Dave Easterly’s Bravo Sierra Blog

Stephen Hartgen: Is he Idaho’s “new” Larry Craig?

It certainly looks that way… Larry Craig was a huge embarrassment to the Idaho GOP, and as a freshman legislator Hartgen has already ignited nationwide disgust and outrage, but both of these are probably outweighed by outright mockery at how clueless Hartgen (and by association, the Idaho Republican Party) really is.

People that know me know that I’ve considered myself a Republican my entire life until I got acquainted with the Twin Falls County GOP. If they are what it means to be a Republican, then I know I’m certainly NOT one. I guess non-theistic conservative libertarianism just doesn’t have a place in their little clique as far as they’re concerned, and that’s fine with me because the majority of them are people I wouldn’t want to sit down with at the same table anyway. But among ALL of them, I must admit that Hartgen was always the one who epitomized all the wretched and disgusting traits that I found morally and personally reprehensible – even worse than Grant Loebs, and that’s saying a lot.

It seems that when videos of the Twin Falls County GOP convention found their way to YouTube and some anonymous commenter made some very immature and inappropriate comments it hurt Hartgen’s little feelings. What shocked me about the whole thing was how, aside from a few choice expletives, the comment really reminded me of the kinds of things that I had always heard coming out of Hartgen’s mouth about the Ron Paul paleoconservatives that were getting involved with the local party. But I suppose that Hartgen, being the sort of fellow that he is, felt that he should be entitled to protection from having his delicate sensibilities offended. In all honesty, I think _THAT_ is where this whole thing started, but that’s only my speculation based on what I’ve seen and heard from this tax-leeching big-government neoconservative Jacobin New Englander during the time that I was attending the Twin Falls County GOP meetings.

So is he Idaho’s new national embarassment a la Larry “Wide Stance” Craig? Well, it took Craig YEARS in office to become a laughing stock and Hartgen managed to do it in much shorter order. And Craig could actually show some integrity and still come clean and admit his lifestyle, renounce all his past anti-gay rhetoric and voting records, and reclaim some credibility as a human being. I think it’s already too late for Hartgen because he can’t gain any credibility if he were to renounce his own love of big, invasive government, authoritarianism, and all the other traits that make Hartgen one of the most disappointing examples ever of what we send to our Capitol to “represent” us. It would be too little, too late and there’s pretty much no way it could ever seem genuine.

(BTW, I know this is old news [from December] but it had been sticking in my craw and I finally had to just get it off my chest.)