Blogs Jun 16, 2011 at 8:28 am

Comments

1
I fucking give up. Weiner resigns for not having sex and Vitter stays having sex while breaking the law? Weiner resigns while Charlie Rangel whose corruption is common knowledge gets to stay? Democrats are ashamed of Weiner but give Bill Clinton standing ovations?

Fuck you Democrats. If I want hypocritical, puritanical assholes, I have Republicans.
2
My Facebook status today:

I know it's childish, but I so want the headline and lede to read:

WEINER PULLS OUT, SANTORUM ALL OVER IT

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) resigned from the House today, prompting former Sen. Rick Santorum to spin a frothy mix of rhetoric at a town hall meeting in.....
3
Democrats are incompetent and awful. They should have been diffusing this situation instead of fueling the fire, and now they've lost an awesome Congressperson. Way to go, idiots.
4
What the fuck Democrats?

Weiner was of the few who had a strong liberal backbone in congress and you just want to get rid of him?
5
Damn. I was starting to like the idea of a sitting member whose dick I'd seen. As Colbert might say, this is a real loss for the political manscape of our nation.
6
P.S. to those wishing to lay exclusive blame on the party leadership for his quitting, that's nonsense. The party had to run damage control routine C, and Weiner must have known that. Had he the actual backbone @4 wishes he would not be folding.
7
If it wasnt for the additional photos out there, he probably would have kept his job. Seriously, he took dozens of semi-nude photos of himself and his junk, texted & tweeted them to young women, got caught, & repeatedly lied about it. More women are coming out saying that he asked them to lie about their relationship. Where theres smoke, theres fire.

So Vitter gets to keep his job and all that does is show how immoral the Republican party is. Or would you rather the Democrats stoop to their levels because Vitter got away with it?
8
So frustrated with Democrats right now. Rachel Maddow had great messaging on this: "It's okay if you're a Republican!" Dems could have doubled down and demanded that Vitter and the other LAWBREAKING scumbags had to step down too.

And WTF with the media expecting apologies? An apology is something you give for hurting someone's feelings, not for giving misleading answers to invasive and inappropriate questions.
9
@1, not just sex -- illegal sex with prostitutes. Wiener broke no laws.
10
@9

Kinda like how Sarah Palin broke no laws with Troopergate up in Alaska. Right?
11
Don't give up yet. He'll be back. American's love a good come back story, but to come back, you gotta go.
13
What a fucking putz. I'm happy he's not my congressman.
14
This has to be about what Weiner told leadership after this broke. I bet that they asked him about this stuff and he assured them that he didn't do it. It's the only logical explanation why they've gone after him so hard.

People can disagree about whether the stuff he did was a big deal. I tend to think that it was kinda dumb, but not that bad. But if he was called on the carpet by Pelosi or somebody else in leadership and then lied, game over. That's why I think he's toast. Once you break trust with your collegues, you're radioactive.
15
Was what Weiner did smart? No, considering he is in the public eye. But should he be humiliated and out of a job (and pressured to go to treatment?!?) because he has a sex drive that brought him to the vast adult market on the internet? No. This is ridiculous.
16
At least Vitter did not subject America to looking at his dick.

Gone are the old-fashioned scandals of behind closed doors (like in a closet off the Oval Office). Wiener polluted America with a whole new genre of a sexual depravity scandal.

17
@7 Thanks for the talking points straight from Andrew Breitbart. Democrats ARE at the level of Republicans. No, they're worse. Why you ask? Because the Dems used to be at least be a brake on the rightward swing in this country. Now they are participating and enabling rightward acceleration. By "acknowledging" that Weiner did something wrong--which in fact was not at the level of a resignable offense--the Democrats are active in giving the Repubs the higher ground. This is entirely analogous to the more heinous and outrageous meme that "Obama caved." Obama and the Dem leadership don't cave--they want the Repub policies they cave to.
18
Vitter has friends in high places, since he's been in power so long. Weiner is a newcomer. I'm also wondering if Weiner's wife told him to resign. He said he was going to consult with her after she returned from a business trip.

