Here I was doing a spectacular job of pretending that ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner doesn’t exist when, bam!, out of the blue he strikes again. He evidently cannot control his desire to electronically share his junk with strangers on the internet, and now he’s gone too far by doing it with his child by his side in bed.
JUST IN: Huma Abedin announces separation from husband Anthony Weiner: pic.twitter.com/hvd27CaHOb
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 29, 2016
If Weiner doesn’t care about how his nasty habits impact his wife and kid, he can hardly be expected to care how they impact the world by embarrassing his wife and Hillary Clinton. No, not a lot of people are going to change how they vote over this, but my first thought upon hearing it was that Abedin would have to leave him for political reasons if nothing else.
She’s the vice chairwoman for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, for chrissakes, and she can’t very well be tolerating this kind of parenting from her husband. Their relationship is otherwise their business, but I think she’s been exceedingly forgiving and tolerant and dedicated to making their marriage work. This would likely be the last straw even if she didn’t have the future of the world to think about.
I’m not going give Weiner the Bill First treatment and diagnose him from afar. I just hope this separation means that I’ve, at long last, heard the last of that wretched man.
About damned time she kicked that creep to the curb.
Yep. She’s been beyond patient. There are only so many second chances one can reasonably be expected to give.
“Divorce the fucker”: Gilliam Flynn, Gone Girl.
As Des Moines Dem noted, the use of “finally” is bullshit.
We have no idea what was going on behind the scenes in a marriage. No idea why the reconciled.
But this is the age we live in: people make judgments about the personal lives of others with little thought.
Several comments I’ve seen pointed out that by sexting with a child in the picture Child Protective Services has to get involved. This would make it problematic for Abedin to retain custody if she didn’t separate.
Sorry for everybody involved here. It’s obviously bad for Abedin and their child, and he obviously has some kind of compulsion that is causing him a lot of trouble.
Booman writes:
I think that his “compulsion” is one of needing attention as much as being an exhibitionist, Booman. Since he lost his place if the political hustle field, his only way to could get that attention was by flaunting his illness as it relates to his wife. He has succeeded once again. He’ll be in the campaign from here on out. Separation? Divorce? Criminal charges from Child Services? All grist for the media mill and the Trump Machine.
You’ll be hearing about him.
Still.
Watch.
AG
thanks for cheering me up.
maybe he’ll land a gig at Trump’s new television network as the Alan Colmes punching bag.
OHHHHHHH!!!
I just experienced the most marvelous image!!!
Sadly, it’s too racy to post.
But it does involve Colmes, Weiner and bags being punched.
Like this.
Thank you, Booman!!!
AG
Very sensationalist of you Arthur. You don’t need to post the image, just provide a link. I can handle it.
“All grist for the media mill and the Trump Machine.”
As if on cue: Trump Seizes Abedin-Weiner News To Smear Clinton’s `Bad Judgment’. Frankly, I don’t think this will work for Trump like he, Ailes, Bannon, and Conway think it will.
From what I read, they’re pretty much already separated and not living together for some time.
She should have kicked him to the curb a long time ago. Or, as J.P. Donleavy put it, “Never kick a man when he’s down. Unless it’s the only way to keep him there.”
Sam Biddle
Glenn Greenwald response tweet:
Your hope that you’ll never have to hear from him again seems a bit premature. I’m sure Dick Morris is helping him as we speak. “look, pal, all you need to do is start talking about how the Clintons betrayed you in your fuck up mea culpa and eventually you’ll be on TV promoting your children’s book.”
All I needed to know about this asshat was his attitude about bike lanes:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2011/03/post_45.html
In Spanish there’s this term, pena ajena, which roughly translates into being embarrassed on behalf of another. Wiener and his wiener could be the poster child for said term.
I read on another blog some commenters who allege that back in the day Weiner was their rep, and that they feel he did a great job. Albeit, they don’t support his behavior now. Just sad that he’s done this to himself, and no longer can run for office.
From where I sit, the man has a Serious Problem. Really really SERIOUS. Given that he did this with his young son (thankfully sleeping, but who knows what else he did that didn’t make it into the media?? Really) right there… ugh gives me the creeps.
I don’t know if Abedin “had to” divorce Weiner now due to her involvement in the Clinton campaign. I don’t know if I’d go that far. OTOH, I really think it’s time for Abedin to leave this clearly messed up man, who obviously hasn’t gotten treatment for his sex addiction. And she needs to get their son away from him.
Speaking only for myself, I wouldn’t trust my kid around Weiner unless the visit was supervised. He’s got a serious problem. Hope he finally seeks the help that he obviously needs.
Good luck to Abedin and their son.
I didn’t know that “stupid philandering dick weed” could be diagnosed.
Don’t you mean”stupid, fantasy philandering dick weed?” If so, this country is going to need a lot more shrinks.
Is “sexting” all that different from phone sex, either between consenting adults or purchased, usually by a man? (Good business for phone companies according to the article.)
Is this sort of behavior prevalent or rare? (Yucky would be the word I would use to describe it, but I feel the same way about porn, which, unfortunately as a liberal, it’s not my place to tell others what they may or may not have access to.) Does the prevalence or rarity define whether or not it’s a psychological disorder? Or is it the status of the person engaged in such “naughty” behavior the defining element? Okay if young and unmarried and not okay and in need of a shrink if older and married?
