Oops I did it again. Weinergate, round two
Now and again America dishes up a story so rich and succulent it reminds me of the “Eat-all-you-can-buffet” at my favourite Italian. I just don’t know where to begin.
So let me start with the most obvious. Anthony Weiner – and just in case you weren’t aware of it, his surname is one of the more common synonyms for penis – was drummed out of Congress two years ago for sexting pictures of his groin to students across the country.
At the time Weiner’s weiner – I promise I won’t use this alliteration again – was still clad in grey underpants. But the scandal was enough to end a career that had been described as potentially presidential. “Anthony Weiner, America’s first Jewish president?” ran one headline that hadn’t even been written by his mother.
One reason for the brash optimism was Weiner’s undoubted talent and iron-clad self confidence on the stump. Another was the fact that he had been a protégé of Bill Clinton and that his wife, a beautiful, clever Palestinian American called Huma had been Hillary’s right hand woman for years. Huma and Hillary were inseparable. The Weiners were the golden couple of the Democratic party. Washington swooned over them. They ticked all the right boxes. Apart from one.
June 2011: US congressman Weiner quits in lewd photo scandal
July 2013: New sexting scandal for New York’s wannabe mayor
Anthony it seems learned all the wrong lessons from Bill. Two years ago he left Congress promising therapy and a low profile. After two sumptuous weeks the original sexting story went away and life seemed somehow duller what with debt ceilings, fiscal cliffs and a really tedious election. Weiner went so quiet people assumed he had gone into a witness protection programme. He was also busy fathering his first child. So it came as a bit of a surprise and an example of political chutzpah that Weiner decided to run for mayor of New York, one of the most high profile jobs in US politics and, yes, a potential launch pad for presidential ambitions.
The other surprise was that Weiner was storming ahead in the polls. Once again that old cliché that there is no such thing as a second chance in American politics was proven wrong. But Weiner is ahead of the curve. He wants to prove that the new cliché (there is no such thing as a THIRD chance) is also wrong. This may turn out to be a stretch. So we now know that while Weiner was in political purdah, fixing his marriage, licking his wounds and spending a lot of time in therapy he was back on his iPhone sending pictures of his penis to young women. This time it was a 22-year-old student who texted that she got horny when listening to Weiner’s rants on healthcare reform.
I for one had underestimated the erotic potential of Obamacare. But you live and learn. By the way we know all this from a website called The Dirty, which dishes plenty of it on the web and does by its own admission “sometimes get stuff wrong.” But with Weiner they were on the money. He confirmed the story in his own impromptu press conference on Tuesday night.
Looking bedraggled and biting his lower lip as if it were to blame for his questionable urges the mayoral candidate pleaded with voters and said that the revelations, while horrible were in fact “frankly not new”. But frankly they were.
This time the candidate had taken off his underpants. In sexting terms that’s taking the relationship to a whole new level. Much has been made of the fact that Weiner used the alias Carlos Danger during his exchanges. And I hear what you’re saying. But let me posit a theory for one minute.
If a Jewish boy grows up with the family name Weiner he has already been subjected to so much torture by teasing that he crossed a threshold and perhaps lost his sensibility for aliases and their subtlety. At the press conference Huma did much of the talking. She acknowledged that the couple had been in a lot of therapy, that Anthony had made some horrible mistakes and that she had forgiven him. The voters of New York may see it differently. But as she stood there, bleary eyed and crushed, she reminded me of Hillary standing by her man Bill after Monica.
In the eyes of many Americans that kind of loyalty smacked of ambition over pride and never did Hillary any favours. As I write this Weiner is still in the race. His flesh may be weak but his hide is rhino thick. On Tuesday he had the cojones to say that “these events for us are in the rear view mirror”.
He had clearly forgotten to read what is says on the mirror. “Objects are closer than they appear” and frankly a lot more sad.
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