If Weiner had come clean earlier, he might've had a better chance of beating this. Since he tried to say, "I didn't do it," the press kept on digging for new evidence.
19
So we are ignoring that the women receiving the texts didn't reciprocate the sexy talk and also that they tried to steer the conversation back to politics?
20
It's all damage control. Now the D's will take the moral high ground and claim that they got rid of their own bad guy while the R's let theirs (Vitter) stay afloat. Of course, it's not really about moral high ground, it's about using Weiner's bannishment as a club against the R's in the upcoming elections. Unfortunately, for the dim-witted D leadership, they don't realize that to the R's and their voters, all Vitter had to do was ask "his personal lord and savior" for foregiveness and he's off the hook.

So all this results in is a net loss for the D's in losing a strong voice and it sets a precedent that in the future all D's caught in a non-illegal sex scandal must resign.

The greatest impairment for the D party in the next elections is their own inability to see the obvious. What Nancy should have said was "boys will be boys, but at least he didn't fuck a prostitute or molest house pages."
21
Weiner's own constituents didn't want him to resign.

(Banging head on desk)

Gawdammit Demonrats are so stuuuuuuuuuupid!
22
I think the difference between Vitter and Weiner is that America didn't see Vitter's cock, so America was less titillated (er, outraged!) by his sex scandal and he and his fellow Republicans were able to wait it out and pretend like it didn't happen.

This is a really embarrassing day in American politics, not because we saw a Congressman's cock, but because the country (read: the media and his fellow politicians) lost its shit over it.
23
IOKIYAR!

Weiner pulls out!

Dems have no backbone!
24
What about Clarence Thomas? He didn't do any interesting sex crap that we know of recently, but he did have a great scandal break right when Weiner's did:

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/art…"judicial_insider_trading"_of_justice_clarence_thomas,_wife_"ginni"/

Judicial trading, and getting lots of money from the same people he later ruled in favor of on a 5-4 court decision.

Haven't seen that in the press at all. Except once on the Fox News website, wtf.
25
What about Clarence Thomas? He didn't do any interesting sex crap that we know of recently, but he did have a great scandal break right when Weiner's did:

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/art…"judicial_insider_trading"_of_justice_clarence_thomas,_wife_"ginni"/

Judicial trading, and getting lots of money from the same people he later ruled in favor of on a 5-4 court decision.

Haven't seen that in the press at all. Except once on the Fox News website, wtf.
26
@19: exactly. I don't give a shit that he engaged in consensual dirty talk outside of his marriage. I DO give a shit that he sent unasked-for dirty pictures to women he didn't know. Let me reiterate that: while engaged in conversation with a stranger (conversation that wasn't sexual in nature), he felt that the correct next step in that conversation was to SHOW HER HIS DICK. It's not illegal, but it's sure as hell not classy and it's not respectful of the boundaries of that woman, a woman whose rights he stood up and championed day after day (to his own personal and political benefit, because that rights-championing is what made all of us liberal women go "Oooh, this guy's pretty awesome").
27
Vitter? Oh, he's a Republican. Wouldn't want them to lose power, now would we?

Republicans hide behind moral convictions and forgive illegal transgressions while Democrats try to be moral by not forgiving non-illegal transgressions.

Fuck the Democratic Party, as a Wisconsinite I'm registering Progressive.
28
I almost wrote that I’d lost what little respect I had left for the Dumbs, but then I realized that flew out the window years ago. Nothing like having an “opposition party” that gives the neofascist right-wing psychopaths everything that they want and more. Thank you, Nancy “Off. The. Table” Pelosi.
29
By the way: When I run for office, the very first thing I'm going to do is publish my dick pics and get that out of the way.
It'd be like "Where's Waldo"!
30
@24, the press doesn't care about scandals when corruption involves money. It's (literally) not sexy enough to devote hours of press coverage to. The trading of money and influence in politics really does shock the conscience sometimes, but it doesn't goose TV ratings or online readership nearly as much as congressman cock. It's about as cynical as it sounds. Our news media is broken.
31
@19 &26....my "rights" would not be "violated" if someone sent me an unsolicited image of their cock. I mean, do I have a "right" to never be annoyed? Or to not think that someone else is an asshole? Seriously.
32
We could just skip all this next time, and require Congressmen running to post dick pics. It would make elections more interesting anyway.

