“….’CUZ IF I WERE (A CONGRESSMAN NAMED) WEINER, EVERYONE (MUST) BE IN LOVE WITH ME!”

6/7/11

Anthony Weiner’s sticky situation is the perfect story for modern news; it’s salacious, comically tragic, and provides further evidence, for the legions of us who fervently believe this to be the case, that our government is in the hands of a group of strange, aberrant people whose concerns, ideas, and values could not be more divergent from our own.

Opinion on Mr. Weiner’s gripping situation spans a wide, but not wide enough, range. His supporters spout such inanities is “What he does on his own time and in the confines of his own home is his business, so I continue to support him.” Those who oppose him decry Mr. Weiner’s sleight of hand (outright lying, really) to the press, the public, and his colleagues in public office. Some might go so far as to denounce Mr. Weiner’s dishonesty to his new wife; if he can lie to her, he can surely lie to us, goes the logic.

While lying is one of Mr. Weiner’s faults that have been exposed by this brouhaha, it is not the only peccadillo that ought to outrage the public. So far, though, no one has gone so far as to say what I am going to write now: Mr. Weiner’s lying was despicable, but it is standard operating procedure for just about all politicians. Politicians lie because, for them, to do so comes at least as naturally as telling the truth. They rationalize their lying, sometimes calling it, in the words of our immortal former governor in the Land of Lincoln, a “misdirection play” or some such cutesy-pie periphrasis for dishonesty. The lying was not Mr. Weiner’s only, or even, perhaps, most serious transgression. Simply put, it is perverted, immoral, depraved, and sick, especially, but not only, for a married man, to send illicit and explicit (mild words, to be sure) messages to women he barely knew, at least one of whom was young enough to be his daughter and, for all he knew, some of whom could have been minors. The image of a leering, middle aged man biding away his time at his blackberry texting pictures of the man he considers the very epitome of hotness (himself) to much younger woman and doing who knows what while doing so evokes memories of the Jethro Tull classic “Aqualung.” Once upon a time, we considered such behavior sick, perverted, and creepy. The only reason that Mr. Weiner had to lie, and the only reason that his actions were, as he called them, “dumb” was that all of us, even Mr. Weiner, know that he’s a pervert. What is strange is that, in this enlightened new world, everyone is afraid to, in this case, call a spade a spade. Instead, we castigate Mr. Weiner for dishonesty, while, fearing censure by the enforcers of modern morals, refrain from criticizing the handiwork that necessitated, in Mr. Weiner’s mind, the dishonesty we so decry.

Of course, it is Mr. Weiner’s right to occupy himself with his fantasies on his own time (How does such a busy Congressperson have time for such diversions? That is grist for another mill, I suppose.) and on his own computer and blackberry. Thank God he wasn’t using other people’s equipment, electronic or otherwise, for such activity! But I digress. While many of us would consider such behavior immoral (sick, really), it isn’t, and shouldn’t be, illegal, unless, of course, the objects of Mr. Weiner’s dexterity were minors. However, just as Mr. Weiner has the right to fritter away his time, and his other personal resources, imagining performing the most intimate of human acts with complete strangers, the people have the right not to be represented by those who dismiss what their constituents consider morally repugnant behavior as a mere harmless diversion.

I suppose this is the point at which modern morality dictates that I add “I’m no prude, but…” However, in this new, promising, modern age when we can criticize a man for dishonesty but dare not criticize a married man for entertaining himself by sexting with complete strangers half his age, I suppose that, as a guy who abhors both dishonesty and the type of behavior Mr. Weiner deemed so harmless, I completely qualify as a prude.