Larry Craig's So Innocent. How Does He Explain His Houseboat the "Ida Ho"?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/washington/28boat.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

For Craig and Others, a Caucus on the Potomac


WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 — When he is not at the Capitol, Senator Larry E. Craig spends much of his time aboard the Suz II, the 42-foot yacht that serves as his Washington home. Further down D Dock at the Capital Yacht Club, his friend Senator Ted Stevens occasionally escapes the pressures of a federal investigation aboard his pleasure boat.

Former Representative Randy Cunningham, Republican of California, used to reside a few slips over on the Duke Stir before federal investigators built a bribery case against him. And at the Gangplank Marina next door, the disgraced congressmen Bob Ney, a Republican, and James A. Traficant Jr., a Democrat, both from Ohio, traded coveted slips for federal prison cells in bribery cases.

The travails of Mr. Craig, Republican of Idaho, who is seeking to withdraw his guilty plea to charges related to what the authorities say was a sex-solicitation incident at a Minneapolis airport restroom, are only the latest to rock this eclectic Washington neighborhood. Photographers gathered at D Dock on Wednesday to watch him leave for the Senate, carrying a boater’s bag.

One resident describes the strip of Potomac River waterfront as a “floating trailer park” where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Protected by locked gates and security, members of Congress rub elbows with lawyers and lobbyists, judges and bureaucrats, established government contractors and aspiring ones, and others lucky enough to own expensive boats and secure a coveted slip.


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Ed Johnson, a resident of the Gangplank Marina who has long known Mr. Craig, describes the waterfront as a fancy trailer park. Neighbors float only a few arms-lengths away from one another. Most shower in bathhouses, and, after hours, gossip over drinks. Most parties erupt spontaneously. Others, like the bashes held aboard Malcolm Forbes’s visiting 133-foot yacht, feature White House, cabinet and Congressional notables. Live-aboards, as they call themselves, gawk from lawn chairs.

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Mr. Craig lived aboard the Ida Ho, a houseboat, during his early years in Congress. He sold it and moved to the Virginia suburbs with his wife, Suzanne, to raise their children, but the water eventually drew him back. His current vessel is the Suz II.