(sorry for the double post above, better not happen this time...)
33
America: founded by Puritans, governed by puritanical hypocrites.

Seriously, what percentage of the US House do you think has engaged in some form of "inappropriate" sexual behavior? They crucify (most) of the ones that get caught to run interference for all the ones that haven't (yet).

If only the media covered dubious and/or illegal wars (to name only one thing) with the same vigor with which they covered congressional cock shots...
34
Why didn't Weiner just declare that he was switching parties on day one of this?
35
Meh. Another boilerplate democrat who only rocked the rafters to position himself as a viable contender for mayor of new york city. A replaceable empty suit. And no, in light of that reality, the faux indignation and absurd hypocrisy that defines the great diversion of congress (who literally exist to enrich the top ten per cent who OWN THEM ALL) it simply does not matter.
36
Vitter will stay forever if the Democratic party in Lousiana doesn't get it's act together. There is a promising woman coming up in New Orleans, Carolyn Fayard, but I don't know if she can challenge a Republican for statewide office successfully.
37
@31 Who said anything about a person's right to never be annoyed? We were just bringing up the point that Weiner DID do something wrong and that people are overlooking that. I do not know how wrong it was: the women interviewed about these texts suggest that some amount of flirting led to his behavior, but that they were unwelcome.
38
That is, Weiner's behavior and images were unwelcome.
40
@20: that occurred to me too - i thought "too bad he's a jew, jesus can't forgive him like vitter and haggard etc etc ad nauseum".

41
@21 This is actually what bugs me. I think in the case of scandal, assuming no laws broken, the politician in question should immediately go up for an election by his/her constituents. Otherwise YOU HAVE DISENFRANCHISED THOSE PEOPLE. I'm going to repeat that again. Weiner's constituency elected him in. They should therefore have the say on whether he stays or goes.

Now, if he did something illegal then boot him out. (Hi, Vitter!) Too rational an approach I suppose, but dammit, the Dem party here has unilaterally disenfranchised these people by making the decision on him going.
42
David Vitter votes correctly for the Corporate Heads of State...Weiner does not. Any questions?
43
@30 - the media is broken? - sounds about right - but they serve up what people want - so I'd say there's plenty of responsibility to go around.
44
If I was a man and had a cock like that I would send pictures of it to everyone including your mom.
45
Had there been photo/video evidence of Vitter in the act, he'd have been toast, too. And if Wiener had actually had real sex with other women, but there were no pictures, he'd have weathered this. It really is that simple and isn't about Dem vs. Rep. Is that so hard to understand?
46
Had there been photo/video evidence of Vitter in the act, he'd have been toast, too. And if Wiener had actually had real sex with other women, but there were no pictures, he'd have weathered this. It really is that simple and isn't about Dem vs. Rep. Is that so hard to understand? I am really surprised that people don't get that.
47
"Weiner was of the few who had a strong liberal backbone in congress and you just want to get rid of him?"

I think you just answered your own question.
48
@ Kinison, are you suggesting that Palin resigned because of troopergate? I know you're not the brightest slogger, but you're not THAT gullible, are you?
49
THIS IS DISGUSTING. god.. i hate politicians.
50
How absurd is all of this? Get out the “one size fits all” mold. When you look at the likes of Gingrich, Vitter, Edwards, Spitzer, Schwarzenegger, etc., Weiner sure is getting the shaft.
51
We know he has a dick, but where are his balls?
52
Weiner has been mishandling the fallout ever since the scandal broke, which only served to make it worse. First he lied about it, then he went into a pathetic cower, then he pathetically went into rehab, then he pathetically resigned. If he'd come out swinging and told us all point blank that his private life was none of anyone's business and to get over ourselves, he would have survived this. It was his pathetic apologies that emboldened his attackers and led to his downfall, not the scandal itself. His is a case study in how NOT to handle a sex scandal.
53
The GOP politician he should be compared to is Larry Craig not Vitter cause the GOP was going the same with Craig telling him to go. Craig stayed and so should Weiner.
54
I find myself in the nauseating, even appalling, position of agreeing with a thing like Dan Savage.

