The Most Feared Man on the Hill?

For Gay Blogger, Craig's Resignation Is Just the Latest on His List

By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post

Soon, a new name will pop up on Mike Rogers's hit list.

Larry Craig wasn't "the first on my list," the gay blogger says. And the Idaho senator, who announced his resignation Saturday, "won't be the last."

Rogers, sitting on a club chair in his Northwest Washington apartment, is basking in the attention. For three years now, he's been a feared one-man machine, "outing," he says, nearly three dozen senior political and congressional staffers, White House aides and, most damagingly, Congress members on his blog. On Capitol Hill, a typical phone call from Rogers -- "Are you gay?" he'd ask -- is "a call from Satan himself," says a former high-ranking congressional staffer whose name is on the list.

Rogers reasons that there's justice behind his tactics -- "odious," "outrageous" and "over-the-line" as they might seem to his detractors.

In Rogers's mind, if you're against gay rights in your public life and you live a secret homosexual life, all bets are off.

In 2004, one of the first public officials he targeted was then-Virginia congressman Ed Schrock because of his voting record on such issues as gays in the military, same-sex marriage and gay adoption. In 2000, for instance, Schrock told the Virginian-Pilot: "You're in the showers with them, you're in the bunk room with them, you're in staterooms with them." Schrock decided not to run for reelection because of the rumors.

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