Tony Batista

By now, you have certainly read reports of Sen. Larry Craig's (R-Idaho) arrest for soliciting anonymous gay sex in the Minneapolis airport. The reporting has been couched in other terms too dull to repeat here, but it's pretty clear what he was doing; he pled guilty to it.

I'd like to spend a moment deconstructing his defense. Quoting CQ.com: According to [the police] report, Craig denied he was trying to proposition the officer and maintained that he used “a wide stance when going to the bathroom and that [the undercover officer's] foot may have touched mine” (emphasis added).

The distance between one's feet, or -- in medical jargon -- "stance," while using a toilet is hemmed in by one's pants, or specifically the largest diameter of one's pants while said pants are dropped around one's ankles. (I'm not sure if the ovular shape of pants lends itself to having a "diameter," per se, but I think the image suffices.) A fatter man would be able to extend his legs further apart than a skinny man, thanks not to his flexibility but because there's a clear relationship between the circumference of one's pants and the maximum diameter of the pants while warming the ankles. And that distance is as far apart as feet may be.

"Ah, yes," I hear you asking, "What if one took off one's pants in order to use the bathroom? Wouldn't that allow for a larger 'stance'?" That's true, but we have no record of Mr. Craig claiming to have removed his pants -- and this would have provided a stronger defense as to what his purpose was that day.

Future disgraced former Senator Craig, looking as his official Senate photo, does not appear to be particularly fat. He can't have an abnormally wide spread, not without removing his pants. If he was able to pull this off, he has an historically wide-open stance. He would be the Tony Batista of dropping a deuce. The story does not hold water.