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SecretMethod70 · 06-08-2011, 05:34 AM

Ideally, admitted the truth, asked for forgiveness, and moved on. Realistically, come up with less absurd lies on the difficult path toward publicly admitting the truth.

This op-ed pretty much summarizes exactly how I feel (and why I feel this whole story is no big deal).

Hendrik Hertzberg: Anthony Weiner Comes Clean : The New Yorker

Quote:

ANTHONY WEINER COMES CLEAN
Posted by Hendrik Hertzberg
Sex scandals are an increasingly prominent, increasingly frequent, and increasingly varied part of American political life. They come in all flavors and orientations. If what the protagonist of the latest one said during his remarkable press conference this afternoon is true, if it’s essentially the whole story, then Weinergate breaks new ground: it’s the first entirely virtual political sex scandal, the first to have been conducted entirely via e-mail, and online social media. (Plus a bit of phone sex, perhaps. But that’s electronic, too.)

In other ways, though, it’s not so new. It confirms a pet theory of mine: the Clinton Rule, which states that when a married politician appears before cameras and microphones and starts babbling absurd lies about some sexual something, the person he is really trying to lie to is his spouse. The lies that get told to the public and the press are side effects. So far this rule has applied only to heterosexual politicians, but gay marriage is still in its infancy. We shall see.

The era of the modern sex scandal began in 1988 with Gary Hart, Donna Rice, the S.S. Monkey Business, and the Miami Herald. It seems almost quaint now, but back then it was de rigueur for the press to maintain that the sex scandal of the moment was not really “about” sex. What it was “about” was lying, which in turn meant that it was “about” something more important than sex, i.e., “character.”

The problem is that lying is an inherent part of adultery and, by extension, of any illicit or potentially embarrassing sexual activity or proclivity. By itself, the fact that a person has lied about sex tells you nothing about that person’s general propensity to lie. Unlike most citizens, prominent politicians like Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, and Anthony Weiner make speeches by the hundred, give media interviews constantly, and have extensively documented public records. If the politician is a habitual or characterological liar, the public record will show it and the lying-about-sex is redundant. If the politician is not a habitual or characterological liar, his lying-about-sex is misleading—is itself a lie, in a way.

On MSNBC, the cable-news “home page” of my political tribe, one commentator said that one of the things Weinergate shows is that powerful politicians assume they can get away with things that regular people can’t. If they do assume that, they’re wrong. It would be more accurate to say that they can’t get away with things that regular people can. Look around you. Consider your friends, your work colleagues, your relatives, maybe even yourself. It’s likely that a nontrivial proportion of them have some sexual secret (at least they think it’s a secret) in their lives. If their secret comes out, if they get caught in an embarrassing lie about it, the whole world isn’t going to hear about it. It won’t be national news.

After Weiner’s press conference, there was near-unanimous agreement among the cable talkers that his political career is finished. One of them predicted that Weiner will not be a Member of Congress two weeks from now. I doubt that. I found his conduct at the press conference quite impressive, given the circumstances. He seemed genuinely ashamed, genuinely sorry. But he also showed some steel, some determination, some discipline, some dignity. I think he'll be around for quite a while. The modern media embarrassment machine is bigger than it ever was, but so is the fatal dose. Weiner may yet be Mayor of New York one day. Just not next time.

---------- Post added at 08:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:31 AM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by samcol

I think this is a reflection on politicians in general. These people are pathological liars and only admit the truths when they are caught red handed, and even then it's only part of the truth.

Schwarzenegger, Wiener, Edwards, Clinton the list goes around the block.

These people run our country and are expert liars. Why would they not lie about the policies the set? They treat the the people closest to them horribly, and we wonder why our country is going down the tubes?

I would want him to step down if he was my rep. He's totally untrustworthy.

I also like how he tried to blame Breitbart. Weiner is a real piece of shit to be honest.

As the op-ed above points out, lying about infidelity (something which, by the way, an estimated 60%+ of all men do) does not reflect on one's general tendency to lie. Even if we accept that it does, Weiner's "scandal" is about the lamest political sex scandal ever (With Rep. Lee a close second). Now we're crucifying politicians who flirt with other ladies too? If 60% of all men have actual physical affairs, I'd love to see the numbers for men who cross the line while flirting but don't have a physical affair.