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I've had nothing to say about Larry Craig and his Minnesota restroom stall travails; it seems to me that most everything that can be said already has been. However, the transcript of Craig's interrogation by investigator Dave Karsnial fairly demands some comment or other. This is fascinating reading, not just for its obvious prurience or the clash of banality and status - a United States senator being grilled by a cop over an alleged sexual solicitation in an airport restroom, criminy - but for the inescapable familiarity of the narrative. We know this routine by heart, after all: the interrogation of the suspect, the dangled offer of the "out," the resistance, the evasion, the pursuit. The struggle over the framing of the truth. It's the stuff of every gritty cop show on television, every true crime series offered on cable.

We know this ritual like we know our own names, our own lives. It's in our cultural DNA. We just never, ever expected to see it applied in this context.

Highlights, sort of, from the exchange:

DK: Okay. Um, I just wanna start off with a your side of the story, okay. So, a
LC: So I go into the bathroom here as I normally do. I’m a commuter too here.

DK: Okay.
LC: I sit down, um, to go to the bathroom and ah, you said our feet bumped. I believe they did, ah, because I reached down and scooted over and um, the next thing I knew, under the bathroom divider comes a card that says Police. Now, um (sigh) that’s about as far as I can take it, I don’t know of anything else. Ah, your foot came toward mine, mine came towards yours, was that natural? I don’t know. Did we bump? Yes. I think we did. You said so. I don’t disagree with that.

DK: Okay. I don’t want to get into a pissing match here.
LC: We’re not going to.

To be sure, the officer never really wants to simply hear your side; he just wants you to confess to any and all charges so he can commence with the paperwork. Anyone familiar with police shows knows this. It's early on in the exchange, so investigator Karsnial merely registers his disagreement with suspect Craig's characterization of events without comment, though in blunt fashion. To continue...

DK: Okay. And when you went in the stalls, then what?
LC: Sat down.

DK: Okay. Did you do anything with your feet?
LC: Positioned them, I don't know. I don’t know at the time. I'm a fairly wide guy.

DK: I understand.
LC: I had to spread my legs.

DK: Okay.
LC: When I lower my pants so they won’t slide.

The level of detail Craig provides regarding his urinal approach will always be with you, no matter where you go in life. Sorry about that. More...

DK: I know you’re not going to fight me. But that’s not the point. I would respect you and I still respect you. I don’t disrespect you but I’m disrespected right now and I’m not trying to act like I have all kinds of power or anything, but you’re sitting here lying to a police officer.
LC: I, I, I.

DK: It’s not a (inaudible) I’m getting from somebody else. I’m (inaudible)
LC: (inaudible)

(Talking over each other)

DK: I am trained in this and I know what I am doing. And I say you put your hand under there and you’re going to sit there and…
LC: I admit I put my hand down.

DK: You put your hand and rubbed it on the bottom of the stall with your left hand.
LC: No. Wait a moment.

As you can see, things have gone badly. We've reached the point of struggle here, highlighted by the officer's assertion of authority combined with the standard demand for respect which translates to "stop lying to me."

Bringing it home now...

DK: I just, I just, I guess, I guess I’m gonna say I’m just disappointed in you sir. I’m just really am. I expect this from the guy that we get out of the hood. I mean, people vote for you.
LC: Yes, they do. (inaudible)

DK: unbelievable, unbelievable.
LC: I’m a respectable person and I don’t do these kinds of…

DK: And (inaudible) respect right now though
LC: But I didn’t use my left hand.

DK: I thought that you…
LC: I reached down with my right hand like this to pick up a piece of paper.

DK: Was your gold ring on your right hand at anytime today.
LC: Of course not, try to get it off, look at it.

DC: Okay. Then it was your left hand, I saw it with my own eyes.
LC: All right, you saw something that didn’t happen.

DK: Embarrassing, embarrassing. No wonder why we’re going down the tubes. Anything to add?
NN: Uh, no.

DK: Embarrassing. Date is 6/11/07 at 1236 interview is done.
LC: Okay.

Was Karsnial referring to the nation as a whole or his relationship to Craig - and interrogations are indeed a particular type of intimate relationship, with the potential for disappointment at every turn - when he said "no wonder we're going down the tubes?" Many television episodes end on such unresolved questions, as does this one. Cut to end credits. Fade to black.

Fascinating. Terribly familiar. And destined to inspire - unnecessarily, perhaps - an episode of Law & Order.

(Cross-posted.)