I was really happy to see Anthony Weiner mounting a comeback
in American politics. While short on actual accomplishments, Weiner was a good
liberal advocate in Congress. More to the point, though, I’m not really
comfortable with people losing their jobs because of their marital
infidelities.
| Anthony Weiner (NSFW) |
America has proven time and again in recent years that, in
regard to sex scandals, there can be second acts in politics. Bill Clinton is
the most obvious figure here, but more recently, Mark Sanford was elected
to congress after stealing
taxpayer money to go on a sexy excursion with then-mistress/now-wife. Even
Weiner’s NYC pal, Eliot Spitzer, who had some fun with prostitutes on the
public dime, is up
15 points in his primary for New York Comptroller. All three of these
examples were pretty indisputably worse infidelities than Weiner sending
selfies to women not named Huma. And worse still, all of the above cost
taxpayer dollars which, unless you’re counting a data plan, Weiner did not do.
So I was happy to see the Weiner surge in the polls. He was up
3 points on City Councilor president Christine
Quinn as recently as last week. Then he had to go and muck it up again.