Today, I am going to talk about someone whose actions make me laugh, make us all laugh, but who isn't there to make us laugh.
While we are laughing, we are also shaking our heads in disbelief.
And that has to do with former New York politician Anthony Weiner, who makes us laugh for all the wrong reasons.
He is now involved in a new sexting scandal, where he sent suggestive posts and photos to some bimbo last year, and is now paying for it in not just bad publicity, but in the apparent loss of his marriage to top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Here was a man who was thisclose to becoming mayor of New York City, and you can finally say, for the first time, that the city was better off with Bill deBlasio, the worst mayor it has ever had, than Weiner.
Weiner was leading or at least near the top of the polls, the scandal came to light, and deBlasio, craftily using the race card to his advantage, rose to the top of the heap.
Can you imagine if Weiner would have won this contest and all this sexting stuff came out when he was mayor?
Anyway, Weiner is a sick person. I guess he gets his jollies from this type of practice, which is lewd, rude and well, nude.
This time, it is that much worse, because he was supposedly cured of his infatuation, living out in the eastern part of Long Island with his wife and son.
Yes, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Abedin was probably not home very much, so Weiner, being a lonely guy, let his infatuation get the best of him, going back to doing what he should not have been doing.
And what makes it even worse this time is that Weiner evidently was doing this while caring for his and Abedin's four year old child, who just happens to have crept into one of the lewd photos he sent to this bimbo.
Yes, I am sure that Child Protective Services is very, very interested in this, and Weiner and Abedin are going to face some harsh scrutiny from them about their child care practices.
Look, this was not a match made in heaven to being with.
Weiner is of Eastern European Jewish background, Abedin is Palestinian, and the two simply don't mix, no matter how much the PC Police want them to blend into each other.
They come from different backgrounds, different worlds, and how this marriage lasted as long as it did is beyond me.
But it really is more serious than that.
Abedin, being Clinton's top aide, was privy to a lot of stuff in Washington, and being that Weiner is her husband, he and she probably conferred on many things, just like any husband and wife would, and political unions are no different.
So Abedin is not someone who you can trust, either, and again, the Clinton credibility issues have crept up, which were pointed out by Donald Trump the other day when this latest scandal broke.
You don't have to agree with Trump on anything, but he does have a point here.
History tells us that political couples do talk to each other, and that is why--and it has happened so many, many times that it cannot be considered a fluke--when a legislator passes, his or her spouse oftentimes replaces them in their position of authority.
So you have to wonder what state secrets Weiner knew about from his wife, and if he put the country in a bad spot by mouthing off about them with whoever would listen to him while in compromising positions.
Sounds like Bill Clinton all over again ... and Clinton presided over the marriage ceremony of Weiner and Abedin, by the way.
What a coninkidinky that is!
Back to Weiner. He is a sad, sad creature. I am embarrassed to say that he lived with his family, at least for a short time as a young toddler, in my old neighborhood, Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens.
He needs help, and he needs it now, because not only has he lost his marriage, but he may soon lose parenting privileges with his young son.
And that is the real tragedy of this whole thing.
I, personally, could care less about Weiner and Abedin, two strange bedfellows who deserve each other.
But the innocent kid ... I wonder about him, and his future.
What a shame this whole thing is.
It stopped being funny a long time ago. He is a sick man. And now I understand why you don't find Trump offensive. G-d help this country.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand your comment at all. I knocked Weiner throughout this Rant. I called him a "sick person," and that was the theme of this entry. Other than the mention I made of Trump here as to what he said--which I think has some validity--what other connection are you making on your own between Weiner and Trump? The connection is much clearer, actually, between Weiner and Clinton, through Abedin, so what exactly are you talking about? And yes, Weiner stopped being "funny" a long time ago, but the fact of the matter is that he was, and remains, a punchline based on what he has done sexting-wise, and his last name ... well, people still laugh at him while shaking their heads, which I also said in this Rant. So again, what exactly are you talking about?
ReplyDeleteWhat am I talking about?
ReplyDelete(1) Bigotry. Whatever problems plague that marriage, you decided it was because she's of Palestinian descent and he's Jewish. Since you don't know the parties involved, and since there's a bigger, more obvious problem than differing backgrounds, your bigotry is showing.
(2) Somehow Huma's marital problems all got tied to Hillary. Was your employer involved in your divorce? Did you employer have any interest in what happened in your divorce? I will share with you one moment of pure mortification from my past. When my boss, a partner in the law firm I was employed by, walked into my office, handed me that day's New York Law Journal, and told me that I'd won my appeal in some post-divorce matter involving child support and visitation. I won the appeal, the court said I was right, and yet I still felt embarrassed that my boss knew my personal business.
