GOP Supporters Are Hard to Find on Craig's List

That's true, if barely. Craig has said he'll step down at the end of the month if he can't get his guilty plea overturned.

Craig fled into the privacy of the senators' dining room, then to his first-floor "hideaway" for more privacy. But outside his hideaway, the senator seemed startled to discover camera crews from NBC and CBS -- waiting, by happenstance, for a meeting next door between Specter and Michael Mukasey, the attorney general nominee.

Craig was learning quickly that the Capitol is the wrong place to be for a man trying to minimize contact with the media. When word spread that Craig was in the building, reporters and photographers mustered outside the Senate chamber, where they found not Craig but former senator Gary Hart -- the victim of a sex scandal himself a generation ago.

As Craig walked toward the chamber for a vote, Carrie Budoff of the Politico ambushed him. "Doing well, doing well," was all he would divulge. As Craig left the chamber for lunch, Carl Hulse of the New York Times sounded the alarm. "Senator Craig," he called loudly, causing a pack to form around the man from Idaho.

Is he rescinding his resignation? "Not at all. I'm here to work with my staff and my office, and to work with my legal team."

Is he confident about his case? "I have no opinion on it. I'd like to be."

Inside the lunch meeting, attended by Vice President Cheney, Craig addressed his colleagues for about a minute, apologizing for the embarrassment and reminding them that his lawyers are hard at work on the case. When he finished, there was silence, followed by a smattering of applause.

Evidently, the pre-lunch kerfuffle with the media was sufficiently distressing to Craig that, to avoid the 100 reporters who had amassed during the lunch, he left by the back door.

When reporters finally cornered him before another vote in the afternoon, Craig was still vague about his plans. Is he resigning? "I said I intend to by the 30th," he said, but added: "That's what we're working on." Craig left the reporters at the chamber door and walked onto the floor -- where McConnell managed to avoid eye contact and McCain took a detour to avoid a meeting.

Outside the chamber, meanwhile, Specter pursued his fruitless struggle for the right words. He likened his colleague's guilty plea to receiving a parking ticket, even though the meter was broken. "You fill out this form -- guilty -- and pay 10 bucks because you're not going to spend a day sitting around a courtroom," he reasoned.

Still, Specter admitted some holes in Craig's broken-meter defense. "I think there's no doubt that what he did was not intelligent."