Sending pictures of your hardened junk via Twitter… really dumb. Lying about it… understandably dumb. Resigning because of it… unnecessarily dumb.
New York Congressional Representative Anthony Weiner has done what countless men have done by sending sexy pictures of his pumped chests and shaved balls over his cell phone. According to him, he didn’t actually fuck any of the women he sent photos to and so far no investigation has found that he used government resources to help fund his sexy time, so there’s no need to resign.
Bill Clinton got a blowjob and didn’t resign. Larry Craig plead guilty to soliciting a male police officer for sex in an airport bathroom and he didn’t resign. David Vitter spent his time hooking up with DC prostitutes and he didn’t resign. Weiner shouldn’t either.
Fabulous homo columnist Glenn Greenwald makes an excellent point about the sheer absurdity of the entire sanctimonious media circus surrounding Anthony’s wiener. Namely, why didn’t these same reporters give as much of a fuck about challenging powerful political figures who torture, illegally eavesdrop, and wage illegal wars. He also says that the details behind this so-called “scandal” aren’t really anyone’s business:
How about we take this to the next level?
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If Chris Matthews or Brian Williams or any politician ever patronized or even visited a porno site on the Internet or had a sexually charged IM chat with someone who isn’t their spouse, shouldn’t that now be splashed all over the Internet so we can all read it—not just the fact of its existence but all the gory details? After all, this is about character, judgment, veracity: these are Important Journalists and Politicians, and how can we trust them if they’re not even faithful to their spouse? Isn’t that the standard now — the one they’re gleefully propagating?
Yes, Anthony Weiner lied—about something that is absolutely nobody’s business but his and his wife’s. If you’re not his wife, you have absolutely no legitimate reason to want to know about — let alone pass judgment on—what he does in his private sexual life with other consenting adults…
Megan McArdle insists that “society has [an] interest in whether people keep their vows” in marriage and thus it’s a good thing “to use a few of our precious news hours to say, ‘Hey, not okay’!” Except McArdle has absolutely no idea what vows Weiner and his wife have made to each other, and she shouldn’t know, because it’s none of her business, despite her eagerness to learn about it and publicly condemn it. Even if she had any idea of what she was talking about—and she plainly doesn’t — nothing is less relevant than Megan McArdle’s views of the arrangement Anthony Weiner and his wife have for their marriage and whether each partner is adhering to that arrangement. That a journalist at The Atlantic wants to talk about this, and dig into the details, and issue judgments about it, says all one needs to know about our press corps.
Word on the web is that Wiener plans on resigning at 2PM EST today. Democrats like Obama and Pelosi have said that he should. The GOP—ignoring their own party’s repeated sexual hypocrisy—have said that he should. He doesn’t need sexual rehabilitation. He doesn’t need to apologize for his wife. He doesn’t need to resign.
But we hope if he does, he takes down the sexual hypocrits in the media and the GOP down with him.
christopher di spirito
Weiner is pulling out today at 2 p.m. in Brooklyn.
:)
Resigning isn’t the same thing as retiring. Now he can devote all his time to running for mayor.
dan4
I agree! Don’t resign. I’d love to have him still in office and the focus of all this attention.
I wonder when the next batch of photos get released.
Shannon1981
Dammit, Weiner was a beast in Congress! We need him.
gregger
If he had admitted that the photos were his and that he sent them I could stand behind him. Lying to his constituents makes him no better than Nixon. He has become a joke in DC, let him slide into obscurity for a while. Hopefully he’ll get some treatment and come out of this a better person. As it is he is a political liability.
JordanMeehan
I’ve never liked him, still don’t like him. Sending dick pics over Twitter, TWITTER OF ALL PLACES, was the most idiotic thing ever. Going to rehab for it? Maybe even stupider. But I still don’t think he should resign over this. That’s just spineless.
iDavid
He lied about who sent the photos and did a cover up on the public. If he had not done that, I would say don’t resign.
