Could Bush have outed Craig? Hmmm...

From this 2005 report:


Republican Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Larry Craig of Idaho and Olympia Snowe of Maine question Bush’s actions along with Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee …. Bush is also angry with Craig, a conservative who joined with Democrats in a filibuster to defeat permanent renewal of the Patriot Act. As a meeting recently, Bush referred to Craig as “a goddamned traitor” and told the National Republican Senatorial Committee to start recruiting someone to run against the Idaho Senator in 2008.

...Such anger against those who dare oppose him is typical for a President who all too often launches into obscene tirades when his policies are questioned. Bush, on many occasions, has called political opponents “traitors’ and, in private, refers to Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter as a “lily-livered bastard.”

Craig, however, is unfazed by all this and says the Patriot Act “doesn't do enough to protect the civil liberties of innocent Americans.”

And while Criag, Hagel, Snowe and Specter are willing to speak out publicly about the illegal actions of a President who is a member of their own party, other Republicans stick to grumbling in private – not surprising given the President’s reputation to waging wars on revenge against those who oppose him.

“Bush may be under siege but he is still the President,” says political scientist George Harleigh, who served in the Nixon Administration. “He still has the power to reward those who back his policies and punish those who do not.”