we know all he did was tap his foot, or else listen to someone else tap his foot. He didn’t do an illegal act, he didn’t do an indecent act.”

That’s right! After all, all that he did was repeatedly stare into the policeman’s stall through the door crack from the outside over several minutes’ time, then go into the next stall, tap his foot, move his foot so that it touched the foot of the guy in the next stall, and then repeatedly ran his hand along the bottom of the partition between the stalls. That’s all! How many of us haven’t done that once or twice a week!

But what about the “wide stance” excuse? Well, think about it; imagine that you’re in a bathroom stall, sitting on the toilet. How far over do you have to move your foot so that it’s touching the foot of the guy in the next stall? I’m not suggesting you try it, but next time you’re in a stall, look at the foot of the next guy and just measure the reach in your mind. I’ll bet that you don’t find it to be an easy reach, that it takes a pretty deliberate act to do that. Which is why it’s used as a signal. I mean, think of all the times you’ve used a bathroom stall; how many times has someone else’s foot touched yours?

Of course, Stein and others will cling to the senator’s story, not the policeman’s, as if those nasty Gestapo innocent-senator-entrappers can’t be trusted. You can’t trust the police!

Now, imagine it wasn’t a Republican senator who was nabbed, but an out-of-the-closet non-Republican-politician gay man. You think that Stein or other conservatives would say the policeman was lying then? Of course not. This is the party of law and order, after all! They would fully believe whatever the policeman said, and the congratulate him for doing his job, which is to keep dirty, dangerous, immoral perverts like those from making public bathrooms into the new Sodom and Gomorra.

5. “What did he do wrong? Just tell me what he did wrong? And even suppose he was soliciting for gay sex? Gay sex is not illegal in the United States, the Supreme Court has said that. If it were illegal, it’d be a different story. It’s not illegal, he didn’t do anything illegal.”

Craig pled guilty to “disorderly conduct” charges. Again, I would point out: the only reason why this kind of stuff is illegal, the only reason laws have been made against this, or that laws meant for other crimes are used in these cases, the only reason why policemen are assigned to find it and arrest people for it, is because of people like Ben Stein, and other conservatives, who have campaigned for decades about how gay sex is wrong, immoral, should be illegal, etc. etc.

Don’t you just love how conservatives change into gay rights advocates when one of their own senators is charged with soliciting gay sex?

In short, the arguments made by conservatives like Stein are blatantly and unforgivably hypocritical, the eternal right-wing double standard.