Bottom line hoodwinking your wife is under that contract, hoodwinking the public has to do with me, and I don’t tolerate liars. Go fish fuckhead.
Cam
I figure that if Senator Vitter didn’t resign after running as mister Family Values and getting caught visiting hookers I’m a bit shocked that weiner is resigning.
gregger
@Cam: Vitter should be removed as he has broken the law and thereby his oath of office. Weiner just lied and broke the trust.
christopher di spirito
He will never be NYC mayor. My guess is, Weiner will crawl over to CNN and become their newest political analyst. CNN has a history of hiring the dregs.
gregger
@christopher di spirito: just like “client #9, aka Elliot Spitzer.
Riker
Wiener was right to resign. Nixon had to resign. Jim McGreevy had to resign. Ex-Governor Spitzer had to resign. Vitter and Craig should have resigned. John Edwards’ political career was over after he got caught.
The public can tolerate a crook, but not somebody who gets caught lying to their faces.
Caliban
He SHOULDN’T resign. He jacked off over the internet. Whoop-de-fucking-doo!! That’s what it comes down to. Weiner talked dirty on the internet and sent pics as part of it. It’s in the Democratic leadership’s interest to decry his behavior and distance themselves from it, but he should take a page from the Republican playbook and hang on like grim death. Let the voters put him out of office if they want.
Jeffree
If either political party is going to insist that the other group’s members should resign due to extra-marital scandal, then they should insist that people from their own side of the aisle do the same.
Otherwise, it’s just the political version of “gotcha!” and a brief chance to feel holier than the opposing team.
p.s. Why don’t we see women politicians doing this “affair” stuff? Are they keeping their noses [& other body parts!] clean or are they just not getting caught.
dan4
“Are you more than 7 inches?”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
gregger
The reason more than anything else for his NEED to resign would be that he lied over something that he knew would come clean in the end and expose him for being a liar. He also would have been subject to an investigation by the House. The original issue was not something illegal but his bullshit story undid him. If he had come clean he probably would have had a great deal of sympathy. He didn’t, he isn’t, and he’s gone.
christopher di spirito
@gregger: Bingo.
christopher di spirito
@dan4: It was Benji from the Howard Stern show. So fucking funny!
Dennis
He shouldn’t of resigned, we need him. The Democrats should get some backbone and support their own. I hope he runs for mayor.
ewe
One more example of the warped power of one BONER.
ewe
I am gonna miss him terribly. He was railroaded and this is a witch hunt. There is nothing illegal about what he did. I am concerned about his lying and it’s just one more reason that if the subject of sex ever comes up one should always say “My sex life is a private manner. Mind your own damn business.”
ewe
i meant matter. Manner(s) is what this is really all about. that must have been a freudian slip. I, too, am bombarded by the culture.
tjr101
So wait, hooker loving, family values guy David Vitter gets to stay in Congress but Anthony Weiner has to resign? Ridiculous!
Riker
@tjr101: I’m a gay Republican, and I freely admit that Vitter and Craig *should* have resigned. Wiener is doing the right thing where those two failed.
GayGOP
Unlike Riker, although I too am a gay Republican, I do not think Vitter or Craig should have resigned. Nor do I think Weiner or Lee should have. A sex scandal is not, in my mind, of sufficient merit to force a resignation.
Riker
@GayGOP: Not so much the sex scandal as the lying about it. That’s why Clinton got in trouble, too. If they had just said “Yeah, I’m human, I screwed up, and I’m sorry” to their constituents, it wouldn’t have been as big a deal. Vitter was also a bigger scandal because he ran on a Family Values platform and was exposed as a hypocrite.
gregger
@GayGOP: So you think that Vitter breaking his oath of office by illegally hiring prostitutes is not grounds for demanding his resignation??
Kirby
We don’t need anyone this feccen stupid!
BamBam
@gregger
I’m not big on the GOP or Vitter, but prostitution is a victimless crime (meaning, no one is actually all that affected), so no, he shouldn’t have to resign. This isn’t a cheap romance novel, this is real life. Sex can be bought or sold just like any other service, and it is. How you get yours is nobody else’s business, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.
