If I were to vote tomorrow, as many New Yorkers will be, I would not vote for Anthony Weiner. Still, I grieve a small bit for his fall, as I do believe he once had a strong progressive voice. And, I do understand how many feel betrayed by his personal issues. (See Bill Clinton and wonder at how much times have changed. Perhaps because these are much more dire times than Bill had to survive?)
However, there is something about Weiner's all out fight to stay in this race, as ridiculous as his chances are, that speaks to me. I mean, what choices does he have? Drop out and admit to the world that his personal short comings now disqualify him from the point of his whole career? Again, we did not ask that of Bill Clinton.
And AGAIN, I don't say this as a campaign ra ra for Weiner. His dog was toasted over the campfire weeks ago. I think he knows that too, but I do understand his choice to hang in there and try to sell the public on his better side, even though it will be for naught. And it probably should be.
But what I really want to talk about tonight, is what I consider Lawrence O'Donnell's very bad, horrible, no good interview with Wiener.
I Struggle with LO. I respect his intelligence and have see him be quite brilliant. However, I have also, too often, seen him be what I consider incredibly arrogant and smug.
Tonight he made every effort to eviscerate a pinata that was already long emptied out. He over spoke the person he was interviewing, cut him off at every turn, and clearly made it about himself rather than who he was interviewing. I hated it.
I would have much preferred a more thoughtful interview. An interview that did not need to make the interviewer the hero, the extrapolator, or in Lawrence's words, the last word.
Let me be chrystal clear. This diary is not about Weiner, who as I said, I would not vote for tomorrow. It is about how I believe progressive spokespeople can fall into the same traps as Bill O'Reilly does. Imo, LO was a bully tonight, and I didn't like it one bit.
I never see this from Rachel, I don't see it from Chris Hayes or Al Sharpton, and hell, I don't even see it from the blustery Ed. But I have seen it more than once from LO.
Which is not to say I'm on a crusade against Lawrence. Far from it. Just to say this bugged me tonight, and I wanted to write it out.
Not that important at all, just one woman's musings.