Larry Craig's Latest Defense: the Cop Started It

The toe-tapper was in court again trying to clear his name. this time he's challenging whether the crime he admitted to was actually a crime. So what was he pleading guilty to if not a crime? Stupidity?

The biggest misdemeanor case in Minnesota history is still rolling along, as Senator Larry Craig's lawyers try more arguments to try to reverse his guilty plea. Here's the scoop from the Pioneer Press:

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.

Of course, Mr. Craig was involved in making US law for years and years and years. One would assume a minimal level of savvy as to the law when you've got that kind of experience. Still, Larry Craig pled guilty to what he claims is a false charge. Why? Of course, this is the reason the last judge denied his appeal, that by every measure Larry Craig was competent to plead guilty: