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"Wanna see my junk?"
Jun. 7th, 2011 06:31 pmProbably one of the worst things about the ongoing Anthony Weiner kerfluffle (other than the obvious black mark on his character, of course) is that it allowed a raging asshat like Andrew Breitbart (remember the Shirley Sherrod incident, among others? Of course you do) to grandstand and bloviate about actually being right about something for once. My prediction, however, is that he'll just go on to bigger and stupider wastes of time, and I'm sure that the media will eventually suffer their usual news cycle-spurred selective amnesia and look for another celeb/VIP/pol who's on the brink of self-destruction to cover ad nauseam for a little while. (In other words, Charlie Sheen, once he finally runs out of money and comes down from his high).
As far as resignations go, there's this: if simultaneous cases of Hookeritis and Diaperitis didn't hurt David Vitter's re-election chances in the Senate, why would anyone assume that Weiner would suffer pangs of conscience that would prevent him from running again in a safe House district? The key word is "conscience", of course. He can always change is mind on that issue, but let's face it - he's a professional politician, even if he's one I mostly agreed with. And that's the problem.
Politicians of all stripes were and are fond of pretending the rules don't apply to them, so why should his situation be any different? One look at the past histories of either Scummy or Der Gropenfuhrer indicates that once you start down a road of questionable - or even illegal - activity, most pols don't take their foot off the accelerator. That would be an admission that what they did was wrong, and even if (for example) Schwarzenegger might have had trouble explaining why that staffer's kid had this odd resemblance to him he'd never admit to the problem until he was safely out of the Governor's mansion in Sacramento. There was too much emotional, social and even financial capital at risk to let a problem like that blow up while still in office. Hence, the reason why everybody found out about it only after the fact.
Politicians, after all, are not like you and me. Or maybe they are. They're just better con men about it than most.
As far as resignations go, there's this: if simultaneous cases of Hookeritis and Diaperitis didn't hurt David Vitter's re-election chances in the Senate, why would anyone assume that Weiner would suffer pangs of conscience that would prevent him from running again in a safe House district? The key word is "conscience", of course. He can always change is mind on that issue, but let's face it - he's a professional politician, even if he's one I mostly agreed with. And that's the problem.
Politicians of all stripes were and are fond of pretending the rules don't apply to them, so why should his situation be any different? One look at the past histories of either Scummy or Der Gropenfuhrer indicates that once you start down a road of questionable - or even illegal - activity, most pols don't take their foot off the accelerator. That would be an admission that what they did was wrong, and even if (for example) Schwarzenegger might have had trouble explaining why that staffer's kid had this odd resemblance to him he'd never admit to the problem until he was safely out of the Governor's mansion in Sacramento. There was too much emotional, social and even financial capital at risk to let a problem like that blow up while still in office. Hence, the reason why everybody found out about it only after the fact.
Politicians, after all, are not like you and me. Or maybe they are. They're just better con men about it than most.
