General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf Weiner were a conservaDem, would Tweety, MSNBC, et al be after him?
I don't have a dog in this fight, living in Tennessee, and, as someone who divorced her first husband for adultery, I'm certainly not an apologist for that type of behavior.
However, given we have a litany of other politicians who have done worse (B. Clinton, Kennedy) - sometimes even to the point of illegality (Spitzer, Vitter) - who are still either running or still held in high regard, I'm honestly wondering why Weiner is held to a different standard.
Tweety's show is a perfect example: he spent the first several minutes skewering a guy who technically did not cheat, but then kisses the ass of a guy, who not only cheated, but committed an illegal act while working as the attorney general and governor!
I realize Weiner is a firebrand and isn't always successful in passing legislation, but the liberal voice should be heard. We certainly heard enough of the far-right conservative voice for years and years until it manifested in legislation that is being passed, much to the chagrin of women, people of color, immigrants, voters, etc.
Would Weiner evoke as much scorn if he were more corporate and less of a liberal?
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)that go no matter what.
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)I guess my corporate hypocrisy meter is dinging.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Remember the press here in NY are harsh but when you give them photos they are even worse.
cali
(114,904 posts)and not successful at using the amendment process to further his purported liberal agenda. Hes a phony, self-promoting creep. Always was. Here's a great example Weiner used $45,000 in donated campaign funds to hire a PI to investigate who hacked into his twitter account, knowing full well that no one had.
He's a real piece of shit.
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)Granted, I think the three-judge panel who allowed Kenneth Starr to even investigate that idiocy over-stepped their power, but the fact is that Clinton did lie - to us and to Congress (granted, about shit that SHOULD have been none of our business, but was made so through the Starr investigation).
I guess I'm trying to understand what makes one serial "adulterer" a piece of shit while another is a leader in the party.
cali
(114,904 posts)to investigate who hacked his twitter account despite his knowing there was no hacker?
Yes, Clinton lied- and it was reprehensible. So?
I guess I'm trying to get through to you that this is about more than sex.
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)have not investigated it (and by "recently," I mean, literally, today).
But, didn't Clinton raise funds for his legal defense, as well? I'm sure there a legal distinctions, but, if people believe in a candidate, morally, they probably don't care how they spend their funds.
And, I don't doubt that there is some substance beyond the sex - which is exactly why I'm posing the question.
I'm not arguing with you. I'm probing DU because there are some well-read and logical minds here.
cali
(114,904 posts)and also a creep and no liberal. But he was a sitting President and the repukes went after him. Really high stakes. Not so with Weiner.
This was not a legal defense fund. Weiner took money straight out of his campaign funds for this. I'm not asking what other people think. I asked what you think.
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)That said, I think I explained that I had barely heard of the campaign-fund issue and why I don't "think" anything about it, much, because I simply don't know, but will research it now that my children have gone to bed.
tularetom
(23,664 posts)is because all these asshole pundits have spent hours trashing him.
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)I used to be a reporter, so I also understand that"blood in the water" mentality. I'm just trying to understand why Weiner's blood is more interesting than Spitzer's or Vitter's.
canoeist52
(2,282 posts)We are so outnumbered in the media's reporting.
cali
(114,904 posts)much outside self-promotion
cigsandcoffee
(2,300 posts)Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)If he's not that important, why is he national news?
And, in the adverse, if he's important enough to be in the national news, is it because of his ideology or his persona?
cali
(114,904 posts)to the frontrunner for the dem nomination and her husband, the former President, as well as being beautiful and having been featured in Vogue and various other women's magazine. Quit, redemption cycle, runs again, does the same stuff again.
Catnip for the media.
cigsandcoffee
(2,300 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)Jul 25 2013, 10:57 AM ET
Andrew Sullivan offers a defense of Anthony Weiner, who has recently been shown to have continued his online affairs even after he resigned from Congress:
And let's be clear, there is no victim here. A flirty, horny 22-year-old who talks a great sex game is not a victim. She's a player - and good for her. This nonsense about her being "immature" and Weiner being "predatory" is belied by the facts. She knew he was married when she sexted him and he returned the favors. The only salient question is whether, having lied in the first place about sexting, Weiner was caught deceiving the public again by claiming he had stopped sexting and re-built his marriage, while the compulsion was clearly not over. That's a question of public trust, and there's little doubt that Weiner has squandered it. On the question of lying, the NYT's harrumph this morning is a valid one. Once a politician has deceived people, he gets a second chance. When he deceives them a second time on the same issue, he loses whatever public trust he might have hoped for.
