19 thoughts on “Weiner Resigned”

  1. No harm done. Queens isn’t going to suddenly switch parties (like Chris Lee’s district). Weiner wasn’t the swing vote on any important votes. He was very good at expressing the frustrations of many Democrats, but he is not irreplaceable on that front.
    Yes it is not “fair” to Weiner that he has to resign while Vitter can get re-elected, but I don’t particularly care whether an elected representative gets treated fairly — only how it effects my overall representation. If his resigning let’s people think more about the debt ceiling or Medicare or taxes, then I guess it’s a good thing.

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  4. I’m surprised he didn’t tough it out.
    On the personal (rather than the political) level, his job was what a Catholic would call a “near occasion of sin.”
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_sin
    His job and the publicity from his public appearances gave him dozens of cute groupies to choose from. If he actually wants to mend his ways, resignation is the best choice.
    It seems that he was sending unsolicited smut to Ginger Lee, the stripper. She was just a political admirer, she says.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/15/ginger-lee-anthony-weiner_n_877372.html

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  5. eh.
    (my reaction. I wrote something longer, but then decided eh is my actual reaction. I do worry about Huda, though)

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  6. I assume he was told he would lose his committee assignments if he stayed. I can’t think of another reason for him to have left.

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  7. Reactions:
    1. Mostly, the same as bj’s. (“eh”)
    2. I don’t like politicians, so anytime something bad happens to one of them, it causes me mild happiness.
    3. I do like stories of sordid behavior, which enable me to think “Ewwwww!” so this story has been a source of pleasure for the past week.

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  8. Bummer, but I think he had to. I wish that he (or the dem leaders) had said, “Weiner will resign as soon as Vitter does.” Then again, maybe he was worried some of his activity was not just lewd but actually illegal.

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  9. Why is it always Vitter? There are a lot of other guys who are gone from Congress after much less lurid offences. Very recently, Christopher Lee (R) resigned after sending a Craigslist ad out with a shirtless photo:
    http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/congressman-chris-lee-resigns-shirtless-photo-posted-internet/story?id=12878937
    If anything, that’s the closest equivalent to Weiner’s activities, and Weiner’s level of extracurricular activity was a lot higher than Lee’s, as well as more lurid.
    Then there was Larry Craig (R) a few years back, who resigned essentially after being caught shuffling in the men’s room with intent.
    There’s also the issue of Weiner’s private messaging with high school girls. Nothing lewd has turned up in those communications, but I think it’s a very similar situation to Craig’s men’s room antics. In neither case did the guy do something objectively lewd, but it’s pretty clear what he had on his mind.

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  10. The jokes have been mostly subpar, so I’m glad that I won’t be forced to backseat jokedrive anymore.

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  11. “Then there was Larry Craig (R) a few years back, who resigned essentially after being caught shuffling in the men’s room with intent.”
    Larry Craig did not resign. At one point he said he would resign, but then he changed his mind and served out his term in office. He did not stand for re-election.
    That said, I have to agree that our hostess is choosing her examples selectively. Studds, Foley, Packwood, Brock Adams, Vitter, Weiner–there are scandals from both parties, some of whom have resigned, some of whom have been repudiated by their constituents, and some of whom have continued their careers. It would actually be interesting to do a study of these episodes to see if any explanatory variables can be identified, but I doubt party identification would be significant.

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  12. P.S. Sorry, I thought the comment above signed “Laura” was from our hostess, but it is actually from the other–or an other–Laura.

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  13. “Why is it always Vitter?”
    Because Vitter is the counter example. Christopher Lee’s offense does sound similar, and it I’m naive enough to be surprised that Wiener would pull a similar (and worse) offense so soon after it flattened Lee.

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  14. I also would be surprised if party would be significant, with the one exception of homosexual conduct. But even there, the “resignation” sin involves betrayal, say of a wife.

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  15. Craig was a Republican who engaged in homosexual conduct, but he didn’t resign. Studds was a Democrat. Packwood was divorced, if memory serves, so he wasn’t betraying a wife, but he did resign. Maybe there are no variables with explanatory power, just the incomprehensible vagaries of time and chance.

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  16. Let’s do a multi-variable regression!
    Meanwhile, I’m getting slightly cyber-harassed by someone who wants to send me a picture of his own penis. Now I can’t help but wonder if he’s a political reporter. Or an aspiring politician?

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  17. y81,
    I stand corrected on Craig’s history. Do you collect political scandal baseball cards?

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  18. I have to confess that I resent every second of attention paid to the Weiner scandal. When he does something illegal, let me know.

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  19. 2. I don’t like politicians, so anytime something bad happens to one of them, it causes me mild happiness.
    My favorite part is what a fool Jeffrey Toobin — a guy who had a baby with his mistress — made of himself defending Weiner. Delicious.

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