Talk shows put first nail in Craig’s coffin

Looking back over the last week of Larry Craig’s demise as a senator, there was one clear sign – very early – that he was not going to break free of the gravitational pull of the political equivalent of a black hole.

It wasn’t the Boise press conference, which generated more questions than it answered, or the fact that he blamed a newspaper for his problems. Politicians have done that before and survived: Newspapers are one of the few institutions less loved than Congress these days.

It wasn’t the fact that he was leading every cable newscast for several days, giving Michael Vick an undeserved respite from the spotlight, or the fact that the conservative voices among television’s talking gas bags were more virulently outraged than the liberal ones.

The bell first began tolling for Craig’s political career on Tuesday night, when he became a major punch line – or is that punching bag? – on “Jay Leno” and “David Letterman.” Outside of sitting presidents, who seem constitutionally required to provide laugh lines on the late night talk shows, few politicians have proved able to recover from a monologue beat down.

Both comedians worked him in, and worked him over, during their monologues barely 24 hours into the news cycle. The Leno show went further, however, because the first guest that night was Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has a new book he’s plugging and is also in the middle of something else he’d love to talk about – running for president. Before he could get to either of those things, however, he had to answer questions about his opinion on Craig.

“It’s disgraceful,” McCain said.

McCain, of course, was not alone. Earlier in the day, some of Craig’s other longtime Republican colleagues in the Senate, including fellow “singing senator” Trent Lott, had called for an ethics investigation. Oh, well. The harmony for the quartet has been bad ever since Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont became an independent and tipped the balance in the chamber to the Democrats.

A day later, the same group would pressure Craig to give up his committee leadership posts. Former Republican Rep. Tom DeLay would mount a half-hearted defense on a cable shoutfest which amounted to “what about all the bad things the Democrats have done and not been kicked out of Congress?” But again, the indicators were the jokes, which got tougher as the week progressed.

Craig was even the subject of a “how hot is it?” joke on Leno (“… so hot Larry Craig is hanging around the urinals in the men’s room for the ice”). On Letterman, Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton had to field a question about Craig in the middle of her discussion of running for president.

She refused to be drawn into a discussion of what she called a sad situation.

So by Friday, Larry Craig, who perhaps had never been mentioned on late night television talk shows, had been shot at by a member of his own party, so pitied by a member of the opposition that she didn’t want to be seen as stomping him when he’s down, and a major source of jokes.

The announcement on Saturday was just a formality. Using late night television as the thermometer, Larry Craig’s temperature already was 180 degrees, which is to say, he was well-done.

Numbers update

Secretary of State Sam Reed’s prediction of a 34 percent turnout for the August primary proved a tad optimistic. Although some ballots still have to be counted, it looks like the statewide figure is going to be 28 percent.

But the numbers varied widely around the state, with communities that had hotly contested races hitting as high as 70 percent, and some places where the ballot was a bit of a yawner down at 22 percent.

Don’t blame the August primary, state elections officials said. Turnout was driven by the races on the ballot.

Now there’s a shocker.