The Chris Moeller Archives

More on Weiner's namesake

Today was an important day in the progression of the Anthony Weiner scandal. It was the day that new political stories began to move in and take its place in the headlines. At last the news cycle is moving on. But not here. I've still got some stuff:

I’m getting a little annoyed by the sanctimonious public defenses of Anthony Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, by complete strangers. The woman obviously doesn’t deserve to be heaped upon either, but she did enter into a social contract with a man that purposely thumbs its nose at human biological urges, and furthermore, she did it with a congressman. Didn’t she watch late night comedy shows while growing up? That’s what these guys do. They get Fergalicious. Huma's attracted to power, or at least she coincidentally found it. She worked for Hillary Clinton for years as a top aide, and we’re told often how personally magnetic both of the Clintons are. Then she marries a powerful and brash, dare I say cocky, man cut from the same cloth. If she’s surprised by her husband’s general response to his professed female admirers or to his general weakness towards the seductiveness of celebrity and power, than that makes one of us. While we’re on the subject of unimportant issues and details, I’d like to point out that she’s a gorgeous woman, and don’t think that that doesn’t help in making this a much sexier story inside Washington, D.C., possibly the unsexiest city in America, or as many have called it-- Hollywood for ugly people.

Unlike Joan Walsh of Salon, I don’t find new reports of Abedin’s pregnancy to be a game changer in respect to my opinion on Weiner's career. As a fellow feminist, I actually resent the implication that a pregnancy puts Abedin in a more psychically-or emotionally-wounded position. Pregnant ladies lose some mobility but they aren't more vulnerable in this way. Pregnant ladies can kick ass and take down names. (Didn't Walsh ever see "Fargo"?) Also, I'm not sure I've been able to locate the "coordinated right-wing effort" Walsh refers to in trying to drum Weiner out of office, unless she means ultimately putting a candidate up against him in the general election next year. Every story I read is about Democrats trying to do the man in, but then Walsh spends most of her professional life covering for Democrats. Weiner's political future is his family's decision, not ours. In fact, as I stated yesterday, I’m prepared to butt out of the couple's personal life entirely.


Dana Goldstein of The Nation is worried because she gave in to temptation and looked at the penis pic online, and though she respects Weiner as a pol, she fears she now won’t be able to envision the congressman at his press conferences without thinking about his junior. Like her, I clicked on a link to the photo online, but my conclusion from it is that this danger is overstated. I was in plenty of locker rooms growing up, and I’ve seen plenty of deals in my time. To a man, when I see any of those guys today (some of whom read this blog), I can assure you-- and them-- that I'm not thinking about their deals, and I’m sure the feeling is mutual. I’ve also seen a few naked women in my time (not bragging if it's true) and when I converse with them after the fact, I don’t find myself distracted. I can function this way because I’m a mature adult. As studies probably tell us (I'm so confident about it that I'm not even going to look it up), we're actually better off knowing. When you're really curious about something, it's the element of imagination that always makes things much worse. I’ll give you an example. Try to imagine Newt Gingrich’s newt. Ugh. Pretty hideous, right? You’ve never seen it, but that doesn’t make the idea of it any better. I mean there's only so many kinds it can be, and each one is worse than the last to consider. And any putz blogger is capable of putting the idea in your head.

During all of his famous indiscretions, we never saw Clinton's slick willie, but one of his accusers (I lose track of which) described it for us. Remember in testimony she said that it bent to one side, which his most intimate supporters vigorously disputed on his behalf because the very idea of it not being a complete "centrist" violated the man's political principles. The imagining of it, for me, was just as bad as actually seeing it. In truth, seeing it would probably help to strip away its power. We're stuck now with only the legend. The public exposure would have humanized it. It would have lost its ability to define us as a people.

Part of me thinks that the reason so many of his colleagues are so bent out of shape (no, that’s bad)… angry about Weiner’s penis pic is that he was being too open in general. This is a generation of lawmakers whose dedication to secrecy by government officials makes Richard Nixon look like Ralph Nader. When officials are keeping secret tens of millions of government documents every year not because the information written on them is sensitive, but simply because they can, how do you think they’re going to react to the type of privacy breach that involves pubic hair and the Opie and Anthony radio show?

That’s why, in a strange way, Weiner is now the most valuable representative we have in Washington, as citizens. He’s already been quite literally exposed. And that’s why I’d like to see every one of our Puritanical representatives, men and women, forced to strip down to their all-togethers for public inspection, one by one, perhaps via a televised mass disrobing at next year's State of the Union address, and at least in time for the findings to be published in all the 2012 voter guides. They don’t mind violating us. They're the ones responsible for all the gropings and the x-raying of pacemakers and colostomy bags at the airport. They're the ones that let the truly sexually-perverse violations of Abu Ghraib go unpunished. I say it's their turn now. Mr. and Ms. Legislator, show us what you got under there.

posted by CM @ 8:01 PM