Anthony Weiner’s Cardinal Sin: Rank Hypocrisy, Not Creepy Sexting

[DonViejo]

Reminder: Stevens was Romney's campaign manager

by Stuart Stevens May 21, 2013 4:45 AM EDT

Instead of repenting, Weiner is trying to build a future based on $4 million and change collected from people he fooled, writes Stuart Stevens.

He left Congress in disgrace, but don’t blame his iPhone. The reason Anthony Weiner is not in Congress today is not that he was caught sexting an unknown number of women. No, the reason he was forced to resign is that he was such a despised member of Congress that his own party, including the president, jumped at the chance to get rid of the self-righteous, hectoring Chuck Schumer Mini-Me. Other more popular congressmen have survived real sex scandals far worse.

If you were writing a movie or television show about Congress and looking for a character the audience was sure to loathe, you’d start with Weiner. Here’s a guy who regularly condescended to every member of Congress but whose intellectual talents were such that he originally aspired to be a weatherman. In Congress, he was the political equivalent of a minor celebrity, famous mostly for being famous: in 12 years, he was the lead sponsor of one bill. He narrowly won his first race, for a seat on the New York City Council, after anonymously sending voters race-baiting fliers. That’s never a pretty sight, but considering he did it immediately after the Crown Heights riots, it puts him in the same slime bucket where anti-Semitic tax cheat Al Sharpton wallows.

On the City Council, he made a huge issue out of the millions of dollars of unpaid parking fines by U.N. diplomats and staff. As a former New York resident, I call that a noble cause, but then Weiner got to Washington and was busted for—you got it—thousands of unpaid parking tickets for his congressional car.

Right before he resigned from Congress, Weiner took time from his sexting hobby to go after Clarence Thomas and his wife. Writing on his blog, he ripped into Justice Thomas for failing to disclose that Virginia Thomas, a private citizen, worked at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. (Everyone in Washington knew Thomas’s wife worked at Heritage—that being part of the point of her being hired—and Thomas amended the financial disclosure forms.)

full article
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/21/anthony-weiner-s-cardinal-sin-rank-hypocrisy-not-creepy-sexting.html

[sinkingfeeling]

1. But Mark Sanford 's not a hypocrite?

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

3. Not in Republican America. IOKIYAR!!

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

2. Stuart Stevens is a right wing jerk, but he makes some good points about Weiner.

The comments are far more entertaining, though.

[madinmaryland]

4. That is written in Tucker Carlson's rag. More than a bit biased against Democrats.

[unblock]

5. not liking much of this article, but some good points about the nature of "scandals".

scandals are not simply things that happen out of the blue and derail a political career. there's much more going on behind the scenes. many "scandals" are actually well-known stories, at least inside the beltway, and either never become scandals at all or only become scandals when the politician crosses his allies.

some are on their own so a scandal spells instant political demise, others are highly insulated so they can get away with murder. by and large, republicans are usually well-insulated because they are all about loyalty, they take care of their own, to a fault. democrats tend to eat their own, so they are much more vulnerable to scandal, meaning that democrats need to be saints while republicans can be, well, not.

[karynnj]

6. One thing that sticks out here is the timing the article ascribes to his going after Thomas

They say "right before he resigned". Now, I do NOT know the real time frame, but I do know that as soon as there were calls that he step down, one theme here was that the entire expose happened due to his going after Thomas. (Not to mention, this was more than "everybody knew" - it went to whether there were things where Thomas should have had to recuse himself and didn't)

As to Weiner NOT being defended by the Democrats in power, I really don't think it goes to him being "despised". In fact, he was referred to as a potential LIKELY candidate for Mayor of NYC and his wife was HRC's top aide. That is pretty damned connected to top Democrats and promoted by them. I am not writing this well - but consider whether the TPTB would have signaled comparable approval for Congressman Kuchinich to become mayor of Cleveland (again).) I suspect it was because he HAD been one of those favored (fast tract) by the party and he blew it with this.

What this seems is an attempt to smear someone to try to insure that he never gets up again. After all, even if you consider everything anyone even accused him of did, was he more immoral than Sanford or misuse his position more? Sanford ABANDONED his job as the chief executive of his state and no one knew where he was and he used state money.
Here, the money they are objecting to is the money raised by Weiner for his campaigns. While some may regret their contributions, the intent was to use the money to run for office.

I suspect that it was not that he was despised, but that Democrats are more susceptible to feeling embarrassment and shame and generally do have a more idealistic view of how someone in elected office should act. Even in the likely counter examples, you still find significant willingness to admit that in some way the person was flawed. The prime example would be Clinton, where it is hard to find ANY Democrat then in Congress who did not speak of his actions with Monica in condemning words. I found the Senate record for the days before their vote fascinating as the words and reasons used showed far more about the person speaking than Clinton. However, they ALL then made cases for why this was not reason to vote him out. In addition, all of them spoke - even at that time- about the good things he had done. I think the difference between the Democratic response to Clinton and the response to Weiner and Edwards is that Clinton's accomplishments and importance to the Democratic party meant that while their was the same disgust for the actions, it was balanced by recognition that this was an insignificant irrelevant part of who he was -- with Weiner and Edwards, neither had the accomplishment, though both had the potential for future accomplishment. Part of the emotion with which both were dismissed was not just the disgust but the disappointment and almost betrayal of their trust in supporting these men before hand.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. I pay zero attention to the Daily Beast, slapdash and biased and worthless

nt

[SunSeeker]

8. Hey Stu, your guy Romney could teach Weiner a thing or two about hypocrisy. nt

Oh, and not everyone knew Ginny Thomas was a influence peddler for teabaggers. Thomas corrected the disclosure papers only AFTER he got caught omitting that fact. I don't care WHEN Weiner pointed that out, he was right to do it.

[brooklynite]

9. Anthony Weiner’s Cardinal Sin: LYING to the Public...