By now just about everyone has heard about Matt Lauer’s interview with Larry Craig and his wife. Mrs. Craig is pretty sympathetic, I thought, though she naggingly reminded me of Tammy Faye Bakket back in the day. Craig taking off on Mitt Romney was fun, but wasn’t very seemly. I suppose we could watch the video and have a drinking game concerning how many times Craig denies he’s gay? Maybe that’s as useful as Lauer’s exercise is in the long run.

Most of all, though, I was reminded of Peter Graves from the moive Airplane. You remember. He was the captain of the plane and his best lines are said to young Joey, one of the plane’s passengers. From the AFI and from Useless Movie Quotes:

CAPT. OVEUR (Peter Graves): “You ever been in a cockpit before?”
JOEY (Rossie Harris): “No sir, I’ve never been up in a plane before.”
CAPT. OVEUR (Peter Graves): “You ever seen a grown man naked?”

and

CAPT OVUER (Peter Graves): Joey, you like movies about gladiators?

Now this makes sense only if you notice that Craig describes the way he was treated by GOP leadership as “gladiator politics.” I got that in the Free Press. I swear, I couldn’t even parse the phrase before I was picturing Peter Graves talking to little Joey. Man that was a funny movie.

As a movie, though, Airplane has little consequence in our lives, especially as it is 27 years in the past. Larry Craig fits the bill there, too. He’s of little consequence, sits on no committees, and should resign. He is a clown pretending to have dignity.