The SoapBoxers

Frankly, Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner is in a lot of hot water these days.  He sent racy photos (of his, well … use your imagination) to several women over the internet and lied about it when he was confronted.  (His acting was definitely not Oscar-worthy.)  When he finally came clean, it turns out that he was having online relationships with six women.

The media frenzy around the scandal has reached a boil, and many inside the Washington power circle are attempting the skewer the congressman.  The Republicans are relishing this opportunity, pushing Weiner to resign.  Members of Weiner’s own party are turning against him, joining the Republicans in the chorus, in an attempt to distance themselves from the congressman.

The most likely situation is that Weiner will resign, a special election will be held, and the democratic candidate will win.  The Democrats will continue to represent New York’s 9th congressional district.  They’ll lose Weiner’s seniority, but also distance themselves a bit from Weinergate.  It’s possible that a Republican can would, but it would be an uphill climb in the left-leaning 9th district.

My question is this:  why are the Republicans in such a hurry to see him go?  Time and time again, the opposition party tries to force someone to resign when they become embroiled in ethical issues.  Wouldn’t it be better to allow Weiner to keep his seat?

Here’s my logic.  If Weiner resigns and is replaced, the scandal will eventually fade, another Democrat will be elected to represent New York’s 9th congressional district, and the country will forget about Anthony Weiner (since the vast majority never knew he existed before this scandal).  The lasting impact will be minimal.

However … if Weiner stays in office, the Republicans have an albatross to hang around the neck of President Obama and the rest of the Democrats.  Find a photo of Democratic Senator John Doe giving Weiner a high five and use it in a commercial to support Doe’s opponent – painting Doe as a friend of Weiner, and painting the Democrats as the Weiner party.

The best plan for the GOP: keep Weiner in the House!

Your smartphone breaks.  You take it to the shop.  Do you care if the guy who fixes it has an addiction to lesbian porn as long as he fixes your phone?  You have the flu and go to the doctor.  Do you care if your doctor is having an affair on their spouse as long as they get you the appropriate treatment within the proper safety protocols?  I’m sure some of you will say you care, but I’d bet most of the people you say they would get upset about that actually would.  Think about it, if someone came up to you and said, “The guy who fixed your iPhone has gigabytes of woman-on-woman action on his home computer.”  The vast majority of people are going to say, “ummm … so?”

In that same way, I really don’t care that Anthony Weiner had inappropriate contact with women online.  I do care that he lied about it, though.  Had he come clean from the start, said that he used the internet for strange sexual purposes, he probably would have been ok.  I’m sure there would have been some outcry from Republicans.  We all know how they’re the moral bastions of politics – heck, they like marriage so much that the most prominent righties often do it two or three times. I think he’s a good politician, he seems to genuinely have the interests of his constituents in mind (being from NYC, he represents a large number of lower and lower-middle class folks), but at this point I just can’t get past that lying part.

When did America become the uptight prude of Western nations, anyway?  Was it the founding by the puritans?  Europeans laugh at us every time we make a huge deal over some political sex scandal, they practically EXPECT their leaders to have an affair or two while in office.  Heck, the leaders of France and Russia are married to supermodel class women, as far as looks go, and as far as I can tell are more popular for it.  Holding our leaders to some sort of moral standard that hasn’t evolved since slavery, smoking, bloodletting, and World Wars was in vogue just seems dumb.  We all have our unique perversions, even if we don’t admit it to ourselves or talk about it with others.  I honestly don’t care that Bill Clinton likes creative cigar use, he gave us some amazing years of prosperity and knocked a huge chunk off the country’s debt.

So … back to the lying thing.  Why is it ok for politicians to outright lie, but they have to be the modern equivalent of Beaver Cleaver’s parents when it comes to “adult” issues?  Ronald Reagan was involved with and lied about a secret deal that sent weapons to Iran (yes, THAT Iran) in return for money that was used to fund drug-selling rebels in South America.  We have politicians giving no-bid contracts to questionable companies and we care more about Anthony Weiner doing what at least 50% of all men have done.

Maybe a lot of people out there want to care about sex and personal lives, but that seems to be a lot more like the way they live in Afghanistan and Iran than here.  Well, we sold weapons to Iran to fund people that sell drugs to our youth, so maybe we do want a harder line on morals.