Larry Craig is giving Republicans a bad case of acid reflux disease.

Republican senators held what one participant called a "passionate" and "spirited" closed-door discussion Wednesday afternoon about how their leaders responded to the sex scandal involving their colleague Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, CNN has learned.

At least three senators complained their leaders "rushed to judgment" while others defended the leaders for quickly pulling their support from the disgraced senator, according to one Republican senator in the room and two GOP aides familiar with the meeting.

"We had to discuss it," the senator said.

Sen. Ted. Stevens of Alaska, whose home was recently raided as part of a federal corruption probe, stood up to say it's wrong to prejudge these matters.

He was joined by Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Sen. Michael Enzi of Wyoming, who also "wagged their finger" at the leadership, in the words of one of the aides. But many more senators stood to defend the leaders, even greeting Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky with applause when he was introduced to discuss the topic at the weekly Senate Republican policy luncheon in the Capitol.

Oh yeah, Uncle Ted would really like people not to pass judgement on possibly illegal activities.

I think that we are watching a political party that is being ripped to pieces from the inside out.

(I am going to confess that I tried to find a way to work the term "wide stance" into this post but could not come up with anything that did not seem immature and self serving. And for some reason that stopped me this time. God I hope I am not maturing or anything.)