Anthony Weiner's story is the kind you feel guilty laughing about, because it's both disgusting and sad.
There's no getting around the comic aspect of a congressman named Weiner who thought it was OK to tweet pornographic photos of himself to women. The comedians still haven't run out of jokes.
But the damage Weiner has done to himself, his family and his supporters is serious. It's difficult even to imagine what drives someone who is so bizarrely disturbed. This is a guy, after all, who departed Congress in disgrace in June 2011 after sending out lewd tweets. A married guy with, at the time, a baby on the way. You'd think the shame and disgrace would have caused him to stop, but — astonishingly — they did not.
On Thursday, Weiner, who is continuing to run for mayor of New York City amid sinking poll numbers, said he sent sexually charged online messages to three more women after he resigned. These included a lewd flirtation with a woman via Facebook as recently as November.
That was more than a year after he resigned from Congress, 11 months after his baby boy was born and four months after he and his wife, Huma Abedin, a former top aide to Hillary Clinton, were featured in a People magazine story that quoted Weiner as saying, "I really do feel like a very, very different person." In the same piece, Abedin said, "It took a lot of work to get to where we are today, but I want people to know we're a normal family."
Does "normal" mean a husband who continued to carry on risky and self destructive online flirtations with women, allegedly under the name "Carlos Danger"? And lied about it repeatedly, apparently without shame or remorse? Is this the kind of guy you'd want in charge of anything, let alone the largest city in the nation?
Weiner is by all accounts bright, talented and ambitious, but the demons haunting his psyche drive more than just his disturbing sexual deviancy. Someone with impulse control as weak as his should not be in a position of responsibility. Nor should someone so indifferent to the consequences of his actions. Nor a compulsive liar. Nor a digital flasher prone to behavior unacceptable even for teenagers — at least not until he proves he's managed to reform himself.
The fact that Weiner's wife stood by him at his news conference Tuesday was touching but terribly sad as well. What sort of man would expose someone he loves to such public shame and ridicule to further his own ambition?
"Anthony's made some horrible mistakes, both before he resigned from Congress and after," Abedin said. "But I do truly believe that that is between us and our marriage."
No, not really. If Weiner wants to govern 8 million New Yorkers, his behavior, honesty and willingness to take crazy risks is something every voter has a right to ask about.
At this point, the answers are not just inadequate. They're disqualifying.
, etc.
