An open letter to Tony Weiner: Please resign. NOW.

[thatcrazycajun]

At the risk of alienating my many New York resident friends, I feel compelled to make this request of their US Representative, Anthony Weiner, who has now admitted to "sexting" to six or more women via Twitter and Facebook accounts over the past three years and then lying about it when questioned by the press (see article here): Sir, give up your seat at once.

As they've said since Watergate, it's not the crime that kills you; it's the cover-up. The lewd messages were bad enough in themselves, but pulling a Bill Clinton and claiming your accounts were hacked by someone else compounds the offense. In addition to your relationship with your family and with the women who work with and for you, you have irreparably damaged any credibility you possessed, any influence and effectiveness you had as a Congressman and the voting public's perception of your integrity. You can no longer function as a representative under this cloud of self-created scandal, as even one lie told publicly calls all your other public statements into question.

But there's more to it than just you and your immediate circle of people. You have also just made yourself a liability and an albatross around the neck of every Democrat in Congress...and beyond. Need I remind you, sir, that you and all your House colleagues must face the voters every even-numbered year to persuade them that you deserve to keep your jobs...or that next year, our President and Vice President will be doing the same? If you think conservatives and Republicans won't use this as a club to beat everyone in the party running for Congress or higher with, you are far more naïve than someone of your experience and longevity in politics has any business being. And Messrs. Obama and Biden already have a tough enough row to hoe getting re-elected as it is.

Sexist, unprofessional behavior and dishonesty cannot be tolerated in any elected leader, of any party or philosophy. We cannot hold the GOP to an ethical standard we ourselves fail to honor. Your political career is over, Mr. Weiner, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not...but I hope you can at least have sense enough to consider how this affects your fellow Democrats. For the good of your party, your successor in office, the people of the 9th Congressional District who elected you and the nation as a whole, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to do the honorable thing, the sensible thing, the only thing you can do right now: Leave Congress and Washington, the sooner the better.

And an aside to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: If Weiner won't go on his own, shove him out the door—by any constitutionally sound means you can find. The party emphatically does NOT need this going into 2012.

Comments

[gwendally.livejournal.com]

Someone lied about an embarrassing sex life? I'm shocked, shocked I say!

Honestly, I hate this story. I can't even understand why it makes the news. The man behaves stupidly in his sex life. We're supposed to care? Why would we care? Why on EARTH would we care? How does this relate to the job he was elected to do in the least little bit?

As someone vaguely involved in public office, I have to say that you set the standards WAY TOO HIGH when you insist that people not behave stupidly in their sex lives.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

I could (perhaps) live with the stupidity, but that isn't what gets me half so much as the lying about it. Integrity is the only real capital a politician has, especially when dealing with opponents, and getting caught in a lie destroys it.

I don't want to police anyone's personal sex lives (the other party does way too much of that), but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect our leaders not to duck the truth or hide it when they get caught. If he lied about this, it begs the question: what else has he lied about? If you can't trust a man's (or woman's) word, s/he has no business holding public office—period.

It also opens us up to charges of hypocrisy if we tolerate behavior in our own that we jump all over Republicans for committing. As I have said, we don't need to give them any more ammunition going into an election year.

[gwendally.livejournal.com]

I always figured that Bill Clinton was correct to lie about blowjobs with Monica Lewinsky. I do NOT think the public was owed full disclosure about the details of his sex acts. You ask me something that is none of your business and I will respond to your rudeness by lying to your face. Do you see what I'm saying here? There are things that you do NOT owe the public honesty about... and they are specifically the things that are none of the public's business.

Weiner's instinct not to claim the picture of his dick as his struck me as an utterly human response.

You think "integrity" is a politician's capital? LOL. Seriously?

Wow. We're so very different.

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

I could support a politician saying that their sex life was a personal between them and other consenting adults involved, and no business of the media or general public. Lying about it is a different matter.

[gwendally.livejournal.com]

You are quibbling. Either you have a right to his honesty with you about his sex life or you do not.

I think it's really naive to think that politicians always tell the truth in the first place. As near as I can tell, having actually done it, you almost NEVER tell the truth. Anyone trying to figure out where you stand can't do it: you have to play both sides as long as you possibly can. It's what politicians DO. It's the main tool of the trade.

Saying you can't abide a politician who lies is silly on the face of it. You just mean you can't abide REALIZING your politicians lie. To ESPECIALLY mind them lying about something as inconsequential as their sexual quirks is beyond naive. You've bought into the Bread and Circuses being offered up to the American Public... someone had sex. Someone else got drunk. Another person beat their wife. It's nothing but feable gossip.

Meanwhile, we've got the dollar being monetized and carrying debt far beyond our capacity to pay and the whole democracy failed about ten years ago and no one notices because they're so busy being outraged about dicks.

[katrinb.livejournal.com]

I don't get how male politicians, Democrat and Republican, can be so STUPID. You KNOW this stuff always comes out. You KNOW you're going to get caught. You KNOW it's going to damage your whole political career, ESPECIALLY if you lie about it. (Whether it should or not, Gwendally, is a moot point. I kind of agree with you that it mostly shouldn't, but it generally does.)

If you want public office, if you value the power or the position or the good you can do, you HAVE to have a modicum of sexual self-control. It's not a matter of what the public should care about or whether it's your own personal business or not - a good portion of the public does care, either about the sex or the lies, and once you become a public official, it's a hard fact that there's very little in your life that does NOT come under public scrutiny. Part of the job.

How can these guys not understand that? How can they not manage to keep their pet trouser snake under a reasonable modicum of control, knowing the price for NOT controlling it?

What gets me about this, in other words, isn't the sexual misbehavior (I could care less) or the lying (that's troublesome, but human) - it's the sheer stupid CARELESSNESS of it all.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Seems to me, you misspelled "David Vitter".

They re-elected him. In a Bible belt state. After he cheated on his wife to indulge a gorram for chrissakes DIAPER FETISH with prostitutes.

Whereas this new so-called scandal...involving one of the few Democrats with the guts to actually call out the Republicans on their bullshit...didn't even have sex.

Would you have fired General Patton because of his shocking use of language unbecoming an officer? Would you like the Democratic party to consist entirely of people who roll over and play dead?

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

Yep. Rachel Maddow has been excellent about this. The Republicans who have called for the immediate resignation of Weiner while remaining silent about Vitter are shameless hypocrites.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

The difference is that they caught Vitter too long before the next election.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

If he goes, then Charlie Rangel goes.
Otherwise, he stays.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

No, Rangel still has legislative skills. Weiner doesn't.

New York is losing two seats. I expect one of them to be Weiner's. The other is likely to be upstate.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

Rangel's crimes were of a quantifiable nature.
Weiner committed no such crime.
His actions may have been stupid, but that was it.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

This is not a legal issue. This is a political issue. When the New York Post runs headlines like "Obama Beats Weiner," it's clear he's damaged goods and has to go.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

56% of his polled constituents still support him.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

After he pulled the "my account was hacked" excuse, I'm a bit surprised that the "Anonymous" crowd didn't show him what a real attack from teh ebul haxxors looks like....