Anthony W. calls it quits: Mass murderers move to boot liar off island

From The Hollywood Reporter (seems somehow appropriate):

Anthony Weiner to Resign:
How the Networks Are Covering

ABC will air the congressman’s press conference live, CBS will not break daytime programming.

Rep. Anthony Weiner is expected to resign Thursday following weeks of criticism after he sent nearly-nude photos of himself to women on Twitter.

He will hold a press conference at 2 p.m. ET.

ABC News will air a special report when Weiner holds his news conference to announce his resignation. George Stephanopoulos will anchor from ABC News Headquarters in New York. He will be joined by ABC News senior political correspondent Jon Karl and 20/20 anchor Chris Cuomo. Stephanopoulos also appeared Thursday morning on The View to discuss the Weiner news as well as the field of GOP presidential candidates.

CBS will not break into daytime coverage to cover Weiner's press conference, the network said.

NBC News will provide affilicates with an optional special report anchored by Brian Williams. MSNBC will also cover the press conference live on both TV and its website.

CNN will take Weiner's press conference live. Wolf Blitzer will anchor it, along with John King and Gloria Borger, the network confirmed to THR. . . .

[Don't forget to click to enlarge.]

by Noah

Did he jump or was he pushed?

They booted Weiner for lying? But, but, I thought lying is the official language of Washington! I coulda sworn!

Maybe Congress should just create an annual Wilbur Mills Award For Sexual Weirdness. Mills, for those who don’t know or don’t remember, was the 65-year-old Congressman (and a very powerful one at that) whose secret party-animal lifestyle got outed when he was caught drunk and disorderly with stripper Fanne Foxe after she went for a dive into the Potomac Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial.

Jefferson was not available for comment, nor was Sally Hemings.

This post is about perspective so let’s get one thing straight first: If anyone thinks that Weiner Boy is the only member of Congress or our government to do what he did (or something very similar), then I have a bridge to sell them, for mucho dinero. In fact, I strongly suspect that a good deal of the high level of outrage being expressed by Weiner’s colleagues is more about him blowing their cover and then lying to them (and us, but mostly to them) about it all than what he actually did.

As it is, in Congress groping pages is OK. It’s expected. It’s part of joining the boys' club. Sometimes, as in the case of Rep. Gerry Studds, it goes a lot further, even with minors. All Studds got was a censure, probably as much for getting caught as anything else. Studds served, and served productively, for 20 more years. Senator David "Diapers" Vitter got a standing ovation -- and, you can bet, several requests for his prostitute’s phone number and rate card, if they didn’t have it already. Weiner? Lying? If Weiner had sired a son with the maid in the master bedroom while the wife was out shopping, Washington would give him a standing ovation, too! But sexting? Ooooh no, that’s a big no-no; too traceable!

Just a thought #1:

I bet the last three weeks have seen the burning of a mega-bonfire’s worth of private VHS tapes in the back yards of past, present, and would-be congresspersons; computer file dumping too. In fact, I bet the latest sport among congressmen and senators is seeing who can make their cell phone skip the most on the Potomac surface before it sinks to the muck on the bottom.

I suppose we shouldn’t be shocked that a politician would run afoul of a social media tool and manage to unwittingly go public with his true nature. It’s happened before. The case of Virginia Sen. George Allen being caught in a YouTube moment is a classic example. It’s no surprise that a class (and I use that word with irony) of true dodos has no conception or understanding of how social media have changed our lives and changed what any of us can get away with at various moments in time.

The people in Washington are especially insulated from reality. They prove it on an hourly basis whether through tweets or in front of the TV cameras. Rep. Eric Cantor (aka Soulless Man) is probably the best case in point. It’s utterly fascinating to watch some of these people for whom nihilism in the service of their corporate masters is the only plane of existence they know.

Those who govern us live in an alternate universe, a big Beltway fraternity house where the only world they know is misshaped right down to their thoughts by their own amorality and soullessness, the agenda-mongering of wingnut media outlets like Politico and Fox, and the sociopathic likes of the heads of entities like Bank of America, Exxon, and Goldman-Sachs, or whoever is stuffing their pockets with cash at any given moment.

All real common sense and common decency and all humanity have been removed from the overwhelming majority of these people who govern us. In the case of people like Cantor, it was likely never there. Cretinous corporate beelzabubbas like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu sold theirs for cash and future considerations. John Boehner has taken the payments but probably has some little bits of a charred soul or at least a conscience that he is obviously at war with. I say that because, as much as I dislike the man, I can see that even he doesn’t believe half the crap that comes out of his mouth. He reminds me of Arlen Specter, as he cooks up single-bullet theories of tax code and economics that never did and never will cure any ills.

In short, they are nearly all very shallow people who make us suffer from their cases of arrested development and bad character. They are 10-year-olds trapped in adult bodies. One of them is called Anthony Weiner and he’s willfully run into some sort of a Twilight Zone version of Lord of the Flies called Washington, DC, more specifically Congress.

