Electing Anthony Weiner Isn't As Funny As It Sounds by Matt Taibbi

[Are_grits_groceries]

<snip>
Now, weeks later, the inevitable has happened: yet another sexting scandal has popped up involving Weiner and, surprise surprise, this one was still live a good year after he resigned from Congress promising never to flap his hose across the face of the Internet ever again. Predictably, a series of really gross, genuinely Favre-ean dong shots showed up on some Scottsdale, Arizona-based website called TheDirty.com.

It turns out that Weiner was pursuing his usual creepy Internet rubfest with some poor sap of a woman from Princeton, Indiana (which the Daily News noted is "one mouse click and 850 miles away from Weiner&quot using the nom-de-wank of "Carlos Danger," a preposterous title destined to be adopted by a whole generation of hackers and trolls justifiably tired of the whole "Emmanuel Goldstein" meme.

I don't mean to sound like a prude, but what the hell do you have to do to be disqualified from high-level politics in this country? When someone told me a while back that Weiner was running for Mayor, I thought it was a joke. This married politician sent unsolicited pictures of his penis to female strangers on the Internet! It's not a crime, I guess because indecent exposure laws haven't been updated for the cyber age, but basically, he's a 21st-century flasher who used the U.S. Congress as a raincoat. Then he got caught, had to resign from Congress in what normally would be shame and disgrace, only to turn around and start doing it all over again pretty much immediately.
<snip>
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/electing-anthony-weiner-isnt-as-funny-as-it-sounds-20130725#ixzz2a7zRQUaK

And it's just a-ok to cyberflash people according to some here.

This isn't between 2 "consenting" adults. Since Weiner has no idea who he is chatting with, it may not even be another adult. But hey, he'd make a great mayor so who cares?

Can't Dems find someone better than this to represent the party's values? If not, I guess we don't have any.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. but don't we have a Senator who wears diapers?

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. The Republicans in Louisiana re-elected Vitter.

What does that have to do with who Dems elect?
Is that our new baseline? Just don't be much worse than Vitter.

[cthulu2016]

3. So does that mean we should have one too?

This line of argument puzzles me. We should give people a pass because Republicans do?

That seems like a poor reason to do much of anything.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

5. I didn't say we should

it seems that anything goes in politics. diapers, senators chasing men in toilets, chasing pages etc. Weiner's is not new except he went digital.

[cthulu2016]

6. sorry to have misread you

[arely staircase]

4. though I agree with his thesis; weiner shouldn't be elected

I disagree with the headline. Electing him would be funny. A totally bad idea but it would be way funny. On a serious note, I'm not a New Yorker so I won't be voting and obviously New Yorkers' opinions on this are more valuable that mine; but I really bet that otherwise he would probably be a very good, competent mayor. I do think sending unsolicited dick pic to strangers is a deal killer; and I'm no prude but that does cross into cyber flasher in a rain coat territory.

[PDittie]

7. If it's wrong for Vitter and Sanford

then it is wrong for Weiner (and going further back, Bill Clinton). This country really only needs one political party that is completely immune to hypocrisy.

When people who don't vote say things like "both parties are the same", this is what they are talking about. (This and Goldman Sachs.) Now before someone in a fit of pique posts that both parties are NOT the same, let me just remind everyone that I already know and still believe that. But the low-interest voters -- you know, the people that Dems need to turn out and vote in mid-term elections -- don't.

Therein lies the challenge.

[chimpymustgo]

8. Rethugs can elect unqualified creeps and hypocrites. We don't have to. Weiner is an arrogant asshole

as well as a liar and creep. Completely agree with Taibbi. It's a joke that Weiner even RAN for Mayor - and a sick joke if he stays in the race.