Ahh, New York Post. What would we do without quips like these?
“Anthony Weiner’s not shrinking from elected office.”
Do you think they walk around the Post offices and pun all day long? Pun master Jamie Reidy would love it…
But seriously, at what point do we forgive Anthony Weiner and move on? Is there a way to look at him purely as a politician and forget that he lied about having photographed his own junior member and texted it to a woman (or women) in the middle of a scandal so ferocious that he resigned from Congress?
The Post explains:
Since Weinergate, he’s played the quiet role of stay-at-home dad in Queens. His wife, senior Hillary Rodham Clinton aide Huma Abedin, 35, has stayed in her high-powered, globe-trotting post.
Usually dressed down in jeans and a baseball cap, Weiner has been spotted riding the subway in Queens, shopping with his family in SoHo and picking up his wife at the airport with 6-month-old son Jordan in the back seat.
“I still have regrets,” Weiner told WNYC radio last month. “I paid a very high price . . . I feel great regrets for the people I’ve let down.”
Weiner made the media rounds to applaud the US Supreme Court’s health-care decision last month — dipping his toe back into political waters.”
What do you think? At what point do we forget Weiner’s transgressions? How much remorse is enough?
At what point did Weiner’s private life become a matter of national business, anyway?
AP photo/ John Minchillo
oh please run for something again. The world needs some comic relief… This shit writes itself… Run Weiner… Run!
It depends, were the pictures solicited? If not that’s kind of indecent exposure, and I do think criminal activity by politicians is the public’s business. If not, then it’s between him, the women in question and his wife and hasn’t got anything to do with how he does his job.
Also, running for office is often an adversarial and comparative process. His bid for mayor will depend A LOT on who runs against him. It’s amazing who you’ll vote for when you think the other candidate is even worse….
An interesting political question is to what degree voters might identify with him, and therefore maybe even vote for him as ‘someone like me.’ Let’s not pretend he is the only person to royally screw up using social media. Perhaps he could be the poster boy for everyone who overshares on Twitter, which today must be, what, 50 million people in the U.S.? Another thing to remember is how short the electorate’s memory can be. I seem to recall Joe Biden’s career years ago completely destroyed by plagiarism in a speech. He was a total laughingstock. And, of course, no… Read more »
It’s not my place to ‘forgive’ him. It’s not any of our places.
I will say this – I will never forgive the women that run the Democratic party for turning on him the way they did. They stand by women no matter what they do, but the second a man makes them feel icky, they brought out the knives. There is no place for men – or any issues that concern them – within that party.
@Soullite I agree with it not being within our right to forgive him–he certainly didn’t do anything to me. But that’s arguable and I’d be open to hearing more on that. I 100% disagree with your second point. To say that there is no place for men in the Democratic party is just untrue. There are also tons of issues that concern men being dealt with–in fact, most issues being delt with do concern men, just not exclusively. I also disagree with generalizing ALL women the way you did. I think it’s easy, wrong, and counter productive. Not all women… Read more »
What a Butthead!
Or is he Beavis?
Should he be forgiven? The problem is that the people who would need to forgive him are probably conservatives (most of the liberals supported him until the end, many still support him now). But why should conservatives forgive Weiner when liberals refuse to forgive any conservative figure, ever? Whenever a conservative screws up you can be sure that the liberal establishment will rush to label their apology a “fauxpology” then probably call them a racist/sexist/privileged/whatever. The conservatives do this too, and that’s the real problem here. Why should either side accept an apology and forgive when the other side refuses… Read more »
This isn’t about forgiveness. Of course people should forgive him. As a general rule, people should forgive those who’ve harmed them.
But to forget would be irresponsible.
Of course his private life matters when it reveals that he’s a man who lacks integrity. Why on earth would anyone want a person like that as their leader?
I say he expressed enough remorse when he admitted it. He never should have resigned.