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About Anthony Weiner
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
"On transparency", "About inviting the people back into their government again", and "Part of the job of the next American president is making Americans believe that our government is working for them, because right now they don't feel like it's working for them. They feel like it's working for special interests and it's working for corporatio ns"
"We need a president who sees the government not as a tool to enrich well connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as a defender of fairness and opportunit y for every single American. That's what this country's been about and that's the kind of president I intend to be"
I don't know how anyone can say this incident lacks "substantive relevance. "
For a US congressman to send sexually explicit photos of himself over the Internet to a half-dozen women he doesn't know, and to engage in phone- and cybersex with these complete strangers, shows that he has appallingl y bad judgment, and is mindboggli ngly reckless, especially in this political climate and following on the heels of Chris Lee and Spitzer. It suggests his attachment to this behavior is such that he lacks the power to control it, that it controls him.
Then, of course, his lying about it puts his credibility at issue.
How anyone can maintain that these issues aren't substantive or relevant is beyond me.
Sex scandals jeopardize that message and so the scandalized person must be ridiculed and the behavior, no matter how common, must be pointed out as a beyond the pale aberration .
People are going to resign over stuff in Star magazine?
The media didn't jump on this story until after a crotch-shot got posted on Twitter. That's not exactly private. And now apparently Weiner was having phone sex with his taxpayer-f unded phone and office.
The man cracked down on registered sex offenders and helped pass a law which forced them to disclose more details of their online identity, yet here he is jumping into sexual relationships (and from at least one account of one girl, with surprising speed) with girls he doesn't know (whose ages he doesn't know).
But, because he didn't rise to the legitimizing sin of "hypocrisy " then nobody should be saying a thing about any of this. And let's be clear, when we say "hypocrisy " we don't actually mean that the person tried to pass a law making their actions illegal, or even spoke out against what they ended up doing, they simply were close enough to a "family values" candidate that we can make enough generaliza tions about their positions on things they never talked about to infer their hypocrisy. As if this vague form of hypocrisy, where you never actually used your position of authority to crack down on others who did what you did, is somehow more relevant than the character flaw of you being a liar and a cheat.
And really, in terms of chastising the press for probing into people's private lives goes, this simply isn't the right example. The man posted a picture of his boner on Twitter for god's sake.
If there were one politician who could handle this, it's Weiner. He was already attacked by his opponents for being an "anti-family" candidate back when he was a bachelor. It's not like he had far to fall on that front. He could have come out and said "yeah, I'm a horndog who likes women, end of story" . . . but he didn't. He lied. He made up fake stories about others committing felonies (those d@mn, dirty hackers) and he openly tossed out these lies in numerous interviews .
He's a broken asset. There are too many holes in the man now for him to ever puff himself up with righteous indignation about responsibi lity and accountabi lity ever again, and that's what the man was good for -- calling others out on their wrongdoing .
The blame lies entirely with Weiner on this one. Not the press. Not the tabloids. Not the lower forms of journalism (Breitbart). This is entirely Weiner's fault.
I realize that even politicians have a right to a private life, and the media should pay that due respect. But I have to say that Weiner's behavior here really troubles me -- far more, in fact, than Clinton's relationsh ip with Monica Lewinsky.
What bothers me about how Weiner behaved was the sheer recklessness and impulsiven ess of his acts. If the word 'discretio n' means anything, it should mean the avoidance at all costs of the sort of thing Weiner did. Consider: he sent off photos of himself bordering on the obscene (or even over that border), to women whom he did not know in the slightest, and who knew essentiall y nothing of him. How out of control, how much a slave to one's impulses, must one be to behave like that? How might he ever have been rightly surprised that those photos would surface under those circumstan ces?
At least it may be said of Clinton that he possessed enough discretion that he conducted his dalliance with Lewinsky and others with a reasonable expectation of complete privacy. While of course engaging in sexual activity, as did Clinton, might seem more extreme and deplorable , what counts more to me, and, I think, should count more to the larger public in a politician , is the ability to exercise discretion .
Let's put it this way: I rather doubt that Clinton's behavior would, say, stand much in the way of his getting a security clearance were he simply an ordinary citizen applying for one. Perhaps he would be required to own up to his wife to his behavior before being granted one. But Weiner's actions would suggest someone with a real personality/characte r defect that isn't going away with a confession ; he doesn't even seem to get the concept of discretion .
I find it very hard to think of him rising to a position where his judgment is decisive. I would want -- and I believe the public would want -- someone of stabler character in such a position. And while I'm happy to have him in support of issues that I support, I don't want him out in front as the face and voice for those issues after this.
Imagine if our news media were half as interested in the revelation that the Obama administration pressured Haiti to not raise its minimum wage to 61 cents an hour at the behest of American corporatio ns.
http://www.cjr.org/t he_audit/a _pulled_sc oop_shows_ us_booste. php
All morality aside, it is stupid to engage in these sort of activities because they often become public and ruin careers.
Your enemies and opponents will dig for this sort of dirt and find it.
That's why wise, self aware people avoid these high jinx, not because they are wrong or should remain private.
Anyone who really cares about their opportunities to do good and is connected with reality will not engage in activities that will kill their career.
I am very sorry Weiner showed that he has a serious self sabotage screw loose.
Rep. Anthony Weiner used an unflattering Jewlsh s3xual stereotype during another Facebook sexting session with a middle-age d woman, RadarOnlin e.com and Star magazine are exclusivel y reporting in a joint newsgather ing operation.
In a salacious new transcript of a conversation the embattled Democrat had with the woman, who lives in Nevada but does not want to be identified , the shamed politico asked whether his social networking pen pal gave “good” oraI s3x.
“You give good he@d?” the embattled and married New York congressman asked the woman on March 16, this year.
She responded: “I’ve been told really good...and i love doing it.”
At that point, 46-year-old Weiner declared: “wow a jewlsh girl who svcks (bleep)! this thing is ready to do damage.”
Journalist: If you don't know how old these women are, how do you know they're not underage?
"The war in Iraq was very very clearly about oil, as was the war in Afghanistan. The oil pipeline that was planned (in Afghanista n), the best security for that was an occupation ."
"If you map the proposed pipeline route across Afghanistan and you look at our bases? Matches perfectly. Our bases are there to solve a problem that the Taliban couldn't solve. Taliban couldn't provide security in that part of Afghanista n -- Well now that's where our bases are. So, does that have to do with Osama Bin Laden? It has nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden. It has everything to do with the longer plan, in this case a strategy which I wouldn't necessaril y call neoconserv ative, however it fits perfectly in with the neoconserv ative ideology which says, 'If you have military force and you need something from a weaker country, then you need to deploy that force and take what you need because your country's needs are paramount' . It's the whole idea of unilateral ism, of using force to achieve your aims."
-Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel whose assignment s included a variety of roles for the National Security Agency and who spent her last 4 1/2 years working at the Pentagon with Donald Rumsfeld
http://www.youtube.c om/watch?v =JUxI3rSLD O8
http://www.youtube.c om/watch?v =SltOy_F6Z II