If only Sen. Mike Crapo, beset by so much tension, could have fixed himself a nice cup of herbal tea

Hey, here's some fun! One of these guys headed for Alexandria District Court on Friday is Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) -- can you guess which? (I got it wrong! If I were casting the role, I would have gone for the guy on the left. The guy on the right then could be, I don't know, maybe some hard-drinking bail bondsman? (The suit doesn't look cheap.) But no, the senator is the slug on the right. On closer look, I guess the briefcase is a tipoff that maybe the other guy is his lawyer. The washingtonpost.com caption doesn't mention him. (Actually, the article says: "The 61-year-old Idahoan, wearing a gray suit with a powder-blue tie, took a seat with a staffer and other traffic violation defendants at Alexandria District Court.") To score this quiz: If you got one right, you must be a Mike Crapo expert! If you got zero right, you maybe just don't like the shifty looks of that weird-looking dude on the right.

The attention on Crapo's arrest, in itself, validates the church's success "at trademarking clean living as part of what it means to be Mormon," said Patrick Mason, a professor of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in California. "It speaks to the fact that people in America don't know much about Mormons, but they do know a couple of things, and one is that Mormons don't drink."

-- from "Sen. Mike Crapo pleads guilty to drunken
driving," in the Washington Post

by Ken

Well, thank you, Professor Mason. I guess. I mean, I don't think it would ever have occurred to me to think of it quite that way, but then, I'm not a professor of Mormon studies. I do follow the logic, though. The widespread surprise occasioned by that drunken bender of Senator Crapo (which the WaPo scribes helpfully tell us is pronounced "CRAY-poe") on the night of December 22, when he "climbed into a 1999 white Jeep and took a half-hour drive past the monuments and into Alexandria, where he ran a red light and then scored a 0.11 on a breath test" (and "his arresting officer noted bloodshot eyes, slurred speech and an odor of alcohol"), shows that Americans -- despite our general cluelessness about Mormons -- know about their trademarked clean living.

I wonder, though, whether I knew that Mormons don't drink, or smoke. I guess I would have said that some of them say they don't, but then, people say a lot of things. For example, WaPo reporters Jason Horowitz and Mary Pat Flaherty reference "the degree to which his crime clashed with the squeaky-clean image of Mormon politicians that Mitt Romney personified over the past year, adding parenthetically that Willard told People magazine: "I tasted a beer and tried a cigarette once as a wayward teenager and never did it again." But if I heard about that, I probably didn't pay it much more attention than most of the other stuff he said during the campaign -- all filed under the heading of "stuff Willard says."

I certainly didn't know that Mormons, beyond not drinking or smoking, aren't allowed to drink hot beverages. WTF? No coffee, no tea, no hot chocolate? This may not be the craziest thing I've ever heard, but it makes an impression. As is so often the case with Mormon lore, the real entertainment value lies in the details.

The Mormon ban on alcohol stems from Section 89 of Doctrine and Covenants, one of the faith's holy scriptures. It documents the revelation, known as the "Word of Wisdom," that the religion's prophet Joseph Smith received in Kirtland, Ohio, on Feb. 27, 1833. (Church lore holds that Smith's wife, Emma, had been complaining about the brethren's smoking and drinking.) The revelation touts fruits and vegetables but reads that "inasmuch as any man drinketh wine or strong drink among you, behold it is not good" and that "tobacco is not for the body" and that "hot drinks are not for the body or belly."

The ban has both theological and historical underpinnings. Mormons believe that God has a physical body, and thus the human body is not merely a vessel for the soul but a tabernacle to which it is forever bound. Professor Richard Bushman, a prominent Mormon historian, noted that the period during which Smith received his revelation coincided with temperance movements started in reaction to the era's rampant alcohol abuse.

For the first 100 years after the revelation, there was a great debate in the Mormon world about whether the revelation was a hard ban or simply an endorsement of moderation and clean living. (Smith himself writes of sipping wine in his journals.) During this time, bishops were known to take kegs of beer out hunting, high church leaders chomped on cigars and faithful members sipped morning coffee, Bushman said. That ended in the 1930s, when the hard-liners won the debate and abstinence became requisite for church membership. (The suitability of imbibing caffeine in non-hot drinks, however, long remained a sticking point.)

