It all came to an end under a clear blue Idaho sky, in the harsh gaze of a dozen TV cameras. Senator Larry Craig, who started the week as a revered stalwart of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, ended it with his career in ruins as he announced his resignation on Saturday.

It has been one of the most bizarre sex scandals to hit America and its ending carried that theme on. As the unfortunate senator went through the ritual of committing political suicide, a handful of protesters waved banners. ‘Senator Craig is not gay. He is a pervert’, read one. Another asked: ‘Do you know what stall your senator is in?’

That largely summed up the level of debate surrounding Craig’s personal and political disaster after he was caught apparently attempting to solicit sex from a man in a Minneapolis airport toilet. The disaster for Craig was that the other party was an undercover police officer. For the married politician with a record of voting against gay rights, it was all over from the moment the news broke at the start of the week.

So, with his wife Suzanne beside him, Craig bowed to the inevitable on Saturday and finally said the hardest words. “I apologise for what I have caused. I am deeply sorry,” he told a crowd of reporters in the city of Boise, Idaho. He did not repeat his declaration that he was not gay but said: “I have little control over what people choose to believe”.

The moment brought to a dramatic end one of the strangest examples of a seemingly endless list of Republicans who have fallen from grace and tarnished the party’s self-proclaimed image as the guardian of America’s public morality. They include Florida congressman Mark Foley, who stalked young male congressional messengers on the internet, and Louisiana senator David Vitter, who was caught with prostitutes. The last few days in Washington as Craig’s public and personal agony have played out have been odd to say the least. The airwaves have been dominated by a public debate on the whys and wherefores of men seeking sexual encounters in public toilets. Expressions such as ‘cottaging’, ‘cruising’ and ‘the tearoom trade’ have suddenly entered America’s political lexicon. Much attention has focused on exactly what Craig was doing and if he really was seeking to procure sex when he sat down on the toilet.

The American news media quickly turned its full investigative talents to the issue, with one television news programme staging a re-enactment of the scene by newsreaders to see if Craig’s version of events was credible. The issue has also become fodder for tabloids and late-night comedians.