Rep. Anthony Weiner announced his resignation today. At this point, I'm going to admit it was the one thing left to do. I know. Republicans in office have done as bad or worse and stayed. It doesn't really matter, though--that's their problem, and from a thoroughly partisan point of view, Rep. Weiner's Twitter incontinence wasn't just a personal problem for him, it was a problem for the Democratic Party.
I'm sympathetic to the point of view that he and Democrats could have toughed out the story until the media got bored and went away, but my first issue with that is, so long as there were more pictures or dick jokes to be made, the media was not ever going to get bored. My second issue with that is that: "It isn't the sex (in actual fact, there wasn't any); it's the stupidity."
Actually, I would say it's more than mere stupidity, but "stupidity" is a handy word. It was stupid to chat up followers on social media; everyone should know that the Internet never forgets. It was stupid to claim to be hacked and issue several denials; of course the truth always comes out, and cover-ups can be more off-pissing than the original offense. I think it would have been stupid to drag this thing out any more than it had already been. At least here we have a clear break in the stupid-chain.
I disagree with the idea that it was "prudery" that induced party leadership to encourage Weiner to resign--I think it was simple prudence. Although I, for one, admired his outspoken, smart speeches on the House floor, his efficacy is shot if he has become a joke. Also, it seems to me that issue regarding specifically what was wrong with what Rep. Weiner did is about something that isn't just "sexual" in nature. My mind isn't made up yet on what to call it, exactly.
Maybe the word I want is "immature". There's something transgressive about the nature of the Tweets that strikes me as a step past quotidian horndoggery--given the importance of his reputation as a politician, it was reckless. Also, there's the issue regarding whether he initiated the sexual nature of his correspondence with his followers, and whether some of them even wanted to be addressed that way--that is pretty distressing. It's hard to see a politician as a serious feminist ally if this is the sort of thing he thought he female followers were for. As opposed to being, I don't know, just politically-interested people who admired his firm stance on the issues that mattered to them, and not his firm anything else. His behavior has been really disappointing in these respects.
It's not so much that Weiner's reputation is shot because he's been exposed for some sexual peccadillo, as it is that he was hubristic about it. He's not being sloughed off because his reputation wasn't beyond reproach--it's because pride goes before a fall.
As a postscript, I don't think the answer to IOKIYAR is to say "Well, not us, too?" There's an inoculation against that ever working called "both sides do it". Why can't Democrats catch a break in the media when it comes to this kind of thing? I don't think calling out Vitter, or Ensign, or who-knows-who counts for anything. Because then, when the next one of their guys gets called out, why, they'll just trot out the Clenis, or Gary Hart, or Elliot Spitzer. No, it isn't fair. Life's not fair.
Now then, when does Clarence Thomas resign from SCOTUS for conflict of interest?
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