Now that Rep. Weiner’s in trouble, the knives are out. We knew the Repubs would be gunning for him, that’s to be expected. But the way Pelosi called immediately for an ethics investigation, the way Reed dissed him in a press conference (“call somebody else!”) the fact that no Dem is standing up for him when they should be doing their best for him. You know why?
Weiner was the ONLY Democrat that ever showed any sign of having a spine in Congress! He was the only one willing to take on the obvious bullshit the Republicans kept churning out directly. I still remember his presentation on the basic Republican health option for poor people: Die Quickly!
Damn, I know it must have been hard being shown up as a spineless, mealymouthed coward day after day by Weiner, but the answer to that is not retreating into more total cowardice, but to speak out and show some spine yourself! You wanna know why the Repubs keep beating the Dems like a drum even though they don’t have the demographics and they are proven failures every time they get a chance to govern? LOOK IN A FUCKING MIRROR!!! If we had more Congreemen like Weiner, the Republicans would have to FIGHT to fuck up America. We need more Weiners in Congress, at least they have balls!
Show some loyalty, some courage and some spine, Democrats! Weiner’s got flaws, well, so do you, and there’s a LOT you can learn from him.
Hey, they’d do the same thing to any Republican who’d done something similar, so fair’s fair. I’m mostly a Dem, and I don’t want to be associated with him, either.
He does. We have actual evidence of that now. Look, the guy’s just been caught sending pictures of his junk over the internet to random twitter ladies. Regardless of what they think of his views, his party is going to try to distance themselves from that. They’ve decided, probably wisely from a reelection standpoint, that they don’t want to endorse sending out pictures of your genitals, even clothed genitals, to people following you on Twitter. Don’t get me wrong, I think campaigns would be a lot more fun if that sort of stuff happened more often. But the conventions are covered on the networks, often starting before 10 PM, and that would probably fall foul of FCC regulations.
I think Weiner should double-down and just go with it at this point. He’s not getting any support from his party; the opposing party hasn’t come down yet from the heady high of a Democrat being caught with his pants down.
Fuck it. I propose the following campaign slogan for Congressman Weiner:
Weiner is my representative. Lots of TV crews and radio shows are going around asking “If you previously voted for Weiner, would you vote for him again?” Now, I know that the producers don’t allow intelligent answers, but just once I’d like to hear someone ask, “Who are my other options?”
As for Democratic congress critters, they shouldn’t stand up for him, but they shouldn’t throw him under the bus either (Pelosi).
Hey! I’m on a roll here! You’re the sort of person who would point out to Blutarski that it was the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor! (Yes, you’re right.)
Frankly, if he DID use Federal property to pursue his mini-affairs, then he SHOULD be investigated to determine that. Pelosi doesn’t want to investigate him about the online flirting and sexting, per se, but about whether he used his Congressional offices and phones to do so, which is, at best, an ethics violation.
I personally don’t give a flying fuck about the sexting and flirting. I’m angry at him for being stupid, and I’m also angry at him for giving Breitbart an iota of credibility.
Weiner was an idiot, and I don’t blame the Dems for wanting to distance themselves from him. According to the paper today, he gave Pelosi all of a 15 minute warning about this before he went public. His press conference was a disaster. The whole thing was a fuck-up.
I did like some of Weiner’s rants - he was a powerfully outspoken congressman, who had some good points.
But for fucks sake - grow the fuck up man. You represent the US. Are you such an immature punk that you can’t resist sending out these kind of pictures? Learn to show some maturity and self-restraint, or go the fuck home. Sure, it was legal (ethics issues re: congressional office/phone aside), and no, no one was hurt. But I am just fucking done with politicians who don’t think things through. If you aren’t willing to take 5 seconds to ask yourself “is this a good idea?” before sending pictures of your package to complete fucking strangers, then how do I know if you’re really taking the time to think about what’s best for the country?
I really don’t think expecting congressional office holders to refrain from acting like a fucking 8 yr old is expecting too much.
If Weiner had come clean when this story first hit the news, and said, “Yes, it’s a picture of my junk. It was wrong to send it, and i apologize,” i would agree with the OP.
But he spent the better part of ten days spouting lies and non-answers and cryptic responses. THAT’S what i have a problem with, not with the sending of lewd twitter messages.
I know that some people are arguing that this sort of thing is a “private” matter, and shouldn’t be anyone else’s business, but the fact is that, once you choose a career in politics, you have to accept that some things that most people consider private will, in fact, be considered fair game for public scrutiny.
Also, if the Congressman uses his Twitter account to disseminate information about himself and his politics to his constituents (and i’ll bet he does), then it’s hard to argue that the stuff he tweets should be private. If he wanted to send pictures of his junk, he should have set up a separate, non-official, junk-picture-sending Twitter account.
If i lived in his electorate, i’m not sure whether i would vote for him again or not. It would depend on what the alternatives were. If another Democrat with similar politics ran against him in the primary, i’d strongly consider voting for the new candidate. If Weiner won the primary, though, there’s a good chance i’d vote for him in the election, unless the Republican candidate had some very non-GOP-type political positions.
But wouldn’t it only be fun[ny] if it was actually perceived by the majority of the public as something shamefull, or at least, negative?
After all, it’s not shamefull to have a goofy name for your pet cat. Seeing a Congressman cuddle his cat and talking in baby talk would not make it on the news (just youtube).
Was he harassing the ladies? Exploiting them like sex-slaves/ prostitutes? Were they underage?
Unless real federal laws are broken, what a public servant does with his genitals are non-related to his job. Passing out public money to his cronies, accepting bribes from corporations, making bad laws, starting wars, torturing people … that’s what’s unacceptable for public servants.
Taking pictures of his genitals? Pf.
BTW, who would have cared if it had been a young woman sending half-naked pictures of herself? And how many would have signed up for more?
I have always liked him, but I wish he would step down. He’s given the opposition too much ammunition and I for one don’t want to be hearing Weiner Weiner Weiner every day for the next 18 months.
Think about the zombies, man!