The other day while discussing the Weiner situation, my husband made the point (as many others have made) that Weiner’s big fault was that he lied about it. And then, my husband said, sort of jokingly, Weiner should have said, “Yeah, I did it. That’s what I do. It’s fun for me.” Even sillier: “You should do it too.” He went on with variations of this for a few minutes and it was so funny, I was collapsed with laughter.
When I was finished laughing, I thought about it and came to the realization that if Weiner had taken that approach, he probably would have gotten through this episode with minimal damage. Especially if his wife had been supportive (“Yes, I know he does that. He’s a joker.” Or even: Shrug. “Yeah, I know he’s a little weird that way, but I love him, so what the heck.”)
I think he could have survived this because the Democratic party and his constituents wanted him to survive it. Taking a light-hearted approach about it would have made any critics – e.g., Republicans and Pelosi – look like a bunch of old fashioned fuddy duddies. It would have changed the dynamics of the situation and possibly the perception of acceptable behavior in twitter-space.
Unfortunately, Weiner didn’t have the foresight to take the humorous approach, but then again, if we’re going to wish for foresight, I guess we should wish he’d had the foresight not to tweet his photos to the immediate world.