The Thing About Anthony Weiner

Well, it’s been a hell of a couple weeks for us Anthony Weiner fans at Harpyness. We really did love his uncompromising support of reproductive rights and health care, and his ability to shout down right-wing zealots and shame the politicians who abandoned 9/11 first responders in their hour of need. Now, as y’all know unless you’ve been living off the grid, it seems Representative Weiner was representin’ his weiner all over the internets in a series of naughty tweets and messages with ladies who were most definitely not his beautiful and brilliant wife, Huma Abedin. Oh, Anthony Weiner. You fucking dumbass.

The issue is not so much that Anthony Weiner likes to show off his dick. I’ve noticed this tendency seems to start at an early age—I remember grade-school boys proudly displaying theirs on the playground—and continue well into adulthood. (Yes, gentlemen, we understand that you think it’s special. Now put it away.) If Weiner wants to show it to other consenting adults on the internet, that’s none of my business, even though I think it’s wrong because he’s married. I don’t think that particular kink makes him any less effective at his job.

The problem is the phenomenal lack of judgment and foresight here. Either Weiner was so arrogant he thought there was no way this would come back to bite him in the ass politically or he has such poor impulse control that he couldn’t stop himself. With every idiot politician who’s been caught recently—including Weiner’s New York colleague Rep. Christopher Lee, who was forced to resign earlier this year after some internet perving with a woman he met on Craigslist—why would he take this risk?

Here’s my theory: Weiner’s a classic Type A New York overachiever: highly intelligent, focused and driven but also loudmouthed, brash, oversexed, desperate to prove himself. I’ve dated guys like that in NYC. They’re initially exciting but ultimately exhausting, and terrible relationship material because they require a constant flow of adulation and attention. Equality and domesticity are boner-killers for these dudes. Once your lady is not particularly impressed with you anymore, and you have to do all the mundane stuff that commitment requires, you’re going to get your attention-seeking jollies elsewhere. This dynamic was obvious last night on “Real Time”, when Bill Maher and Jane Lynch did a hilarious—and cringe-inducing–reading of Weiner’s X-rated exchanges with a Las Vegas woman who rhapsodized about how amazing he is, and the future mayor of New York, and his giant cock, etc. etc. etc. Despite all his talk about jerking off, it was clear that Weiner’s ego was actually the most important thing being stroked. (And also that dirty talk taken out of context is about the least erotic thing going.)

The American political system tends to attract and reward Type-A narcissists with a penchant for risk-taking and the sociopathic belief that the rules don’t really apply to them. We shouldn’t elect these Type-A narcissists and then be shocked when they do Type-A narcissist shit. It’s pretty naive of us…and yet we do it all the time.

It was reported today that Democrats in the House, including Nancy Pelosi, are urging Weiner to step down. Personally, I don’t care if he resigns or not. When Republican politicians get caught up in sex scandals, they should resign because their actions conflict with the “family values” they and their party are trying to legislate. Weiner has no such mandate from his party. He’s sleazy, and I feel sorry for his wife, but the state of his marriage is none of the public’s business because he’s not one of those “sanctity of marriage” polticians trying to legislate our relationships. If voters in the 9th district want to kick him out, they can. (At the moment, the polls would indicate they don’t). In the meantime, public mortification is often the worst punishment for a Type A narcissist, and Weiner’s getting that by the bucketful.

The only person who’s really happy here, besides right-wing gadfly Andrew Breitbart, is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Nothing like having another politician’s sex scandal sweep your own off the front pages. Mazel tov, Ah-nold.