While all of our interest was being drawn to the Senate inquiry over whether ace baseball pitcher Roger Clemens took performance-enhancing steroids yesterday, there was an uglier meeting down the hall.

The Senate Ethics Committee issued a letter of admonition to one of its own, Idaho Republican Larry Craig, for his despicable conduct in a Minneapolis men’s restroom during the summer and, in doing so, revealed the senator, who still holds office and votes on all manner of things involving you and me, has now spent $213,000 of his campaign contributions towards his legal defense in the now-famed “foot tapping” incident.

If ever there was a cause for us to look at politicians in a funny sort of way, I bring before you Sen. Craig who, in his efforts to convince the world he was not attempting to have sex with an undercover policeman, has brought shame and slander to the office we have long been taught was above reproach.

The Senate Ethics Committee is made up of three Republicans and three Democrats and, after hearing all the testimony and studying court records and discussing the incident at length, said they believed Sen. Craig "committed the offense to which you pled guilty" and that "you entered your plea knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently."

The committee’s letter also read, "Your claims to the court ... to the effect that your guilty plea resulted from improper pressure or coercion, or that you did not, as a legal matter, know what you were doing when you pled guilty do not appear credible.”

When Sen. Craig was first arrested over the summer, he admitted his guilt, we were told, “so his wife wouldn’t find out” but when word leaked that he had actually handed the officer his Senate card and said tersely, “What do you think about that?,” the incident snowballed into something akin to a runaway train.

At first he said he would resign, then he claimed he admitted his guilt when actually he was innocent, then he decided not to resign, then he hired lawyers and public relation experts and is now intent on holding office until January of 2009, when his term expires.

Sen. Craig, who is not running for office again, told the Washington Post last night, "I am disappointed and strongly disagree with the conclusions" of the committee and said he "will continue to serve the people of Idaho."

So – poof – the rebuke signals an end to one of the most scurrilous incidents the United States Senate can remember and it is said that “Toe-Tapping Larry” is quietly working on environmental issues. Are you kidding me?

I don’t care if Larry Craig is a Republican or a Democrat. It also doesn’t matter to me what he does in the private hours of his personal life, but the Senate Ethics Committee’s findings prove this guy is a liar, an unethical conniver and a lout of the first order.

I believe in the political process and I know our electoral process continues to weed out those very few bums who at first slip by, but here’s a case where the other Senate members should promptly ride this man out of the nation’s capital on a rail after he is both tarred and feathered. My goodness!

Instead, this man is still a senator of the United States and, if you turn a blind eye to that in order to better see if baseball’s Roger Clemens took steroids, then our value system is obviously far off center, not to mention an equally important factor we call the public trust.

Some feel Roger Clemens may be lying, but, with the Senate Ethics Committee’s scathing letter of admonition to Sen. Larry Craig, there is now little doubt about him. The big thing is just one of Wednesday’s stars is going to continue to vote on what happens to you and me and it ain’t the guy with the baseball.

royexum@aol.com