When the first Anthony Weiner scandal broke out waaaaay back when in 2011, I was disappointed because he was one of the louder progressive voices always seen on political TV. He was my political crush at the time, though I feel uncomfortable admitting that now. I thought he was smart, funny, and, yes, sexy. Look. I said I’m ashamed of it now, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that. The scandal itself wasn’t particularly surprising, and I was on the fence as to whether he should be made to step down or not–side note: I find it very ironic that the party of moral/family values (Republicans) can have affairs willy-nilly and suffer no consequences, but when a Democrat does it, off with his head! By the way, I’m not saying the Democrat shouldn’t be remonstrated if need be, just that Republicans love to talk about how full of values they are, so they should be held to at least the same standard, if not higher than are Democrats who don’t act all holier than thou about morality.–until it turned out that he sent lewd pics to women who didn’t specifically ask for them. That is harassment, and I had a hard time watching some people on the left dismiss it or ignore it altogether. I’ll get into that more in a minute.
I don’t give a shit about affairs in general. Someone’s marriage is their own business, even if that person is in the public eye. I only care if it was not consensual/has problematic power dynamics or if there is hypocrisy involved. Larry Craig (hypocrisy). David Vitter (hypocrisy). Mark Sanford (hypocrisy and the misuse of public funds). All the other Republicans caught doing the wide stance in the international Minneapolis airport bathroom*. Speaking specifically about Weiner’s sexting, if it weren’t for the unwanted pics, I wouldn’t care at all about Weiner’s sexting, nor would I have thought he needed to resign over it. People have affairs. That’s a fact of life. In addition, he and his wife, Huma Abedin, may have had some kind of agreement that they can have outside partners. I will say that I thought there was something desperate about the way Weiner sexted other women–it made him seem so empty inside. The fact that he used a fake name and it was Carlos Dangerous just made him look pathetic to me.