to short-circuit the Embarrassment Machine...?

Someone told me last night that former congressman Anthony Weiner -- did it --
again. 

This morning, I wondered -- could Mr. Weiner have gone out and done this to himself again because he and his wife made a plan -- a serious plan -- to -- sort of -- challenge the -- "Embarrassment Machine" -- the media scandal-mongering?

A possible plan / time-line:
1.  come out and say you did it again, you're sorry again, you love your wife again
2.  wife stands by him
3.  he WINS the election for Mayor of New York City
4.  the Embarrassment Machine is --
in for repairs?
sold for parts?
de-fanged?

Maybe the Embarrassment Machine would lose its power, if someone took it on.
Maybe, I said to myself this morning while getting ready for work, that's what he's doing.

--------------------------
A Comment I read showed me someone else thought of that, too -- it said, "...turning this election into a referendum on the relevance of sexual proclivities to politics."

============= other Comments:

a third-rate psychodrama

so banal

Why is [this publication] so addicted to this trivial nonsense?

Unfortunately, given the way we treat politicians, only the
heroically public-minded
and the
pathologically narcissistic
seek office with any frequency. 
There are a lot more of the latter than the former.
Public service seems to be the only sphere in which we expect that worse treatment of current and prospective employees will somehow improve the quality of the applicant pool.  Weiner is about what we're down to, with rare exceptions.

I wouldn't hire him to walk a dog.

I wouldn't trust him to feed my cat.

It's like a Puritan witch hunt.

Question.  Why does anyone care about this story?  What does it mean to voters in terms of his public service?
Answer.  Seems like he will lie and omit whenever it suits him.  Normally I agree with you, but it's crossed a line for me at this point.  Plus he just looks like an idiot.

The more I read about this, the more I think it's none of my business.

If he had any decency he would at least follow through on his promise to get that girl a sex condo in Chicago.

Mind your own business.  Then people won't have to lie to keep their business private.

Great use of time and space, this.

I'm not that offended by others' infidelity, and don't consider it a litmus test to hold office.  I am much more offended by the boggling stupidity he's displayed.

What is wrong with us voters that we even tolerate people of this low character?  I mean even if Weiner had never sexted, it's clear his character is nonexistent.  Politicians make decisions that affect the lives of millions of people.  What is wrong with us?

= = = = = = = = = = =
----------------[excerpt, article in The Atlantic, on-line] -- Anthony Weiner is a politician who relished antagonizing the opposition.  His appeal was singular and tribal -- in an age of seemingly

vacillating, gun-shy Democrats,

Weiner took on whoever may come.  You never once got the feeling that he was ashamed to be a liberal.  He must have known that this made him a target for conservative activists.  A wise man in Weiner's position would be watchful. 

But Weiner is not a wise man. 

It is not his desire to get off that offends, it is the thick-wittedness of sending nude selfies on Twitter.  It is the incomprehensible silliness of handing your opponents a gun and saying, "Please shoot me."  Repeatedly.  It is wholly sensible that those of us who believe the liberal project is about more than embarrassing Republicans would not want Anthony Weiner as a pitchman.

There is something else at work here also -- a lack of compassion.  Here is where I differ with many of my liberal and libertarian friends. 

I believe that how you treat people matters.  It is folly to embarrass your pregnant wife before an entire nation.  To do the same thing again is cruelty. 

And there is the promise of more to come.  One argument holds that what happens between Weiner and his wife is between them.  I agree with this argument. 

But cruelty is not abolished by the phrase "consenting adults." 

And the fact that the immoral is not, and should not be, illegal does not make morality meaningless.  Huma Abedin has one choice.  We have another.  The choice should be made by voters -- there should be no sense that if not for the powerful editorial pages Weiner would have won.  As a city we deserve to see who we are, and what we actually care about.

I don't think it is wrong to care about how people treat each other, which is another way of saying I believe that morality is important. 

...I think public office is an honored, and honorable, position. 

I do not think it is wrong to ask that our officers be compassionate.  I do not believe it is wrong to ask that our officers be wise. 

I do not believe that it is the fate of all men to send dick pics hurtling through cyberspace.  And I do not believe that Anthony Weiner is the best we can expect from maledom, to say nothing of New York Liberals.

---------- written by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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