I’ve always said that Congress is nothing but a bunch of overgrown, arrogant frat boys. The kind of thing that Weiner did is what people who join frats do, when they’re not ritualistically paddling each others’ bare butts, that is. Based on what I have witnessed, being in a fraternity has everything to do with trying to address insecurities about your smarts to advance in life and insecurities about your manhood, whether it’s drinking vast quantities of alcohol and then chasing girls around campus (funny how they have to imbibe all that booze just to raise their level of interest), sucking up to the nearest alpha male, or tweeting lewd pix of yourself to, interestingly enough, college girls even when you’re over 40. Shall we dub this Peter Pan Pervo Syndrome (PPPS)?

At American University, my alma mater in Washington, DC, the big fraternity-boy activity was to get drunk and naked and run around in the courtyard between the two largest girls' dorms, puking all over the place. Very impressive. Many of those frat boys, at least the ones that managed to somehow graduate, ended up putting on a snappy suit and going to “work” in government. Like attracts like. One hand washes the other. Whatever. Arrested adolescent development as a lifestyle: Washington defined.

Just a thought #2:

If you are going to be judged to be too outspoken, you better be clean. You will be targeted. Clinton, Spitzer, and now Weiner, just for three. I’m not on board with the idiocies and obvious narcissism of any of these three jerks, but the idiocies aren’t the main reason for their troubles. The idiocies were just there to be used as a means to an end. These guys stupidly and arrogantly made it easy for their enemies. With Clinton, there really was a vast right-wing conspiracy, and a well-funded one. He wasn’t the first or last to do what he did, but he had more people out to bring him down. Being a centrist just isn’t conservative enough in a universe of Heritage Societies and Birchers like the Koch Brothers.

As for Spitzer, he was about to go after Wall Street again. To the Street, it was horrendous enough when Spitzer was the NYS Attorney General. Once he was governor, he had to go. Wall Street wanted him out of the way so they could remain unchecked.

In the case of Weiner, he was a loud and highly visible advocate of progressive causes such as single-payer health care. He was a top advocate in the movement, and you can bet that he was a thorn in the side of Democratic “leadership” at least half as much as he was a thorn in the side of the Repugs. Don’t think for a second that the Dems aren’t happy to see him go, for more than one reason.

If you don’t have a secret or a character problem, people in Washington don’t feel comfortable with you. It’s the same in any corporate environment. In the case of D.C., political opponents are left to just throw staggering amounts of money at you come election time. (See Alan Grayson.) If you threaten a status quo, the more money your enemies can throw, the better, but most people in politics have a usable secret, and they are often controlled by it. When they step too far out of the lines of the proscribed parameters, out comes the secret and down they go. It works on Righties too. Just ask Newt Gingrich about his resignation as House speaker. Ask Bob “Speaker for a Day” Livingston too.

It’s called politics: a brand of so-called civilized warfare. I’ve been amused for years that as soon as Larry Flynt started offering big money for provable sex scandals involving congressmen and senators, two speakers resigned within days of each other and Bill Clinton was no longer on the fast track to being forced from office. Remember that “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” thing? Suddenly, you coulda heard a pin drop in Washington. Sometimes it’s a beautiful thing when politicians suddenly shut the hell up.

Now ask yourself if it’s easier for a corporation or a bank to control a politician who is in the closet or out of the closet. Type of closet doesn’t matter. It’s about who knows the secrets and who knows who knows the secrets. Votes aren’t for sale just for money. “Nice deal ya got goin’ here. Sure would be terrible if anything were to . . . well, you know.”

There have been numerous players in the Weiner story. For instance, Bill O’Reilly. I had to marvel at the ability and hypocrisy of O’Reilly, a man who chose to be a tool for corporate fascists, just like a call girl dressing up like a nurse or a Catholic schoolgirl for a client. There he was, tsk-tsking about Weiner when the story really got going. Well done, loofah boy! Smell the hypocrisy! Kiss it. Go ahead, kiss it, you worthless little boy! I wonder what fraternity he was in.

Then there’s the creep who targeted and uncovered Weiner’s stupidity and poured gas on the fire in the first place: twisted muck-diving crap-stirrer Andrew Breitbart. This time he might have deserved an apology, after Weiner attacked him in the way that he did. After all, he really did have the photos that Weiner tried to spin doubt upon. Yeah, his digging for the photos and his motives are highly questionable, but his way of asking for an apology was completely classless, as classless as what Weiner did in the first place. In a way, they almost deserve each other; two sides of the same worn nickel. Anyway, Weiner ended up apologizing to him. Now it’s Breitbart’s turn to apologize, to Shirley Sherrod.

