Crossposted from The People's View
Yes, yesterday I said,
[L]et him own his shit and dig himself out of the hole.
Because honestly as Steve Benen puts it in Weiner comes clean article:
Given what we know, Weiner shared adult content with women he met online. They were adults and the interactions were consensual. He didn’t commit adultery (Ensign), he didn’t hire prostitutes (Vitter, Spitzer), he didn’t solicit anyone in an airport bathroom (Craig), he didn’t pretend to be someone else in order to try to pick up women (Lee), he didn’t abandon his office for a rendezvous with his lover (Sanford), he didn’t leave his first two wives after they got sick (Gingrich), he didn’t have a child with his housekeeper (Schwarzenegger), there’s no sex tape (Edwards), and no interns were involved (Clinton). He’s not even a hypocrite — Weiner has never championed conservative “family values,” condemning others for their “moral failings.”*
Major media outlets clearly disagree with me, but Anthony Weiner’s controversy is rather dull by comparison. It’s possible more information will come out, some of it damaging, but for now, I’m still not sure why anyone would care about this.
To be honest, I don't give a rats ass about his sharing of whatever we know and don't know to whoever in the internet. That is between him and his wife.
But what was so despicable was the in-your-face lies after lies after lies and having no shame for a week while people stick their neck to defend this pig making them just look bad without feeling any guilt for its consequence. I don't know about you but it hits me hard when I see this constant denial when Weiner visits the network as a Hollywood star and lie without flinching:
Still I thought, it is up to his constituents to decide if they want to keep him or dump him in the 2012 election until of course I read this article late last night, The dirty trick that launched Anthony Weiner's career (read the whole article but here is the ugly part of all of this going back to 1991):
It was at this point that Weiner's campaign decided to blanket the district with leaflets attacking his opponents. But these were no ordinary campaign attacks: They played the race card, and at a very sensitive time. They were also anonymous.
Just weeks earlier, the Crown Heights riot -- a deadly, days-long affair that brought to the surface long-standing tension between the area's black and Jewish populations -- had played out a few miles away from the 48th District. The episode had gripped all of New York and had been national news. It was just days after order had been restored that Weiner's campaign distributed its anonymous leaflets, which linked Cohen -- whose voters he was targeting in particular -- to Jesse Jackson and David Dinkins, who was then New York's mayor. It is hard to imagine two more-hated political figures in the 48th District at that moment. Jackson just a few years earlier had called New York "Hymie town," and it was an article of faith among white voters in Weiner's part of Brooklyn that Dinkins had protected the black rioters in Crown Heights -- and thus endangered the white population -- by refusing to order a harsh police crackdown. (Two years later, Dinkins would lose to Rudy Giuliani by an 80-20 percent margin in the 48th District.) The leaflets urged voters to "just say no" to the "Jackson-Dinkins agenda" that Cohen supposedly represented. At City Hall, Dinkins held up the flier and branded it "hateful."
It's impossible to say what precise effect this all had on the election, but it clearly didn't hurt Weiner. In a surprise result, he finished in first place -- 125 votes ahead of Garson, and 195 ahead of Cohen. Only after the ballots were counted did he admit that he'd been behind the leaflets, claiming that "We didn't want the source to be confused with the message." This prompted an editorial rebuke from the New York Times, which noted that "Mr. Weiner's hit-and-run tactics tarnish his come-from-behind campaign."
I now realize that this man will do anything to climb to power the way he did when he started his campaign to public office even if he has to play the race card. That is not acceptable. He has not paid he dues for his sin but has enjoyed moving up the ladder in his political career. The buck must stop right here. Anthony Weiner must resign NOW.
I am all for redemption and I hope Rep. Weiner will redeem himself some day. Taking full responsibility means coming out clean and apologizing not only for the lies but for using an ugly history of America's color/race divide to benefit a political career. I won't stand for it and it just crystallized the fact that this man is a fraud with an extremely poor judgement who thinks he can manipulate everyone. Well, he is not going to take me for another ride for sure. He must RESIGN!
Ain't karma is a bitch!
2:08 PM PT: Sorry but this will kill his career if it is not yet finished. Just in on twitter!
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