Now, obviously, Weiner's marriage to Huma is more publically on display than my marriage was. Their private lives are all over the newspaper. How horrifying for their child.
but you've now connected Huma's marital woes to her work for Hilary Clinton. You have essentially accused her of unethical conduct, i.e., sharing privileged information with her husband, who is not entitled to such information. You have no basis for such an allegation, except that she made a poor choice in husband. Why do you make that assumption? Do you believe it to be true of all political staff members? Or just Huma, because of her personal life?
Let me be very clear here. In your line of work, you do not have to deal with "privileged information". I am an attorney. I had to study legal ethics before I was allowed to practice my profession. I am sure you have heard of attorney client privilege. I have never shared privileged information with anyone not entitled to receive it. Not a husband, not a boyfriend, no one. I am deeply offended by Trump's assumption, and yours, that a person who has a duty to preserve privileged information would share that information with a spouse, an assumption made only because the spouse turns out to be mentally ill. What evidence is there to suggest that Huma violated her ethical obligations? None, except what comes out of Trump's mouth. And that has no basis in reality, as he is not in a position to know.
The "Weiner" jokes were funny, the first time around. Not so funny anymore, the man is truly ill and in desperate need of help.
You don't realize how much classified information I DO have to deal with at work. Remember, my billet covers federal government-run businesses, so yes, there is a lot of classified information that comes my way.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the other stuff, I am sure she talks about work with her husband as much as the average woman does, and vice versa. Are you telling me that Weiner doesn't know things that he was told by his wife, things that are probably under wraps for most of us? C'mon, let's be logical here. And since she is Clinton's top adviser, I would say that yes, it does implicate her, because now information could be in the hands of those who could use it against her, the Weiners or all of us. Yes, it is speculation, but it appears to put plenty of people at possible risk, i.e., when President Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky and God knows who else. And as far as the Palestinian/Jewish thing, did you really, really think that this thing would last? I didn't, and I didn't think it would last this long. So nice of you to have a soft spot for the Palestinians.
The main point here is that all of this involves a child. If you cannot parent a child in the right way, don't become a parent, and that goes for both Mr. and Mrs. Weiner. Does she actually have time to be a mother to this child, and how can you leave a child in the care of someone who has such an obvious problem? And unless you cannot hear anything, the Weiner jokes are still out there, maybe not as bad as the other times, but certainly, he continues to be a punchline.
So how much classified information have you shared with your wife, and should we be worried about what you've shared? I mean, if Huma shared with Anthony, then you certainly shared with your wife.
ReplyDeleteOr not. You have no way of knowing who lives up to their ethical obligations and who does not.
Actually, you didn't make the point about their child in your blog post. You went on and on about Huma and Hillary, not about the poor child whose parent's personal failings are splashed all over the media today.
And yes, the jokes are still out there. Weiner was a guest on Bill Maher a few weeks ago, and Maher made a joke when he introduced Weiner as a member of that night's panel.
Some of us have stopped laughing at the jokes. It's not funny anymore.
Question for you. Where do we draw the line? We know Weiner crossed the line, he's sexting with a woman not his wife, akin to infidelity, and it sounds like a sex addiction issue. And he was in trouble for it before his child was born. But what other behaviors are unacceptable? It's normal for a married person to look at other men/women, it's only human to admire attractive people. It's human to have fantasies. Assuming there are no children around, is it OK to watch porn in the privacy of your own home? Is it OK to publish your fantasies/porn, say as fan fiction ("50 Shades of Gray"), or to write a blog post about someone's physical attributes (remember someone wanted to argue with you when you posted the photos of those busty ladies). Where is the line?
Reread my original post, I did mention the child, and that it is a shame that this kid is involved, and that Child Protective Services might be checking out the Weiners and their child care practices. Again, you only see what you want to see.
ReplyDeleteWe don't know about what type of marriage they had, whether it was traditional or open, so to speak, and since these are public people, there really is no line to cross. They are open to just about everything. There is nothing wrong with fantasies, as long as they stay fantasies, but when you are talking about behavior like this, yes, Weiner did cross over the line. What we can talk about has few boundaries, however, and I have tried to keep this site PG. I don't use foul language, and I don't get into the specifics about what people do, but yes, we can talk about just about anything. As long as we don't do just about anything ourselves, we are OK. So in summary, as long as it is out there, anything is fair game at this site, as long as it is done with some decorum. As far as what people do, 99 percent of the time, it is their business, but in this particular story, that 1 percent has been broached.