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Aside from his bumbling and puerile handling of this situation, Anthony Weiner should not only not resign– he should remain as forceful and adamant about the causes he fights for as ever–provided there are no ethical impropriaties from his activities of course. Will he be kept at arms length by fellow democrats? Sure. The taint of the the Weiner problem is not something democrats want rubbing off on them. Will he be subjected to an incredible amount of scrutiny and scurrilous ribbing? Absolutely. That is the price you pay to play with yourself online.
A side note: Anthony Weiner’s behavior is not out of the ordinary. It’s not sick, as Chris Matthews described it. Being a perpetually horny male has never been pathological. It’s pretty normal human behavior, although its ramifications can be difficult to deal with (see Weiner’s wife for proof of that). The difference in this instance is Weiner ability to use a computer and camera phone. While this is salacious, it hardly measures as a significant scandal in my eyes. Neither did former republican congressman Chris Lee’s Craigslist embroglio.
I’m not trivializing Weiner’s behavior, but it’s not my place to judge him or his personal activities. More often than not sex– and sexual desire in American culture– is regarded as the four rail–shunned in public, but practiced in its most depraved forms in private. This dichotomy is striking. If we’re expecting elected officials to comport themselves above board, perhaps our expectations are too high.