Not looking to excuse Weiner’s behavior; just trying to understand what it is that we here feel compelled to denounce.
In the first round of his sexting scandal he sent a picture of his clothed erect penis to at least one person (a college student) who didn’t have that sort of interaction with him.
You mean this one?
Again, I’m not looking to excuse Weiner and don’t want to trawl through all the reports to make a judgment call as to the nature of his phone-relationships with the various women, but honestly, the line between communicating with any man about ordinary stuff and “sexy talk” isn’t that fuzzy. OTOH, I don’t even follow the public tweets of politicians; so, what would I know about that culture?
In our exhibitionist and sex-obsessed society, where is that line between okay and not okay and sick? I honestly don’t know because much of what I consider unacceptably provocative or salacious is well-within the boundaries of acceptable today.
Sexting is 100% normal if its consensual.
But teens who sext other teens consenually can in fact be charged with statutory rape.
I thought there was a “Romeo and Juliet” exemption when both are underage.
How often are statutory rape charges filed in actual physical sexual encounters when one party is slightly underage and the other is of legal age?
(Unlike many people, I think that on balance statutory rape laws do more good than harm.)
definitely does happen.
Think it was atrios who highlighted such a case a while back, pointing out how ridiculous the harsh statutory rape sentence was for the slightly older high school male who had consensual sex with his high school girlfriend.
(And you thought we were Incarceration Nation now!? Think of the consequences if that particular “crime” were consistently prosecuted!)
Sex between consensual adults is also 100% normal and prevalent as well, but that doesn’t stop others from disapproving of some actual instances of this normal behavior.
She was at the time a 21 year old college student who was following Weiner on Twitter. She never had any private contact with him online or otherwise but he tweeted her a covered dick pic. He deleted it before she personally saw it but by then it was out there on the internet
“Friday evening I logged onto Twitter to find that I had about a dozen new mentions in less than an hour, which is a rare occurrence. When I checked one of the posts that I had been tagged in I saw that it was a picture that had supposedly been tweeted to me by Congressman Anthony Weiner.
The account that these tweets were sent from was familiar to me; this person had harassed me many times after the Congressman followed me on Twitter a month or so ago. Since I had dealt with this person and his cohorts before I assumed that the tweet and the picture were their latest attempts at defaming the Congressman and harassing his supporters.
Annoyed, I responded with something along the lines of “are you f***ing kidding me?” and “I’ve never seen this. You people are sick.” I blocked their accounts, made my page private, and let the matter drop, expecting them to eventually do the same.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/statement-gennette-cordova-student-lewd-twitter-photo-rep-weiner
-account-article-1.140477
pfft. So, she followed him, and later he followed her and that led to her being trolled by a gang with a leader and all in a public space. Then Weiner tweeted a covered dick pic to her public account which he quickly deleted and which suggests what?
As she said she gave him no indication that she would be open to a picture like that from him. And because he sent it to her she ended up getting pulled into his scandal.
He wants to do that with a 1000 online mistresses? Fine but he should have left the college student out of it.
We have no idea.
Nada.
We don’t know anything about their marriage. What the problems were in it.
Tinder, AFF, POF, craigslist. This behavior is as common as pigeons in Central Park.
People cheat on their spouses in all manner of ways. Sometimes because they can. Sometimes because they are selfish liars. Sometimes because they are lonely.
What is sad is to see supposed liberals circle like vultures.
I think the primary concern would be the potential harassment angle. Superficially, his behavior seems “creepy” as well as “lewd”. As you write, it’s fun to get a chuckle out of the sordidness of the whole thing, but ultimately it seems like a private matter but for the potential harassment (and I suppose child endangerment, but I don’t see much evidence of that where no actual harm has occurred).
Why on earth is this ugly, pencil-dicked idiot news?
And why on earth would it embarrass Clinton?
I get that folks up north, for reasons passing understanding, love Page 6 and other gossip and affairs among the powerful, but nobody west or south of Philly gives a shit about this guy.
Why? Trump has you debating Trump talking points. Weiner posts pics of him self for free…yet no one questions the morals of Mrs. Trump selling her nude pics.
I always wondered if she stayed with him for political reasons, even if she did it for HRC. I don’t feel any need to know however, and I hope they can split with as limited hate as possible.
Or: He’s a sex addict and she’s his co-dependent. Sorry, not willing to ascribe tolerant wife to this woman. People involved with sex addicts need help just a much as the addict does. She needs to get into a twelve-step program and get her child to a therapist right now…even if it means dipping out of Hillary’s orbit for awhile.
…didn’t have the opportunity to do dick pics back in his day, but he did diddle an intern in the oval office. Where’s the outrage about that, and why didn’t our current Democratic nominee dump him ages ago?
There’s a considerable lack of self awareness in all of these cheap shots from journos about Weiner. The expression ‘you spot it, you got it’ comes to mind. In the Judeo/Christion bibles they call it hypocrisy.
I’m not saying lay off Weiner if beating the story gets you off, but really, this is just milking it for kicks, isn’t it?
Of sexual harassment and that is what the Rs should have gone after him for. But I also always said that if Secretary Clinton wanted to stay with him despite the fact that he sexually harassed a White House intern that is between them as I was not in a position to judge their marriage.
Is it just me, or are there about half a dozen double entendres in that comment?
You don’t have to be Bill First to assume that Weiner is mentally unwell.
I suppose that this is the last we’ll ever hear of him.