Psst, buddy

I know I haven't blogged about poor old Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig and his unfortunate incident in a Minneapolis airport bathroom. I figure if you are interested in such, well there are PLENTY of places for you to read all about it.

One thing in the whole bathroom sting saga, though, did catch my attention and I'm amazed that no one [Yes, I'm sure SOMEONE has commented on this, but I haven't seen it. Hence, I'm going to pretend I'm the first to point this out.] has commented on it. Doesn't the bathroom cop guy remind you of the "reverso" version of Angelo Mancuso? If you don't remember, or you never read it, Angelo is the unfortunate cop who tries to arrest Ignatius J. Reilly in the opening scene of the funniest book ever written in the English (and I suspect all others as well) language.

See, Officer Mancuso attempts to arrest Ignatius as a "suspicious character" lounging in front of a New Orleans department store. If you've read the book (and shame on you if you haven't), you know that Ignatius would qualify as a "suspicious character" just about anywhere. Unfortunately for Angelo, though, Ignatius doesn't go quietly, the crowd intervenes, and he ends up arresting an innocent grandpa because he speculated that Officer Mancuso might be a "Commoniss". Mancuso's superior is not happy about this PR disaster and he forces Mancuso to hang out, in costume, in the dank bus station men's room until he can bring in an authentic "suspicious character". Needless to say, Mancuso is not too happy about his assignment and he dang near catches his death while waiting to collar a perp for his boss. Too bad Sen. Craig didn't wander into the New Orleans bus depot.

Anyway, what got me thinking of all this was the arresting officer's apparent zeal for his bathroom assignment. I don't have exact quotes and I don't want to be bothered to look them up, but I was a bit taken aback at how much he seemed to enjoy hanging out in airport bathrooms, nabbing offenders. [Exactly what law these offenders was breaking isn't really clear to me*, but that's another, larger, issue I don't want to wade into. Others have covered it sufficiently.] The whole thing seemed like a fake "scandal" in The Onion, dreamed up just to serve as a counter to the Officer Mancuso character. Spooky. Regardless, I think I'll reread part of "Confederacy" tonight.

*Note: I feel sure there was intent to engage in prohibited behavior (at least by some of the offenders), but every account I read seemed to indicate the "bust" was made before any actual criminal behavior occurred. When they did the big sting on the local wildlife refuge that was a major point of emphasis. The officer had to wait for contact of some sort before making an arrest.