I've been trying to decide how I feel about the whole Anthony Weiner thing (I mean the thing, not his thing, though I'm sure it's a fine thing), and until this morning, I couldn't get past "stupid". I mean, everything about this has been stupid. He thought he could tweet his dick to random women and nobody would ever find out. He thought he could claim his account had been hacked and then nobody would think anything of it when he didn't think it was worth investigating. And now, he thinks he can go into treatment and all will be forgiven. (Sadly, he's probably right, but we'll get back to that).
This morning TMZ published a bunch of pictures Weiner took of himself in the Congressional Gym and looking at them, I've settled on "sophomoric" as the best way to describe this whole mess. I mean look at those pictures. He looks like some dumb High School Jock who's so proud of his summer growth spurt that he just has to show it off. Understandable in a dumb H.S. Jock...not so much in a Congressman.
Here's the thing, sophomoric behavior is forgivable...among sophomores. In fact, it's forgivable to a greater or lesser degree from anyone who is still supposed to be growing up. Teenagers, students, young adults...they all do stupid things. It's part of the job description.
soph·o·mor·ic
1. Of or characteristic of a sophomore.
2. Exhibiting great immaturity and lack of judgment
Congressmen aren't supposed to behave sophomorically. They're just not.
I don't blog about a whole lot of political things here. It's not that I'm not interested...it's just usually beyond my expertise. I tend not to understand the legal ramifications of some legislation before it's explained to me. There's a lot of nuance in legislation. I'm hopeless when it comes to the economy. And that should be fine. Ya'see, I have this unreasonable expectation that the people I help elect are better at a lot of things than I am.
They should be better at understanding these things than I am. They should be better at articulating things than I am. They should be more pragmatic than I am. In a perfect world, they should even be more empathetic than I am.
And even if they're younger than me, I'd like them to display a bit more maturity than is expected of me.
Yeah, I said it. If you want to represent hundreds of thousands of people (directly) and millions (indirectly), you should be better than I am.
So I'm pissed at and disappointed in Mr. Weiner. During the Heath Care debate, Mr. Weiner was a rock star. Unfortunately, he seems to have decided he can behave like one. And now he's going into fucking treatment?
Where? The Betty Ford Center for narcissistic douchebags? Horizons' "Get over yourself" 12 step program? What exactly is he detoxing from?
Like I said earlier, sooner, rather than later, this will probably all be water under the bridge and all will be forgiven. And I suppose, in some ways, that's fine. Sending pictures of your dick to people who don't, apparently, have any major objection to it, shouldn't come with a death sentence. (On the other hand, with a name like Weiner, this isn't going to be one of those things where people eventually forget it happened at all.)
But here's the thing. The whole treatment thing is utter bullshit. If you're caught behaving like a child, the solution ought to be a childish one as well. Children get a "time-out". Children are sent to their rooms to "think about what you've done". In my experience, when the kid is finished "thinking about it", the parents tend to have a little talk with them. And I bet they expect the kid to acknowledge that they "did a bad thing", and "it was bad because "A", "B", and "C"." And that they won't do it again. (They probably will, but it's the thought that counts.)
What I doubt is that the parent would be satisfied if the kid came downstairs and explained that their inner demons, (brought on by feelings of benign neglect and jealousy toward an older sibling), got the best of them, and even though it "wasn't really my fault, it was a sickness", the kid now knows how to keep his inner demons under control.
I'd have a lot more respect for Mr. Weiner (at this point anyway), if he just said, "I'm going away for a while to think about what I've done."
Sometimes, it is someone's fault.
2 comments:
My take on Weiner.
That's it? Dude. Get OVER yourself.
What she said!
And on a totally unrelated note -
Nathan- we've got so much filming going on in and around the city at the moment they have to give road closed for filming segments on the traffic reports!!
And let me tell you, those Walking Dead zombie crews are EVERYWHERE!
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