IT'S SEPTEMBER 30-- LARRY CRAIG RESIGNATION DAY! BUT THEN THERE'S THAT VERY INCONVENIENT BRENT WILKES CORRUPTION TRIAL SUBPOENA

Or maybe not. I know if they had fingers all the salmon in America would be crossing them and wishing he'd just resign already and leave them alone. Environmentalists and fishermen, on the other hand, do have fingers to cross-- and they've been fighting the arch anti-environmentalist for decades. "Craig, who was removed from leadership posts on the Senate Appropriations and Energy committees after a sex scandal, is known as one the most powerful voices in Congress on behalf of the timber and power industries. Environmentalists have fought him for years on issues from endangered salmon to public land grazing."

While Harry Reid (D-NV) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) are trying to undo some of the ecological damage done by Craig, at the behest of his campaign contributors and the Bush Regime, the Minneapolis-St Paul airport is frantic about the public toilet situation as the day of the Republican National Convention approaches. According to today's NY Times "Dividers intended to make soliciting sex much more difficult will be added to stalls in two men’s rooms at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport."

They figure if they bring the dividers down to two or three inches from the floor, randy Republicans won't be able to annoy innocent patrons with their footsie games and their abominable hand signals.

Anyway, Craig's attorney, Stan Brand, apparently a shameless publicity hound, was on Tweety's cable show Friday and he pretty much said the Senate is stuck with Craig until his term expires-- so much for the self-imposed September 30 deadline-- and if other Republican closet queens (like, say Mitch McConnell, who neatly fits into both categories) don't like it, they can just go suck on a... lemon.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about the Ethics Committee. That‘s especially for you working within the Congress on ethics matters.

Can you win his case in the Ethics Committee, if it comes to that? I know that no senator‘s been expelled by the Senate. I-- I think you have to go back almost to the Civil War, when they expelled people for joining and taking an oath to the Confederacy.

BRAND: Right.

MATTHEWS: What is the case? Would they...

BRAND: Well, again...

MATTHEWS: What‘s the worst the Senate could do to a senator...

BRAND: Again...

MATTHEWS: ... if he says, I‘m staying?

BRAND: Yes. Again, I mean, I-- you know, I-- they‘re-- it‘s inconceivable to me that the United States Senate will open the door to bringing cases against senators for misdemeanor, misdemeanors that have nothing to do with the performance of official duties.

I know they say they have the right to discipline people for bringing discredit on the Senate. That‘s a vague standard. That‘s well beyond where we are in 2007. I can‘t imagine that 99 other senators want to be judged by that standard. [Especially not the ones Craig has some interesting information on.]

MATTHEWS: Yes, you wonder about all the traffic violations and other kinds of problems that they would be facing.

Anyway, thank you.

Stan Brand, is your sense that the senator may well be able to hang on until the end of his term?

BRAND: I-- I think that‘s conceivable, especially if he gets some type of relief in Minnesota. But I don‘t think it depends on that.

Funny that Tweety never asked the lawyer if maybe Senator Craig won't resign because he fears that subpoena in the Brent Wilkes corruption trial that he would have to comply with if he wasn't a U.S. Senator.