Is it Sen. Craig or Airport Policeman who is Lying?

There are only two people on the planet earth who really know what actually happened in the Minneapolis Airport men's restroom in June - Senator Larry Craig and Sgt. David Karsnia. One of them is lying, but so far only Sen. Craig has been tagged as the liar. However, now that we have the transcript of the police interview, it appears not only to me but to others that it isn't the Senator who is the problem here. Sgt. Karsnia seemed absolutely determined to try to take down the Senator.

Another point that makes me think it is not Sen. Craig who is lying is that he is 62 years old and well known. Homosexuals that prowl public toilets looking for sex with strangers, as Sen. Craig is accused of doing, simply do not live to be 62 and don't prowl where they could be easily recognized. The average life expectancy of a homosexual male in the USA is 41. However, homosexuals who prowl public bathrooms usually have hundreds of sex partners and die long before they reach the age of sixty. The famous Aids Memorial Quilt, the history of the San Francisco homosexual community and several medical studies indicate the life expectancy of people who do what Sen. Craig is accused of doing, i.e. soliciting homosexual sex from strangers, is 35.7 to 39 years.

A number of my readers have observed that they have serious doubts about it being Sen. Craig being the liar after learning a little bit about Sgt. David Karsnia by reading my last article, Airport Toilets, Suitcases, Homosexual Signals and the Law, and the transcripts of Karsnia's statement and interview with the senator.

One suggestion, from a 22 year police veteran, was to require David Karsnia to take a polygraph. He tells me that if Karsnia refused to take a polygraph, he would be dismissed from his job. Karsnia's fourth sentence in the interview transcript was: "I can bring you to jail." Senator Craig's response was "Don't do that. You solicited me." Karsnia not only did not refute Craig's statement, he responded, "Okay. We're going to get, we're going to get into that."

He didn't ever come back to Senator Craig's charge that Karsnia, who was not in uniform, had solicited him. The police interview quickly deteriorated into an argument as to whether or not Senator Craig had used his left hand or his right hand when, he said, he picked up a piece of paper, and when Karsnia said he put his hand under the stall wall. That discussion was as follows:

LC: I remember reaching down once. There was a piece of toilet paper back behind me and picking it up.
DK: Okay. Was your palm down or up when you were doing that?

This was followed by a discussion in which Karsnia claimed "it's hard to describe here on tape but actually what I saw was your fingers come underneath the stalls, you're actually touching the bottom of the stall divider." Sen. Craig responded that he didn't recall that and didn't believe he did that. That was followed by the following exchange:

DK: I saw, I saw
LC: I don't do those things.
DK: I saw your left hand and I could see the gold wedding ring when it when it went across. I could see that. On your left hand, I could see that.
LC: Wait a moment, my left hand was over here.
DK: I saw there's a...
LC: My right hand was next to you.
DK: I could tell it with my ah, I could tell it was your left hand because your thumb was positioned in a faceward motion. Your thumb was on this side, not on this side.
LC: Well, we can dispute that. I'm not going to fight you in court and I, I reached down with my right hand to pick up the paper.
DK: But I'm telling you that I could see that so I know that's your left hand. Also I could see a gold ring on this finger, so that's obvious it was the left hand.
LC: Yeah, okay. My left hand was in the direct opposite of the stall from you.

Karsnia then asked the Senator "You, you travel through here frequently correct?" Craig said he did, Then Karsnia asked:

DK: Have you been successful in these bathrooms here before?
LC: I go to that bathroom regularly.
DK I mean for any type of other activities.
LC: No. Absolutely not. I don't seek activity in bathrooms.
DK: It's embarrassing.
LC: Well it's embarrassing for both. I'm not gonna fight you.
DK: I know you're not going to fight me. But that's not the point. I would respect you and I still respect you. I don't disrespect you but I'm disrespected right now and I'm not trying to act like I have all kinds of power or anything, but you're sitting here lying to a police officer

What Karsnia did at that point was to accuse Sen. Craig of lying because he refused to "confess" to doing something he claims he did not do. Karsnia then tried to browbeat him into making the "confession" he was demanding:

DK: I am trained in this and I know what I am doing. And I say you put your hand under there and you're going to sit there and...
LC: I admit I put my hand down.
DK: You put your hand and rubbed it on the bottom of the stall with your left hand.
LC: No. Wait a moment.
DK: And I, I'm not dumb, you can say I don't recall...
LC: If I had turned sideways, that was the only way I could get my left hand over there.
DK: it's not that hard for me to reach. (inaudible) it's not that hard. I see it happen everyday out here now.
LC: (inaudible) you do. All right.
DK: I just, I just, I guess, I guess I'm gonna say I'm just disappointed in you sir. I just really am. I expect this from the guy that we get out of the hood. I mean, people vote for you.
LC: Yes, they do. (inaudible)
DK: Unbelievable, unbelievable.
LC: I'm a respectable person and I don't do these kinds of...
DK: And (inaudible) respect right now though
LC: But I didn't use my left hand.
DK I thought that you...
LC: I reached down with my right hand like this to pick up a piece of paper.
DK: Was your gold ring on your right hand at anytime today.
LC: Of course not, try to get it off, look at it.
DK: Okay. Then it was your left hand, I saw it with my own eyes.
LC: All right, you saw something that didn't happen.
DK: Embarrassing, embarrassing. No wonder why we're going down the tubes.

This smacks of a political arrest by Karsnia. Karsnia repeatedly reveals utter contempt for Senator Craig - ending with what is really a disparaging crack about the people who voted for him in Idaho. If this was an isolated incident, we might think Karsnia was just having a bad day. However, the abuse of violinist Stephen Orsak by Karsnia and two other Minneapolis Airport Policemen and the "not guilty" decision of a judge and jury when Orsnak took them to court makes me think there is something that needs investigating in good old liberal Minneapolis.