The worlds' gone mad.

Or more likely, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. For Savage it's once a decade or so, but the point remains the same.
55
Best unintentional Weinerism, from the Huffington Post:

"Cuomo Faces Strategic Choices In Filling Weiner's Seat"
56
@ 54, what an intellectual stimulus. Thanks for sharing.
57
It's not just the lying and loss of trust amongst colleagues that ousted Weiner, but also the fact that the visual evidence (the photos) are FOREVER and are all over the internet. Vitter's and Craig's issues weren't accompanied by multiple photos of their bodies and parts to keep showing OVER AND OVER on news shows, websites, etc. for mock-fodder. It's the media who decided to DROP the Vitter and Craig cases in the face of the Republican machine that stands behind their own when they want to keep a seat (and gets them to quietly quit when they don't, like Rep. Lee). The GOP stood behind Vitter and Craig becaue they saw those as seats they needed to keep and cases that would fade away over time, as they have. The GOP and interest groups would have used those Weiner photos for the entire election cycle if he had not resigned. It's no reflection on his performance in Congress IMO, just a reflection of the Dems to be rid of the association with Weiner's photogasms.
58
Breitbart: "You can't win, Dems. If you strike down your own man, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

Way to get pwned, Democrats.
59
@51 FTW.
60
"Weiner was of the few who had a strong liberal backbone in congress and you just want to get rid of him?"

I'm really wondering where you get that from. Weiner has a typical voting record for an urban, East coast democrat and hasn't shown any particular legislative initiative. If you look at where he got his money from it's mostly from finance, insurance, and real estate, so it's not like he didn't get any corporate cash... http://tinyurl.com/3cquwpu . His most notable initiative was the call for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself which had 0 chance of success and was mostly posturing. So Wiener's "backbone" was mainly yelling in the House, on MSNBC, and on Fox News. Henry Waxman has backbone. Nancy Pelosi, who oversaw an incredibly effective legislative session during the first 2 Obama years and fought tooth and nails and didn't give up until health care passed has backbone.
Anthony Wiener is/was a narcissistic self-promoter who apparently was in it for the power and because he liked seeing himself - and being seen on - TV. Democrats were right to get rid of the pathetic loser. People who are calling this "hypocritical" don't really seem to understand the word.
61
@54

"aww shucks! the world's gone all topsy-turvy and now I find mahself agreein' with wanna them homersekuals about sumptin'! well Dan...I suppose noneovthat powerful corrosive acid you have a'coursin' through yer veins gonna git on me an' mine if we see eye ta eye jus' this once!"

aren't the guy who always says you don't want anyone to be policing your bedroom? Savage does too. watch out-----you've been agreeing with him all along!
62
He sexually harassed women. And titillated a few who wanted his nudes. But he still SEXUALLY HARASSED WOMEN. GTFO, you dick.
63
@62 Where's the power dynamic? Most were not constituents. They could just mute his Twitter like with any other bozo. So, I am not buying it.

Also, love the Pelosi boostering for Healthcare! Lol, that's funny because I remember it being health-insurance-and-pharmaceutical-industry-bailout-while-providing-no-cost-control-and-fucking-the-taxpayer bonanza. Remember the highlights from 2006 when impeachment was off the table and the Dem leadership couldn't even bring themselves to defund the Iraq War or even set a fucking time line--you know things we elected them to do?

Nah, didn't think so.
64
I guess this is why they call members of the polyarchy "representatives." Fucking hypocrites.
65
@63 - for the power dynamic see here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arch…
that and street harassment is harassment, too - unwanted, inappropriate sexual advances are harassment even if there is no power dynamic.

As for Pelosi - they got comprehensive universal health insurance passed. That's an unbelievable feat. Was the law designed to minimize resistance by some of the more powerful interest groups? Of course it was - that's why it stood a chance in the first place. Would a public option have been great? Sure, and it was in the House Bill and it was certainly something that Pelosi wanted. But after the Scott Brown disaster and being dependent on people like Lieberman and Specter the votes in the Senate just weren't there. The alternative was no health care law - and the continued disgrace of tens of millions of uninsured Americans. And I believe Pelosi actually cares about that and not about impressing chicks by yelling at Megan Kelly.

