The Prowl: Keep Your Weiner to Yourself

This week, I feel obligated to weigh in on the whole Anthony Weiner fiasco.  I switched on three different nightly news programs earlier this week and Weiner seemed to be exercising his uncanny ability to suck all of the oxygen out of the room (perhaps only surpassed by Senator Schumer, who has also been known to eat all of his housemates' cereal).  It is my sincere hope that this sordid story will go away soon. But in the meantime, I suppose I my primary thought is: Who Cares?

Fundamentally, I am disappointed in the congressman.  This is not really because he is evidently a creeper, although I will get to that; more, it seems, that the gentleman from New York is just an idiot.  For someone who struck me at least as not being stupid (political ideology aside) he certainly did not exhibit any evidence of this in his recent scandal.  Any college senior looking for future employment is highly aware of the dangers of photos on the internet.  I would like to think that a congressman in his seventh term has a bit more savvy and intellectual wherewithal than a 22-year-old fresh out of the frat house.  Therefore, it is this widely accepted knowledge of the dangers of the internet that makes me wonder what could he have possibly been thinking?  In what universe did Anthony Weiner think he would not get caught?  This is the internet, after all.

Aside from a clear lack of understanding of the perils of modern technology, especially where the sacrifice of personal privacy is concerned, Anthony Weiner has shown us all that he is frankly a sketchy dude.  Sending half-naked photos of yourself to random strangers on the internet is generally not the type of conduct expected of our public officials, or really anyone for that matter.  This is because it is a rather pervy thing to do.

I have experience in this realm.  A guy I dated in D.C. for probably five minutes once sent a photo that had he thought about this with the correct body part would have regretted.  Given that he was not nearly as big as he seemed to think he was, I opted to spare everyone I knew from the trauma of seeing a little too much (too little?) and did not hit forward.  How easy would that have been though?  And while I would've looked bad doing it, he would've literally and figuratively come off worse because there is no situation in which it is not weird.  Moreover, he then asked for the photo back, and being evidently smarter than Anthony Weiner and cognizant of the internet being, well, the internet, I instead sent a photo of a waving toy cat.  We have not spoken since (for the best).  I can say with certainty that getting a photo of a guy I did not know all that well soliciting me to sleep with him was not exactly a non-smarmy way to go about the wooing process.

Having made this judgment that Congressman Weiner is kind of a douche, however, I am not entirely certain that I really care.  Provided no laws were broken, what does it matter that he has a deep personal flaw?  There are 535 members of Congress and I am sure that the odds are that some of them will have a weird sexual fetish that is taboo, some will do inappropriate things, and others will do nothing (legislatively or otherwise).  For these first two categories, as long as their private proclivities do not hinder their lawmaking ability, I do not see why anybody should get worked up about it.  For those voters who cannot successfully bracket the personal from the public though, I am inclined to think that this is what elections are for?  Of course the corollary to this is that our elected officials ought to be held to a higher moral standard.  First, what would that standard be?  Second, these people are merely representatives of the electorate, so treating them differently and pretending that all uphold some kind of virtuous ideal seems ludicrous.

Whether or not Anthony Weiner resigns ultimately is a question that he must personally consider with his family.  While former Congressman Chris Lee resigned in similar circumstances, as did former Senator Larry Craig for his "wide stance," Senator David Vitter is still in office after being identified as part of a prostitution ring, and well, we all remember how things went for former President Clinton.  This list suggests that there doesn’t seem to be a decisive rule for how we respond to scandal.  A former Canadian Prime Minister once said that "there is no place for the state in the bedroom of the nation."  Perhaps we can follow his lead and likewise pay less attention to the bedrooms of the state?  Even if those like Anthony Weiner, who bring this on themselves, don't deserve it.