Larry Craig: The Cop Started It

Larry Craig's new defense is two-pronged.

1. The cop started it.

2. It can't have been disorderly conduct because the law requires two or more victims for a disorderly conduct charge.

The undercover police officer who busted U.S. Sen. Larry Craig in a gay-sex sting in an airport bathroom stall couldn't have been offended by the senator's notorious foot-tapping - after all, the officer invited the action by tapping his own foot, lawyers for the congressman said in a brief filed Tuesday.

Those lawyers also contend the Idaho Republican should have his guilty plea to a disorderly conduct charge thrown out because what he did last June wasn't a crime. The reason: The state's disorderly conduct statute says the conduct in question has to alarm or anger others - plural - and Craig's actions affected just the undercover officer.

"In short, the facts here simply do not constitute the crime of disorderly conduct," the lawyers wrote in a 96-page brief. "The conduct ... viewed in its worst light, does not rise to the level of disorderly as that conduct is contemplated under Minnesota law."

Despite Craig's voluntary guilty plea, if the facts don't support the charge, the plea is inaccurate and should be thrown out, the brief contends.

The filing with the Minnesota Court of Appeals is the latest in what has become perhaps the biggest misdemeanor case in Minnesota court history. Law-yers representing Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, which is prosecuting the case, have a month to file their reply.

Fuck! This is the story that just won't die, innit?