Ok, this whole Weinergate thing is really, really, dumb. What is really does is confirm that Democrats are not really all that good at political warfare. Look, it sucks that Democrats are going to be held to a different standard than Republicans, especially given Democrats like Rep. Weiner campaign on sexual privacy and Republicans like Larry Craig on "family values." But that's the way of it. Period. So if you're going to be a Democrat and try to do some good in this world, you just can't do the stupid stuff like sending pics of your junk over the internet. The deck is stacked against our side, but we've got to overcome it for the good of the country.
I'm not even talking moral judgment - his wife apparently knew about certain online activities before they were married last year. If she was ok with it, and the recipients of said photos were also, then there's really no problem. Even if she wasn't ok with it, then while that's a moral issue, it's none of our business. (This unlike Eliot Spitzer, who was caught red-handed as a massive hypocrite.) However, at some point, he's just gotta have some sense of political self-preservation. Weiner has made himself loved by the left as one of the most outspoken targets of right wing craziness. This alone will make him a target of everyone out there who's really good at taking people down. It's not fair, but you've gotta be 100% squeaky clean to be where Weiner put himself. This was just dumb - there's really not much else to say.
The second dumb thing was lying about it. The "none of your damn business" angle would have been much more noble, especially given he had to realize it was gonna come out. He probably just panicked there. All that said, I'm glad he has the guts to not resign. It's about time we had someone on the left who's not willing to slink away, tail between his legs. This is political warfare, and the media loves this stuff when it's about Democrats, but when the endless stream of Republicans haven't resigned, there hasn't been any problem. Weiner's sex life should have nothing to do with his job, and hopefully his district will remember that come 2012.
UPDATE: I'm adding a couple links to and quotes from Amanda Marcotte's recent pieces on this, as everything I've read from her in the last few days has been fantastic.
In this piece, Marcotte worries that Weinergate is the end of any pretense of sexual privacy for public figures. The end result:
If these new standards come in to play, it will mean a drastic reduction in the number of people willing to risk running for office---or be activists or writers or anyone that Andrew Breitbart deems interesting enough to start a harassment campaign against. Sensible people, realizing their sex lives will be an open book, will choose careers that don’t attract the attention of witch hunters. Unfortunately, those sensible people are exactly the kind of people we need more of in politics, having already ceded so much ground to the Bible-thumpers and people who believe that Obama is starting secret campaigns to confiscate guns and kill old people. Weiner, for instance, was targeted because he’s willing to fight the good fight on major issues of interest to liberals. Of course, running sensible people out of politics would suit the ends of Andrew Breitbart and his faux outrage machine just fine, which is all the more reason that he should be resisted.Here, she lists observations that really make it seem like we're simply becoming a more prudish nation. I find this the most troubling:
The surprisingly little amount of pushback that the Republicans have gotten for suddenly, as a party, moving towards an anti-contraception stance. They're still hedging their bets---they're only against it if you're too poor to afford it on your own---but the fact of the matter is this is a radical anti-sex position that they would have been afraid to have a few years ago. Even a few years ago, most conservatives wouldn't have been so eager to close down Planned Parenthood and screeching that you need to just shut your legs if you don't want to have babies, but now that's becoming a mainstream sentiment that is getting very little pushback from inside the Republican party.Finally, here, she writes about the sexism of people's bitching about maked pictures of guys, because "ew, who'd want to see that?" Obviously, she notes that sending cock pics to women that have not requested them is offensive, but it's sexist to think that just the very nature of a man's naked picture is always unwanted.