B
He was apparently encouraged to resign by other Democrats because he was becoming a distraction. Aside from being a Republican target in the next election, right now all the press coverage of his “sex scandal” was interfering with the “messaging” about what the Republicans are trying to do to social security, medicare, etc.
While he didn’t handle it very well, his “lying” was pretty minor – attributing a message sent out to everyone following him on twitter to some random, unknown “hacker” rather than making a mistake with twitter’s somewhat arcane user interface. He didn’t even deny the undie picture was of him (I figured it might have been of him, although it was hard to tell who it was, and that maybe it was meant for his wife/girfriend – didn’t know his marital status at the time).
the crustybastard
Weiner’s never made my sexuality an issue, so I won’t make his one.
However, Weiner accused someone of the crime of hacking his account, meaning he falsely accused someone of a CRIME.
Weiner shouldn’t be forced to resign for fucking around on his wife. But he ought to resign for making false criminal accusations.
dannyal
well few reasons I think he should resign:
1. the article’s first few sentences mentioned his dumb moves. well then, who wants someone dumb to represent them?
2. he did try to cover it up. so his integrity has become questionable. what else will he be willing to cover up?
3. like no.30 mentioned, he’s become a distraction to his coworkers and himself. how can you get your job done with all the media circus surrounding you?
the crustybastard
@Riker: “Not so much the sex scandal as the lying about it. That’s why Clinton got in trouble, too. If they had just said “Yeah, I’m human, I screwed up, and I’m sorry” to their constituents, it wouldn’t have been as big a deal…”
Clinton was requisitioning blowjobs from twentysomething staffers when he signed the “Defense of Marriage Act.”
Say what you will about Republicans, but I can’t imagine how ANY other person’s hypocrisy could ever rise to that level.
Bill Clinton is a turd who imagine he can still seduce me today.
I wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire.
Riker
@the crustybastard: I’m a gay GOPer, I know full well the extent of Clinton’s wrongdoing. He should have resigned, as well.
MC
I have sent dirty texts and pictures. My partners have done it. My friends have done it. Celebrities have done it. Should we all lose our jobs when those stuffs turn up somewhere? My dad was an adulterer but that shouldn’t mean he should have gotten fired from his job for it. Your job is a job. I hope people are looking at Weiner’s job performance and accomplishments, and honestly ask if this did, is and/or will affect his performance as a congressman.
I get the whole “lying is bad” argument, but seriously what did he lie about? Feeling horny and seeking some sexual attention and relief? If he had been discovered to be engaging in money laundering, terrorist activities or murder, then lying about them will add to the crime.
I don’t think he should resign. However, resigning is definitely the ethical and at least manly move. He decided to own up to it finally. And at least that’s a positive note on his character.
gregger
@BamBam: Regardless, Vitter broke his oath of office.
iDavid
We are an abolescent country with hypocritical puritanical views. No one should lose their job or quit over sexual indiscretion, it’s part of the fabric of mankind. And resign a sitting president for getting a blowjob by an intern? Like that’s going to help the nation? Pullease. I mean really. Do behave.
B
No. 31 · the crustybastard wrote, “However, Weiner accused someone of the crime of hacking his account, meaning he falsely accused someone of a CRIME.”
He didn’t falsely accuse anyone – he merely said his account had been hacked (implying a completely unknown party), but that his own “security” firm would handle it, not the police. He didn’t even suggest that unknown Republicans were behind it. It appears in retrospect the “hacker” was Weiner’s himself, with the “hacking” consisting of an inept and unintentional misuse of twitter.
He should have blamed Twitter for providing a user interface that made it so easy to screw up. Just read Twitter’s documentation. “Reply to an individual” means send the message to everyone following you, whereas a different term is used for a message sent to a single individual. Meanwhile when using your email program, “Reply” generally means to send the reply to a single person. It’s not surprising that a busy user would occasionally get confused.