But I see no reason why that trust should not be tested where it should be: at the ballot box. Weiner should not, er, withdraw prematurely. He should do us all a favor, if his wife agrees, and plow on until we can all smoke a collective cigarette. In this new Internet Age someone has to be the person who makes sexting not an excludable characteristic for public office. If it becomes one, then the range of representatives we can choose from in the future and present will be very, very different in experience and background than the people they are supposed to represent.
There's a lot here that I agree with, but I don't get many opportunities to get to the right of Andrew. In all seriousness, I think there are two separate issues. The first is the idea that there is something wrong with online sex. We can dispatch that fairly easily: There isn't. The second is that the mere act of infidelity makes you unfit for public office. I don't think there's much ground for that argument either.
But the problem that I suspect a lot of people have with Anthony Weiner is not that he had an affair, but that he does not seem particularly good at the job of politics. Part of being good at politics is being good at pitching your arguments. Part of pitching your arguments is your public image. We know this. Those of us who are partisans do not examine "favorable and unfavorable" ratings in our polls simply for amusement. We examine them to see who might make the best pitch for the policies we endorse. The actual reasons why some people are viewed favorably and others are not may not always strike us as intelligent. But they are real. Politicians know this and thus guard their image accordingly.
Anthony Weiner is a politician who relished antagonizing the opposition. His appeal was singular and tribal -- in an age of seemingly vacillating, gun-shy Democrats, Weiner took on whoever may come. You never once got the feeling that he was ashamed to be a liberal. He must have known that this made him a target for conservative activists. A wise man in Weiner's position would be watchful. But Weiner is not a wise man. It is not his desire to get off that offends, it is the thick-wittedness of sending nude selfies on Twitter. It is the incomprehensible silliness of handing your opponents a gun and saying, "Please shoot me." Repeatedly. It is wholly sensible that those of us who believe the liberal project is about more than embarrassing Republicans would not want Anthony Weiner as a pitchman.
There is something else at work here also -- a lack of compassion. Here is where I differ with many of my liberal and libertarian friends. I believe that how you treat people matters. It is folly to embarrass your pregnant wife before an entire nation. To do the same thing again is cruelty. And there is the promise of more to come. One argument holds that what happens between Weiner and his wife is between them. I agree with this argument. But cruelty is not abolished by the phrase "consenting adults." And the fact that the immoral is not, and should not be, illegal does not make morality meaningless. Huma Abedin has one choice. We have another. The choice should be made by voters -- there should be no sense that if not for the powerful editorial pages Weiner would have won. As a city we deserve to see who we are, and what we actually care about.
I don't think it is wrong to care about how people treat each others, which is another way of saying I believe that morality is important. I find the argument for same-sex marriage compelling not in spite of morality, but because of it. I think public office is an honored, and honorable, position. I do not think it is wrong to ask that our officers be compassionate. I do not believe it is wrong to ask that our officers be wise. I do not believe that it is the fate of all men to send dick pics hurtling through cyberspace. And I do not believe that Anthony Weiner is the best we can expect from maledom, to say nothing of New York liberals.
MORE AT:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/anthony-weiner-and-liberal-morality/278104/
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)(Catch-phrase noted)
He's running. Were he in office, dunno.
It's one thing to push for a purge. It's another to avoid the problem to begin with.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)Wiener is in NYC. Filner is in San Diego. Both are progressives. National media has butchered the little coverage of Filner...nor will they touch him much...it is also partly who you know.
Filner is nowhere close to the Clinton Mafia, wiener on the other hand...
I have been struggling to get it and American media, national media, is the NYC and DC local news...I wish I were kidding.
karynnj
(59,504 posts)frylock
(34,825 posts)would DUers be talking about how it's his personal life, and that it's ultimately up to the voters in NYC to decide if he should serve? if weiner were a republican, would we be talking about how his wife might be cool with her husbands activities, or would there be multiple references to Stepford Wives?