Craig and Warner both do Republicans a favor and leave

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 — Senator Larry E. Craig, Republican of Idaho, under intense pressure from party leaders to step down in the aftermath of an undercover sex sting, plans to resign his seat on Saturday, Republican Party officials said Friday.

Through intermediaries and unusually harsh public statements and actions, party officials made it clear they wanted Mr. Craig to quit before Congress returned from its summer recess next week, hoping quickly to conclude an embarrassing episode that threatened to complicate an already difficult election cycle for Senate Republicans.

Republican Party officials said Friday evening that they had been notified of Mr. Craig’s intention to give up his seat as of Sept. 30 and that Gov. C. L. Otter, a Republican, would name a replacement.

The disclosure of Mr. Craig’s guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge resulting from his arrest in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in early June was not the only political setback for Republicans this week. On Friday, Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the former Navy secretary and an influential party voice on military policy, announced in Charlottesville that he would not seek a sixth term in 2008, giving Democrats a better chance at that seat.

Trying to spin this as a setback for Republicans is just too much of a stretch. Craig being pushed out by his own party just proves that the Republicans are the ones with actual morals and standards. And Warner doing the right thing and stepping aside saves the Senate the embarrassment of having another drooling fugitive from the Alzheimer's ward like the late Strom Thurmond or the unfortunately still serving Robert Byrd hanging around making the entire institution look even more silly and ineffectual than it has to.

Warner's retirement also saves the conservatives of Virginia the trouble of having to fight their own Party's state and national leadership in trying to mount a primary challenge to the increasingly RINO Warner. They will now be free to find an actual conservative to run for that Senate seat. Perhaps Oliver North will feel up to another campaign.