Just a few thoughts on Weiner…
Anthony Weiner, forced out of Congress by fellow Democrats, not for having sex with women, but for talking about it.
Senator David Vitter has illegal sex with prostitutes but was NOT forced out of office by fellow Republicans because it WAS sex with a woman (most family values guys in the GOP get caught in gay sex, so he was a form of redemption for them).
President Clinton, prosecuted for having an extra-marital affair by Rep. Gingrich who was also having an extra-marital affair.
Anthony Weiner came to prominence with his impassioned defense of health care for 9/11 survivors when the GOP wanted to cut off funding. He was a strong advocate for not allowing the GOP to defund nutrition programs for poor pregnant women and infants when the GOP chose to fund the National Arboretum instead.
Was anything about the text messages Weiner sent more obscene than the conversation Gov. Walker of Wisconsin had with a man posing as one of the Koch brothers as they discussed using hired thugs to cause violence among people demonstrating against his attempt to break public unions?
Our Country has had many leaders who took a personal interest in the pursuit of happiness (cf Thomas Jefferson, FDR, JFK, WJC), but up to and including Clinton they were men who had a sense of duty to the Country – and they served the Country well.
On the other hand, the current crop of religious right, family values, and yes, even so called liberal pols seem to have something besides the good of the country on their minds.
Maybe the Country is in the shape it is because men who are concerned only with self-gratification or aggrandizement are running it. In this sense, Anthony Weiner does represent the soul of this Congress.
FiegerTime - Geoffrey Fieger's Blog 
So if he sent them to his male “page” it probably would have been accepted by his GOP counterparts!
I would rather see you using your energy to help Detroit Schools. http://goo.gl/L0ooD
America really has its priorities screwed up when it cares more about a congressman sending pictures of his junk to another adult than issues that really matter, such as the ones that you mentioned. America demonizes sex and nudity more than violence, and I guess it’s because of the Puritanical mindset that pervades America. I really despise that kind of “morality.” Just the other day, my 87-year-old grandmother was complaining about how America is going to hell in hand basket. She cited women wearing thong bikinis as a reason why. I told her that what they wear (or don’t wear) is none of my business, it doesn’t affect me, and nobody’s getting hurt but… well… she’s a grandmother. She’s not going to change her mind at this point.
If you think about it, it’s indirectly because of the Lewinsky scandal that America is in the devastating condition that it’s in, not because of what Clinton did but because of how people reacted to it, in effect putting Bush in office. “I’m going to restore dignity to the White House,” said Bush, and the conservatives voted for him. Now it’s true that Al Gore did win the popular vote in ’00 — and that’s another travesty of justice altogether, the way the Supreme Court handled it– but the fact that the vote was that close is telling.
Richard Dawkins wrote a great article, “Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster,” about the world’s preoccupation with people’s personal lives and the evolution of sexual jealousy: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/1926
Julie
It seems to me as so many of the popular “soap operas” are being plucked from the major television networks due to budget constraints or lack of sufficient advertisers to fund them that the public which includes governmental bodies find a need to add fuel to these so called scandals.
If we ever got to conducting current business that would benefit this country as a whole perhaps we would not find such a need to involve ourselves with each and every little political scandal that comes along.
You can bet that for each scandal that is exposed, examined and dealt with there are 10 more right behind it hiding under their mother’s skirts and hoping that they will not get caught. But, how can they get caught? After all, they haven’t done anything wrong; just the other person that has done that.
I guess we need to face the fact that many people’s lives are so dull and boring that they need to create a soap opera and get involved in it themselves. For a public body of elected officials to sit around and pick apart another for what should be between them and their spouse does have a positive effect, it certainly keeps the real work from getting done and also which may be the most important; keeps the spotlight off of themselves and what they are doing or not doing.
Will this sort of thing continue? I think we already know the answer to that one; maybe it is just “human nature” after all or is there something more devious in mind?
Randall
Interesting how your ideas are lambasted and criticized (legalized prostitution, marijuana), yet your critics show their true hypocritical tendencies who if given the chance to explore a “Modern & Progressive” city as you have suggested, they wouldn’t find themselves in these “moral dilemmas”.
If you cleaned up and legalized something that is already happening since the dawn of time, Detroit would be “The Place” in less than 5 years in my opinion. It would help solve the financial crisis and mass exodus from Detroit and Michigan as welll!
@Randall,
“You can bet that for each scandal that is exposed, examined and dealt with there are 10 more right behind it hiding under their mother’s skirts and hoping that they will not get caught. But, how can they get caught? After all, they haven’t done anything wrong; just the other person that has done that.”
What I’ve learned over the years is that what it comes down to is a person’s ability to cover his/her tracks– or at least being lucky enough not to get caught– when s/he does something that other people deem “wrong.” And people who observe these slips in judgment rarely question, “Well, was that person just more honest about his transgressions? Was that person just unlucky? Was that person bad at covering his/her tracks?” They just assume that that person is a “bad” person.
One example from my life that comes immediately to mind (and I hope I’m not sounding self-indulgent here) is this: In the summer of 1998, I was a CIT at the overnight camp that I had attended for a few years. I had yet-to-be diagnosed Asperger’s syndrome and because of this, because of no longer being a camper and suddenly having to take certain “adult” responsibilities, my personality and eccentricities were suddenly under a microscope in many ways. Many of the counselors and CITs were horrendously guilty of neglecting the children, smoking weed instead of supervising them, and so forth. I thought this was horrible, irresponsible, and even somewhat dangerous but nobody was ever called on it, presumably because they had the social skills to cover their tracks, because they were lucky enough not to get caught, or because what they were doing was socially acceptable because “everybody” was doing it. On the other hand, if I, say, hurt myself and said, “Oh, shit!” within earshot of the kids, everybody knew about it. And the counselors would call me on it and say, “I heard you swore in front of my campers.” I hated lying (nobody would have believed me anyway) so I would admit that, yes, I did it, it was an accident, I’m sorry, etc. But because of my honesty, inability to cover my tracks, and so forth, I was the one that looked irresponsible even though I cared deeply about the campers.
Anthony Weiner was just unlucky enough to get caught. He lied and people saw through it. People are under the illusion that only he was the “bad” one because he just happened to get caught. Nobody wonders how many other politicians are doing “bad” or “worse” things. And the fact that America demonizes sex more than violence doesn’t help matters either.