We can still wait a long time and no apology will be forthcoming. Meanwhile, I can visualize that this particular 10-year-old is probably laughing with joy that he has gotten so many people to say the word "weiner" so many times, especially the ones on TV. What that probably does for his own wiener, I’d rather not dwell on.

How sick and twisted is this whole sordid affair? It’s so sick and twisted that Andrew Breitbart was given a temporary coat of something that could pass for at least a patina of credibility. But that will be a land so alien that he won’t know what to do with it or how to operate in it. Just like Weiner and his Twilight Zone, Breitbart has created one for himself. His problem lies in the fact that he has sold himself into a life of working in a dual world of media and politics where credibility is an ephemeral illusion that waves through the fingers like a stale fart in a closed elevator. Washington is a world where credibility is rarely real, but much more often nothing more than a concept that is drawn up and marketed by huckster handlers. It’s intangible. It’s a mirage. Remember Daddy Bush wanting some of that “vision thing”? Like it was something you could just buy or a suit you could just put on?

Sooner or later, people like Breitbart usually do something that blows up in their faces. It’s all about the arrogance. Breitbart said he had more photos and they'ere more graphic, but “out of decency” to Weiner and his family he would not release them. At the same time, he used the threat of releasing additional photos to pressure the apology out of Weiner. So, all of a sudden, after releasing his first cache of pix, Breitbart gets a sense of decency? He would like to be considered a journalist, if only of the muckraking kind, but a better word might be blackmailer. (Of course, completely in character, Brietbart ended up finding a way to get his cherished naked photo out there despite the apology deal. Who’s worse in all of this; the disgusting, lying Weiner or the completely lacking-in-honor Breitbart?). It reminds me of those movies where the kidnappers get the ransom and then kill the hostage anyway, just for kicks.

My own feeling about O’Reilly, Weiner, and Breitbart is that it’s a shame that all three of them didn’t get the complete crap kicked out of them in the schoolyard, back in the fifth grade. Their social skills are sadly lacking.

Just a thought #3:

Suppose Monica and Bill had been tweeters and sexters. Time was on our side on that one. Forget about the blue dress. Just wait till everyone has portable technology that can see and hear through walls. Just wait till you can buy it at Radio Shack or Home Depot. Home Depot, of course, will also sell you the lead shielding you’ll need. It won’t stop tweet-hacking, though. For that, you’ll be needing a secure channel app for your tweets. I’m sure it’s being worked on. No doubt the Pentagon has it.

But, speaking of "shoulda gotten the crap kicked out of them in the fifth grade," Repugs and way too many Democrats in Washington called for Weiner to resign and did it with a level of hypocrisy that is nearly infinite. Why? Because Weiner sent his pix to women instead of guys? Is Miss McConnell feeling slighted? Or, as I said, was Weiner-boy guilty of throwing open a window on life in Congress and Congress wanted to slam that window shut, pronto?

Should Weiner have resigned for lying? At least his sex scandal is a sex scandal without real, physical sex. At the end of the day, whether or not he should have resigned should have depended on his constituents, redistricting, his effectiveness, and/or the judicial system. Even if prostitutes or something untoward with minors turns out to be involved, how would that make Weiner any different from many of his colleagues? Cocaine? Psychological problems? A simple case of frat-boy arrested development? Same thing. At this point, who knows? Now, here’s some real perspective!

Just a thought #4:

Who has caused more damage to America: Anthony Weiner or Roger Ailes? Sexting or Fox “News"? You decide.

Even some normal, decent people, such as Ed Schultz, also called for Weiner’s resignation, but why should Weiner have resigned in a D.C. world where people habitually kill people with a pen, the old-fashioned way; where other frat-boy lowlifes (Sen. "Diapers" Vitter comes to mind) defund education, destroy lives by defunding pap smears and defunding breast exams; where mine safety is deregulated and miners die as a result; where the FDA is gutted and food safety is deregulated, so eating your veggies can kill you; where an oil company isn’t called to account for the unnecessary deaths of 11 workers on a flaming platform; where John Boehner can openly hand out checks for votes on the House floor like it’s a parliament in some banana republic; where war criminals like Bush and Cheney get to serve out their full terms and laugh in our faces; where you can be free to become a de facto mass murderer by your actions and votes; where everyone around takes bribes from K Street, and you can just form a cult, rent a house on C Street, declare yourself a church to save money, and advocate for the murder of gay people while calling yourself “pro-life”?

I’m not condoning lying, but if lying is the reason that Weiner had to resign, then every politician in Washington who ever lied should also resign and go home to whatever hole they crawled or slithered out of in the first place. At the very least, that would do wonders for Washington rush hour traffic and air quality.

And, let’s not forget about Clarence Thomas & the Adventures of Long Dong Silver. By the standards set by Thomas, Weiner is now eminently qualified for the Supreme Court. Are tweeted pictures of Weiner in his black robe on the horizon?

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