Left-handed Complement

MUDGE’S Musings

So here’s the scenario: Stanley Bing of Fortune magazine is one of my favorite reads. He and Bob “No Asshole Rule” Sutton (both found in the blogroll) represent what I think of as “Dilbert by other means.”

In other words the human -workplace- condition in words not comics.

So Mr. Bing’s post yesterday (and I think enough of both Stanley Bing and Bob Sutton that their RSS feeds are accessible from our sidebar here at L-HC) caught my attention, because he related Craig’s situation from a most intriguing perspective, that of our daily workplaces.

The gentleman at right pictured with the happy little Boy Scout is Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Until last weekend, he was the close associate and Republican colleague of poor Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, who was forced to resign after serving nearly two decades in the Senate when he salaciously tapped the shoe of the guy in the next stall. But you know that story.

I have nothing to say about whether Mr. Craig is guilty of anything, even hypocrisy. Listen. If hypocrisy was a punishable offense in politics, the halls of Congress would echo with the hollow sound of tumbleweeds skittering across its nearly vacant floors.

What interests me about the whole thing is what it shows about loyalty among certain people. The point was driven home with clarity on Saturday in the New York Times. You can hit the link if you want to, but here is the portion that tugged my heart strings and sent a little wiggle of ice down my spine:

In Idaho, a person close to Mr. Craig did not say exactly what drove Mr. Craig’s decision, but said that the veteran lawmaker had been stunned by the party’s response to his predicament.

“Larry was shocked by the deafening silence by some and rush to judgment by others, even in his own leadership,” said the person, who is a confidant and adviser to Mr. Craig and asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the behind-scenes deliberations. “He had to evaluate what it would be like to go back into that environment.”

Many of us, sick to death of the hypocrisy so endemic among conservative politicians, especially those of the Republican complexion, have been cheerfully letting this sordid story play itself out.

Not Mr. Bing. He observes that in corporate life, as in political life, your best friends forever can disappear in an instant.

When the field is swarming with enemy troops ready to take the high ground, and ammo is short? They start lobbing guys out of the trench to lighten the load.

Okay, so read the rest, and return to see the upshot of this story.

[Per L-HC’s reformed process, please click the link below for the complete article — but then please come on back!]

The Bing Blog Who’s in your foxhole? «

Okay, so I switched off after collecting this last evening, and imagine what greeted us today! Sen. Craig has said, “Not so fast!”

This is from Joan Walsh, political columnist of Salon.com:

The return of Larry Craig?

It keeps getting more interesting. At the end of the day Tuesday a spokesman for Sen. Larry Craig said wait a minute, not so fast. That resignation announced as news Saturday? Not a done deal. “It’s not such a foregone conclusion anymore, that the only thing he could do was resign,” Craig spokesman Sidney Smith told the Associated Press, adding that the “outcome of the legal case” will “have an impact on whether we’re able to stay in the fight and stay in the Senate.”

Suddenly on cable news they’re parsing Craig’s Saturday “resignation.” CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin is admitting he didn’t notice that Craig merely announced his “intent” to resign that morning. (I didn’t either.) Roll Call has printed a transcript of a voice mail Craig left Saturday morning, reportedly for his attorney Billy Martin (but he actually got a wrong number):

Sure enough, Mr. Craig does seem to have found an aggressive attorney, and as it happens, one friend in the Senate, Arlen Spector:

Indeed, Specter came out over the weekend in Craig’s defense, while Martin is telling reporters that “very serious constitutional questions” had been raised by Craig’s men’s room arrest, and that the senator “has the right to pursue any and all legal remedies available as he begins the process of trying to clear his good name.”

Read the rest of Walsh’s column:

[Per L-HC’s reformed process, please click the link below for the complete article — but then please come on back!]

Joan Walsh – Political Commentary and News – Salon

So, perhaps Craig didn’t read Stanley’s blog (which seems to have come out a day or two later), but the thought process must have been there:

“Do I really have no friends left?” And, so, he’s baaaaaaack!

So, the media is happy (per Walsh’s last graph), because just when they were thinking they didn’t have “easy pickin’s” Larry to kick around any more, he pops back into the picture.

And, MUDGE is probably happy too. We like our hypocrites out where we can see them (even if out also means in the occasional bathroom stall).

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE