Weiner-Gate: Much Ado About Nothing

Up til now, we've avoided commenting on the Anthony Weiner "scandal", mainly because even worse than we hate Weiner's stupid personal mistakes, we hate the self-righteous sactimony of the other Congressmen calling for his resignation.

Full disclosure here: we love Anthony Weiner. He's a fantastic Congressmen, he's one of the few Democrats who's not afraid to fight for Democratic values, and as evidenced by this photo of Weiner at the 2008 New York Gay Pride Parade, he's a great friend to the gay community.

But most of the Democrats in Congress are lining up to call for Weiner's resignation, while not surprising, a majority of his constituents want him to remain in office. So the classic chicken and egg question arises: Who gets to say who's in Congress - The other Congressmen, or the people who elected him? If people in a particular congressional district want a particular person to represent them in Congress, who are the other Congressmen to say that that person can't be in Congress? Most of the rest of the country were appalled that an ignorant, backwoods hate-monger like Jesse Helms was in Congress for so many years, but his constituents kept electing him, and so the other Congressmen had to accept him and work with him. Is Weiner any different?

As for Weiner himself, yes, what he did was stupid, and he definitely never should have lied. But again, it's just very hard for us join the lynch mob when the Dems who are suddenly so disgusted by Weiner have absolutely no problem ignoring the crimes of Wall Street which almost bankrupted the nation or ignoring the ongoing disaster which are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Libya. Priorities, people, priorities.

It's especially laughable that someone like Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, who is routinely mentioned as one of the least effectual members of Congress, was the first Democratic Senator to call for Weiner's resignation. Sen. Pryor, if you remember, was also the Congressmen, who in Bill Maher's documentary, "Religulous", stated that "you don't have to pass an I.Q. test to be a member of Congress." We would suggest to Sen. Pryor and others like him in Congress, that maybe they should focus on doing their jobs instead of wasting their time in silly political witch-hunts.