Watch Your Back Around Mitt

There's obviously a lot to talk about in the aftermath of "WideStance" Sen. Larry Craig's indiscretions, and certainly the Republican Party is throwing him overboard as fast as they can (probably because they know Idaho's governor is a Republican and they can keep the seat if Craig is dumped). But it's a bit shocking how quickly and mechanically Mitt Romney knifed the guy who was his former Senate co-liaison (no double entendre intended). We know that his campaign tried to scrub any mention of Craig within hours of the initial revelation. And we know that Romney was the first Republican candidate to trash Craig publicly. Add all of this up and it's an unsavory picture, as John Dickerson notes for Slate.

After hearing about Larry Craig's arrest, Mitt Romney ran from his former Idaho campaign chairman as if he'd been in the next stall. "Once again, we've found people in Washington have not lived up to the level of respect and dignity that we would expect for somebody that gets elected to a position of high influence," the former Massachusetts governor told Larry Kudlow on Tuesday. "He's no longer associated with my campaign, as you can imagine." When asked similar questions after the news broke, most of Craig's Senate colleagues demurred, saying they wanted to see all the facts before commenting. They might have been acting out of loyalty or might have wanted to avoid the topic of bathroom sex altogether. But Romney showed no such reticence, linking Craig—who denies he did anything improper—to Bill Clinton and Mark Foley, and the larger culture of corruption in Washington [...]

Candidates treat endorsers-gone-bad the way Soviet leaders handled purged rivals: erase them from photos and never speak of them again. John McCain did this when the Florida co-chairman of his campaign was also arrested for soliciting sex in a bathroom (if Democrats do this, too, they're better at hiding it). So did Rudy Giuliani when his South Carolina chairman was indicted for selling coke. Romney's spokesman said they yanked the video because they didn't want Craig's troubles to become a "distraction." But when Romney later sermonized against Craig to make a sweeping judgment about Washington, he was hardly avoiding the subject.

Dickerson links this to a similar incident in 1964, when an aide to LBJ was arrested on a "morals charge" in a bathroom, and Barry Goldwater insisted that they not use the information. Not that the GOP has been the part of Goldwater for a long time, but the speed with which Romney dropped Craig like a rock shows you how much they've changed. Hemmed in by an over-moralizing base, these candidates must simply be ruthless. Whether or not they figure out that their associates are hypocrites BEFOREHAND is apparently immaterial.

We've spent nearly two terms watching a President who values loyalty above almost everything else. Obviously Mitt Romney doesn't share that trait. Of course we knew that; he's not even particularly loyal to his own beliefs.