Private Parts

 

Greetings Friends,

What hasn't been said about Anthony Weiner and his inappropriate texting over the past couple of weeks? I've said plenty, just not here. Honestly, he's just another repressed politico who felt the need to take to the Great Electronic Void to show off his, um...assets. But, really, who cares?

The thing that fascinates me more than the incessant need to share with the world one's "thing", is the reason why. Here we've got a six-term Congressman who seemed to be on the fast-track to becoming mayor of New York City (a job that is both a blessing and a curse in my opinion), who has instead become the latest late-night TV talk show punch line. He's married to a big-time Beltway insider (Hillary Clinton's top aide) and was, up until a few short weeks ago, a relatively innocuous politician. 

Could that be the reason why Representative Weiner chose to expose his wiener to his faithful followers on Twitter? Was life just too gosh-darn boring that he needed to spice it up a bit? Then, he has to lie about it by claiming that his Twitter account was hacked. Right now, "Weiner-gate" has been paused since he has entered "treatment" to supposedly help him  become a better person, as well as a better husband. There have been numerous calls for him to resign his seat, but as of now, he is on leave. Kind of like Gabrielle Giffords, except she didn't ask to get shot in the head by a lunatic. Anthony Weiner, like so many people, is the architect of his own misery. 

There are interesting parallels in this story that are worth delving into. Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, has been an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton since 1996. She was by Clinton's side during her own version of "Weiner-gate", although it must be said that Twittering photos of your junk is a far cry from getting blow jobs in the Oval Office. Of course, cell phone cameras did not exist back in Clinton's days in office, but had they, God only knows how much worse that scandal would have gotten. 

Clinton is mother to Chelsea, who was a teenager during that ordeal, and Abedin is purportedly pregnant with her's and Weiner's first child. I can only imagine how stressful this must be for Ms. Abedin, even though Weiner technically (as far as we know) has not committed any actual adulterous acts. He hasn't pulled an Eliot Spitzer, but should what he's done be deemed any better or worse because there was no actual sex involved? Does this fall under the looking-at-porn-on-the-Internet infraction so many men are guilty of, or is this something altogether different? 

I think it is safe to day that the combination of smart phones, technology and the Internet is pretty combustible. It takes an idiot not to realize that a single Tweet or Facebook posting can haunt you forever. many people got into some pretty sticky situations when MySpace was at its height of popularity, but Social Media has transcended that medium and become something all of us have the ability to screw ourselves on; literally and figuratively. In the wrong hands, or should I say, in the hands of someone with questionable risk assessment capabilities, social media could bring about personal Armageddon. 

Here's how I see it: Nothing in the world is totally private anymore. If you've got a modem and a smart phone in your possession, you have weapons of mass destruction. In this case, the destruction is personal. It can also be epic, but it depends on how far-reaching your destructive tendencies are.

In Anthony Weiner's case, I believe he'll probably have to give up his congressional seat, but I don't think that will mean complete annihilation of his political career. New Yorkers are a pretty forgiving bunch, and he might still be successful if he tries to run for mayor. As for his personal life, I can't help but wonder what sort of advice Huma Abedin is getting from Hillary Clinton right now. There are millions of women out there who have suffered humiliation at the hands of their indiscreet spouses, but how many of them have had to deal with it under intense media scrutiny? Maybe there is some DC insider scorned wives support group that secretly meets in an underground bunker. 

And why is it that we've never caught Sarah Palin having a nip slip? She can babble on and drive us all insane with misquotations and misinformation, but there's no getting rid of her. Yet, Anthony Weiner had to "seek treatment". 

The world is definitely off its axis. There is no justice and karma to speak of; and I'm not only referring to the politicians.