As for "what we elected them to do" - you never actually read a poll of Democratic voters, did you? They most certainly weren't elected to impeach Bush and large majorities of the people who actually vote Democrats - as opposed to the people who read FDL and consider themselves "the base" - prefer compromise over confrontation. That's not a normative statement on my part but a factual statement.
66
Please. You talk about compromise as if it consists of negotiating from the right to go further right. That is the Democratic leadership way.

It's a great feat to get another bailout, I agree. Or to negotiate away drug reimportation. That is not comprehensive health insurance when you require people to buy crappy insurance that will do nothing to cover costs rising. It is not comprehensive when 40 million people will still be without any medical care. The public option sparkle pony was used to take the eye off of single payer. I'll give you that the House was better than the Senate. Hell, the House's proposal was FAR better.

Oh, btw, I don't read FDL..they seem like gatekeepers anyway. OK. Let's revisit 2006 and see what the exit polls had to say: here amongst many others indicate that the Iraq War (you never addressed that) and Bush's handling of it were major issues in that election. To me that indicates a mandate to check Bush, which Pelosi and Reed never did. They just acted very stern and made many half-hearted protests for two years. They just compromised with evil policies and when a Democrat was elected, they easily advocated the same policies.

"prefer compromise over confrontation. That's not a normative statement on my part but a factual statement." See @64. Then they get what they deserve I guess and the rest of us will suffer with and because of them.
67
@65 btw, even though you provided no substantiation: nice way to marginalize by calling some people Real Democrats and super duper hard leftists (from, zomg, FDL!) not Dems. If I were a Democrat, I'd take offense. "Compromise" is only useful for moderate, corporate Dems when dealing with the right I guess. People ostensibly on your own side get "confrontation."
68
@62, how the fuck did he sexually harass women? He sent a message to the wrong person my mistake, that's a MISTAKE, not sexual harassment. The women he mutually corresponded with about sex are not victims. They participated of their own free will. Just because some porn queen runs out and hires Gloria Allcunt doesn't mean she is suddenly an innocent victim. @62, if we lived by your definition of sexual harassment we'd disappear as a society within one generation. If a guy says "hey girlfriend, lets fuck and she says okay" is he sexually harassing her? You're an idiot.
69
@68 - read some of the staff that TNC writes, e.g. here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arch…
Weiner sent explicit messages - and in some cases pics - to multiple women, several of them, including the woman he sent the initial twitter pic to, never participated in any sexual conversation with him.

@67 - we're not going to get anywhere, but just to clarify: I never said people on the left aren't real Democrats, they most certainly are. But many of them see themselves as the only real Democrats, as the "base" etc. - as in your comment "things we elected them to do". The Democratic party is a catch-all party whose voters include everyone from leftist social democrats to moderate conservatives like Andrew Sullivan or Fareed Zakaria. I would much prefer that weren't the case and the US had a social democratic or labor party strong enough attract ~50% of the electorate, but that's simply not the case and we'll have to deal with that reality.
And so I find the exercise of standing on either extreme of this spectrum and claiming to be "the base" silly - I find it silly when Blue Dogs do it and I find it silly when DailyKosers, FDLers etc. do it.

As for the Iraq war - I think Democrats were terrible when it started - and I was on the streets months before it did - but come 2006 the situation was a mess, poorly understood by voters and I think Democrats were hesitant to make radical shifts - and in hindsight they were probably right about that. But I'll give you that Democrats tend to be rather terrified and easy to intimidate on all things security. I've just kind of given up the hope that US foreign policy will ever shift dramatically, so I'm judging politicians to 90% by domestic issues and just kind of accept that Democrats are the lesser of two evils in foreign affairs.
70
"And Vitter?"

What hypocrisy. Did Dan ever suggest that Vitter shouldn't resign? No. Did he suggest that Weiner shouldn't? Yes.

Why the double standard?
71
Weiner should run again.

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