The link is here. Most show Weiner holding his, um, member and in partial states of undress. The pics were meant to be appealing, but not so much.
One has to ask. What is wrong with this man. Is he so narcissistic that he thinks he can do this with impunity?
The pattern of behavior is pretty consistent. Attractive female follows him on Twitter. Congressman sends rapid fire sexually charged DM back.
The first interview with the young woman who was at the beginning of this ordeal is over at the NY Times; link here at The Reclusive Leftist, who identifies this behavior as sexual harassment.
As Kirsten Powers said, this really is textbook sexual harassment. (Powers: “Just because a woman ‘likes’ your video on Facebook doesn’t mean you can send her a picture of your penis.”) And you don’t have to be a nuclear feminist to figure out that the handful of women who welcomed Weiner’s advances probably represent only a small percentage of the females he flashed.This is the problem with the ruling class. They have too much a sense of self and not enough of the rights and boundaries of others.
They think they can do whatever they want; when they get caught, their fellow perps cover for them but when the polls reflect disapproval, the one in the spotlight suddenly and unexpectedly becomes indefensible; the fingered perp is offered on the alter of public disgust.
This complete lack of social and personal awareness of the real world outside D.C. is indicative of the state of anomie in which many members of Congress exist.
The Weiner incident is not dissimilar to the passage of the ruinous health care plan that nobody wanted and the flagrant spending of money we do not have. Photographing one's body parts and emailing those photos to strangers is not a dissimilar act to walking triumphantly and belligerently through thousands of angry law abiding citizens who pay your salary.
Both are acts of supreme and solipsistic arrogance. YOU are the focus of the world, YOU have the Lives of Others in your hands, YOU are "very important," YOU will do what you want regardless the consequences.
And once you do it, you can count on the Chris Matthews of the world to claim anyone who doesn't like what you did is a "rube" because they're probably a "backward" "Christian" anyway.
Taxpayers are "culturally backward" (and, yes, that's a Matthews quote) because they don't think congresspeople, whose salaries we pay, should email pictures of their sexual organs to strangers.
That's how disconnected Congress is from the populace, 76% of whom say they are Christian and most of whom have never emailed pics of their "junk" to strangers.
So, yeah, what Weiner did is very similar to the recent acts of Congress.
They've been sending pictures of their junk to us for a pretty long time and those pics have been getting more revealing every day.
This is the most thought provoking post we've put up in sometime. It caused me to re-read the Codevilla article in The American Spectator on the American ruling class. It also sent me to Wikipedia to read Weiner's bio. His academic credentials are conspicuity modest. His old boss Charlie Schumer scored a perfect 1600 on his SAT.
ReplyDeleteWeiner graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and NY State University. Like Bill Ayers, he can boast of a weatherman background, but he was the on air type of weatherman. This guy has the nerve to look down his nose at Sarah Palin? He is a a likely neighbor to Ralph Cramden or Archie Bunker. He is what the Yiddish call a "tumler"-a noise maker. (Yeah I lived in NYC for three years and picked up a little Yiddish) Think about it. He is the personification of some Woody Allen character. Have a great day!
What I meant so say is that we, like everyone else, we have bought into the idea that Weiner is some sort an elite. He may be a hanger on with the inside crowd but try thinking of him as the guy sells gym shoes at Dicks Sporting Goods or maybe your husband's barber. He is extraordinarily plebeian ! He is what my sisters used to call a "greaser". Look at his neighborhood in the video in my post. That's not exactly the Gold Coast. He is simply an overly ambitious guy who has leveraged his modest talents into what now looks like a temporary position of power. This isn't elitism; it frat boy boorishness. You must have known a dozen of his kind in high school; the nerds who thought they were sexy. This isn't some deeply flawed genius. This is a low brow behaving as a low brow.
ReplyDeleteBut they all are! This whole ruling class thing is part of what they've devised, and they're all nothing but low brows who have managed to muscle their ways to the top of the heap governmentally.
ReplyDeleteSo what if he's just a neighborhood guy? There're lots of neighborhood guys who are just great. This one stinks. Much of Congress is made up of morally flawed individuals who have been consumed by the desire to control the lives of others.
Exposing Weiner's behavior is like turning over a rock; nobody's perfect. We can't expect our politicians to be perfect.
But what we've seen under this rock has made transparent the type of character many of these people possess.
He's just one squirming critter under the rock. There're more and some of 'em wear diamonds, tiaras and tuxes.
They're still dirty rotten varmints.
I know what you mean. I just don't want to fall into the trap of thinking that quality of character is measured by "credentials."
My congressman, Larry Bucshon is a thoracic surgeon who most likely took a pay cut to serve. Bobby Shilling from Illinois 17 has 10 kids and owns a pizza parlor. Paul Gosar from Arizona 1 sold his dental practice to run for congress. Allen West was busted out of the army. None of these men will ever be in the ruling class nor do they care to be. The ruling class as I see it is based for the most part on what school one went to and not necessarily how well one did at that school. The Ivy League, not-for-profit foundation, Wall Street Banker, political activist ie Greenpeace or NAACP sort of backgrounds I would say gives one a leg up in the ruling class. Weiner has chosen to associate himself with the ruling class. There are farmers here in Vanderburgh county who could buy and sell Anthony Weiner like a soybean contract but they could never be part of the ruling class. I did not mean that credentials had anything to do with character but credential have everything to do with acceptance into the ruling class and Weiner has none of these prerequisites for membership. In other words he is in way over his head and if he loses this gig he may be selling ties at Sears.
ReplyDeleteTry this test. If you really hate Sarah Palin you probably belong to or aspire to belong to the ruling class.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting test. You are right, I believe, although I have good friends who are not big fans of Sarah Palin and they aren't elite.
ReplyDeleteIt's too simplistic to say that everyone who's in Congress is a bum and I guess I didn't mean to say that either.
I'm guess I'm tired of the whole hoity toity mentality we get from bums like this. He's a tramp, that's for sure, and he deserves whatever he gets.
I just think he's a tip of the iceberg.
I think much of what I wrote is push back against the drippy explanations for Weiner's behavior. They begin by saying " I'm not trying to excuse his behavior but I think if you look at his .....whatever" Then they proceed to make excuses. Power is an aphrodisiac. A seat in Congress probably more prestige than power but you do have a staff to bully around. Following this line, last November must have hit House Democrats like a cold shower. He' an alpha male. In a pigs eye he is. He's a rundown little twerp. He's so intelligent he thinks he can get away with anything. Wrong he's not that smart. He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School. He says in his wikipedia entry that he missed getting into Stuyvesant High School by one point. That means he was not nearly the smartest kid in Brooklyn. He attended NYU at Plattsburg. That does not make him stupid but it doesn't indicate that he is above average. Maybe we should reread Portnoy's Complaint and we can prattle about the Jewish sexual repression angle. I maintain that he is not the intellectual or moral equal to the four congressmen I mentioned earlier. He is a dud who has managed to weasel himself into the company of the ruling class and there is no excuse for his behavior.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing I've been thinking about today is the arrogance of the Claire Shipman crew, talking about how no bad stuff would happen in government if all women were in charge.
ReplyDeleteSee, this is what really bugs me. They're all sooooo smart, just like Obama is soooooo smart and he's going to fix the economy, yeah, just like he has been. In fact, he's ruined it because he doesn't know what he's doing.
I totally get your point and see what you mean.
I researched the Stuyvesant HS. The one Weiner didn't get in has graduated 4 Nobel Prize winners.
ReplyDelete