Sen. Larry Craig Reminds Me Of Roy Cohn (Updated 2X)

Senator Craig's insistence that he is not gay reminded me of that scene in Angels In America when Roy Cohn (Al Pacino) is told by his Doctor (James Cromwell) that he has AIDS and that he got it from having unprotected sex with homosexuals. Roy says he can't have AIDS because he is not a homosexual. It comes in at about 4 minutes in. Watch it.

ROY: You know your problem, Henry, is that you are hung up on words -- on labels that you believe they mean what they seem to mean. AIDS, homosexual, gay, lesbian. You think these are names that tell you who someone sleeps with? They don't tell you that.

HENRY: No?

ROY: No! Like all labels, they tell you one thing and one thing only -- where does an individual, so identified, sit on the food chain. In the pecking order! Not ideology, or sexual taste, but something much simpler. Clout. Not who I fuck or who fucks me but who will pick up the phone when I call; who owes me favors. This is what a label refers to.

Now, to someone who does not understand this, homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men. But really this is wrong. Homosexuals are not men that sleep with other men. Homosexuals are men who, in 15 years of trying, cannot pass a pissant anti-discrimination bill through City Council. Homosexuals are men who know nobody and who nobody knows -- who have zero clout. Does this sound like me, Henry? No! I have clout. I pick up this phone, I punch 15 numbers, do you know who's on the other end? In under five minutes?

HENRY: The President?

ROY: Better, Henry. His wife.

Watch the whole thing. It is an unforgettable portrait of a man in total denial, a spectacle that has as much relevance today as it ever had.

P.S. The comment about Reagan is priceless on soooo many levels.

UPDATE: Apparently, at Tuesday's press conference, and this is true, the first words out of Sen. Craig's mouth were this: "Thank you all very much for coming out today."

UPDATE 2: Is Joe Conason reading my blog or what?

...Only Republicans who are truly in denial can ignore the long parade now led by the reluctant Craig -- a conga line of right-leaning queens that dates all the way back to the late Roy Cohn, Joe McCarthy's infamous henchman and an intimate friend of the Reagans'. Perhaps, like Cohn, today's closeted Republicans believe that they aren't really gay at all, except for a few minutes in bed (or in the men's room).