Are we to infer here that "the suitability of imbibing caffeine in non-hot drinks" was ixnay on the iced coffee? (By the way, "The historical uncertainty about the ban doesn't do Crapo much good. 'It does not absolve Crapo of his transgressions because nowadays Mormons would be shocked,' Bushman said." And nobody wants to tangle with, you know, shocked Mormons. Further by the way, "A spokesman for the Mormon church declined to comment on the Crapo incident.")
Senator Crapo has already begun the work of rehabilitating his reputation from his December wild ride.

In a nod to Mormon supporters, Crapo said Friday morning: "I will carry through on the appropriate measures for repentance." That means Crapo will meet with his local bishop and work to attain forgiveness. The church can refer members to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but increasingly its own social services wing treats substance abuse with a more scriptural approach. For a time Crapo will probably be asked to refrain from taking the sacrament at church, and his Temple Recommend, a physical card that faithful Mormons must present to gain admission to the sacred temples, will probably be temporarily revoked. It is unlikely that Crapo will have to appear before a church court, which is reserved for more serious transgressions such as adultery.

For the record, Crapo,

called before the judge, pleaded guilty to drunken driving and received a suspended sentence of 180 days in jail, a $250 fine, a year's suspension of his driver's license and enrollment in an alcohol safety program. The hearing lasted 10 minutes.

However, says the WaPo team, "Crapo's real punishment will last much longer, and it is linked less to the severity of his transgression" than to that "squeaky-clean image of Mormon politicians that Mitt Romney personified over the past year."

If Crapo has done himself lasting damage, it is most likely to be with Idaho voters, especially the quarter who are Mormon. They may question whether they know the man they have repeatedly elected, or whether the Potomac had poisoned their senator's principles. "He held himself up to be a certain kind of guy: straight cut, Eagle Scout, family man, former Mormon Bishop," said a Dec. 30 editorial in the Idaho State Journal. "Your reputation as a faithful Mormon conservative has been blown to smithereens."

The Crapman (which we know would be pronounced "CRAPE-man") was all over this on Friday. It's a little awkward because apparently he has in the past made quite a thing of his abstemiousness.

Crapo immediately tried to put such concerns to rest. "I have recently made personal choices that are at odds with who I am, who Idahoans rightly believe me to be and who I strive to be," Crapo said Friday in front of more than a dozen reporters, cameramen and photographers in a courtyard outside the courthouse.

In his long, blanket apology, he asked the forgiveness of voters, who he said justly held him to a higher standard. Then he got specific. "In recent months, and for less than a year, I have on occasion had alcoholic drinks in my apartment. It was a poor choice to use alcohol to relieve stress — and one at odds with my personally held religious beliefs." He declined to elaborate on the source of the stress and added that he hopped into the car because he had been "restless and could not sleep." ("I was alone during this drive and never left my vehicle," he clarified.)

The senator's interesting approach to stress relief brought forth this comment from a washingtonpost.com reader:

Well, sure, you or I might try to alleviate the stress with, say, a nice cup of tea, or maybe herbal tea. Chamomille, maybe? Or maybe some nice peppermint? We know, howeer, that this option of course wasn't open to Senator Crapo, though we also know that Joseph Smith might have knocked back a couple of glasses of wine.

The prevailing political sport in approaching the three-term senator's delicate situation is to compare and contrast with that of a certain other Idaho Republican senator of cherished memory.

Unlike the lewd-conduct arrest of Crapo's former Idaho colleague, Larry E. Craig, the ­drunken-driving incident is unlikely to have an impact on Crapo's reputation in the Senate, a chamber that is not particularly judgmental about the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

"His colleagues will probably view him with a certain degree of sympathy," said Jennifer Duffy, a Senate analyst at the Cook Political Report. "But this is not likely to impact his relationship with them in any negative way."

Sure enough, Senator Crapo's "good friend" (and fellow Mormon) UT Sen. Orrin Hatch oozed sympathy, declaring, "Even his wife can't understand why it happened."

Hatch described Crapo as being under tremendous stress leading up to the incident, saying that "the man has more on his plate than most senators," but he emphasized that Crapo "will make it right" and "I'll be there for him."

Now that's a good friend! It should be a source of comfort to Senator Crapo to reside in the bosom of his Senate colleagues. (Among whom he's just, you know, another rummy.)

#