I just see it as stupidity. He just did something stupid and didn't admit it when he had a chance at first. Not like he's all family values and then gets caught in an airport bathroom looking for sex and then claims he has a wide stance.
Exactly! I could not care less if he wants to flirt with younger women or show them his junk or even sleep with them. But he demonstrated such bad judgement, on so many levels. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I'm guessing he sticks around for this term, and he does so quietly. He might appear on Maddow to discuss all this (or not), but we probably won't see as of him much going into 2012. (Is that an inadvertant double entendre? Oh, well ...) Not sure about his election prospects -- but I think there might be redistricting question for him going into 2012 anyway (i.e. he might have had trouble even without this).
Let me tell you the worst judgment of all: he just enabled Breitbart. In fact, he just gifted Breitbart every bit of credibility (and then some!) that Breitbart had squandered over the years with his stupid, bogus, crap-filled stunts.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ofl_UP3apM"]YouTube - Kryten's double polaroid - Red Dwarf - BBC comedy‏[/ame] (relevant section starts about one minute in)
I don't know about the redistricting - if he would otherwise have had to find a new district anyway, then that's a different issue, but I don't see how this could possibly hurt his reelection prospects. Clinton actually cheated on his wife, and he got caught, and he lied about it... and he got caught lying about it. And he emerged from it even more popular than before. Seems like voters these days tend to forgive marital indiscretions if they like the politician in general. He was reelected with 70 percent of the vote in 2010. Looks like he'd have to forfeit an awful lot of goodwill in order to lose in 2012 (barring a redistricting issue). A NYC mayoral race might be a different matter, but even then - this just doesn't seem that bad to me.
Not so much needing a new district, more that he and another sitting Dem congressmen might end up vying for the same district after the CDs are redrawn (NY is losing one CD). So if he's facing another Dem incumbent in the primary because the districts of two sitting congressmen have been combined, then there's a decent chance he might have lost in the primary even without this. (And all things being equal, wouldn't you take the guy without the sex scandal in that situation?)
Part of what Rep. Weiner's supporters like about him is his fierce and fiery grandstanding. Can he do that now? Can he stand up and pound his fists and talk tough about health care or job creation? Can he be taken seriously? Nobody is going to not vote for Weiner because he flirted with women online. They will not vote for him because he exhibited painfully poor judgment and threw away his credibility for nothing.
He wasn't going to face redistricting because he was going to be the mayor of New York. I am just stunned that a dude this smart can be this utterly, completely, unfathomably, jaw-droppingly dumb. He should resign.
NY is losing two, there's talk of Western NY and downstate getting the shaft. So now what's the difference between Weiner and Lee?
I guess it would depend on who the other Congressman was. As far as I'm concerned he's one of the best there is, so whoever he would be facing would have to be pretty awesome to match up with him. Why would you be stunned by that? Were you in a coma during the Clinton presidency or something? Men tend to shut off their brain when they get a boner (probably not enough blood to power both at the same time). I wonder how intelligent Kennedy would have looked if reporters back then had been waving around a picture of a crotch shot like Wolf Blitzer or yelling questions at him like "Were you fully erect when you took the picture?" like some jackass did today at the press conference (provided it wasn't someone from the Howard Stern show).
Wasn't there a married congressmen from upstate New York on craigslist trolling for woman who was basically forced out? If I am not mistaken, the guy was not even a social conservative. Stop excusing bad behavior. Personally I could care less. I am more aggravated at Weiner's lies. That tells me all you need to know about him as a person.
Yeah, and that guy was from the most Republican district in all of New York, and possibly the entire country. He resigned because he knew that kind of thing doesn't play with the voters in his district. And furthermore, he resigned because apparently the next details that were going to come out were that he was trolling for transexuals and transvestites. And you know what, I don't care either way, because if I lived in that guy's district I would have voted against him anyway! But you didn't mention him, you mentioned Rangel, who was cheating the IRS out of tax money. Weiner not only has apparently done nothing illegal, he is also from a heavily liberal district that until now has obviously been happy with his performance. If they're as shocked and stunned by this as some of you guys are claiming to be, then he'll lose reelection, but calling for him to resign to my mind is ludicrous.
Weiner must be the first politician to accomplish what I thought was the impossible - embroil himself in a sex scandal without even trying to get laid. Can't wait for the Daily Show tonight.
Oh please, the batting average for NYC congressmen is lower than the C Street Family. I'm looking at this Wikipedia page and through a quick scan, I'm seeing more (R) than (D), at least in recent years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States
For me this is an easy one. Get the ******** out. Him and Vitter and anyone else caught up in any stupid, bullshit scandals. You know what? There are plenty of good people in NYC who could serve in Congress and would be honored to do so. There are plenty of good people in Louisiana who could serve in the senate. These aren't supposed to be long term jobs. As a congress man or woman, you get two years. If you do something so stupid as to cook up this cover up in the middle of your two years, then just get the ******** out and let someone else do your job. EDIT -- before the Clinton brigade comes crashing in, I do consider Clinton just as stupid for wagging his finger at us and lying. But the office of the president is a bit different than one congressman out of 435.
For once, I'm actually agreeing with you sarge, but . . . forced out? The guy left skid marks minutes after the story broke. Hell, we were too busy trying to figure out who the hell the guy was who just resigned before the ink was dry on the story. He wasn't forced out at all. I suspect there were dozens more skeletons in that closet ready to burst out but at least he did the right thing. Congressman Weiner has already stretched this out too long. He should just leave. Demo is quite correct. His main strength as an agitator for the left is now completely blunted. We have no use for him anymore.
Pelosi is throwing him under the bus: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...einer-admission/2011/06/06/AGNqXZKH_blog.html I guess it might be all over for him after all. I'm trying to think of a good comparison here.... it's like when a cyclist gets caught doping, and they take away his title and give it to the guy who came in second - who of course was also doping, because they all do. I guess it's cause I like the guy, but it's hard for me to listen to Pelosi castigate him like that when all the rest of them most likely have closets full of skeletons too. I guess that's how the cookie crumbles though - if he's a liability to the Dems overall, they'll cast him loose. The point being, get your jollies however you want, just don't get caught!