The STFU Files: On Not Being A Weiner

Begging your pardon, dear readers, I must veer off into current events (of the American political variety), so please bear with me while I get this out of my head. Kind o f like passing a mental kidney stone.

(Ahem)

First of all, let me say up front that Anthony Weiner (you know the one) is a dumbass of the first order.  But it isn't so much for the "media transfers" he made.  To me, the pictures and the texting aren't the main issue.  It's the lying about it that really kills me.

Have none of these guys learned anything, anything at all in this era of New Media and the 24/7 news cycle?

Lots of things get texted and sent that, in the hands of someone with malice or righteous justice on their minds, could have a lot of hay made out of them.  Agendas abound in the information age, so its best to make yours clear and stay ahead of the curve.  Or the pack, if one has reason to believe one has a lot of ill-wishers out there.

I reckon a lot of people are horrified on moral grounds, too.  And a case can be made for that, I suppose, if moral purity were the sole arbiter of fitness for office.

But.

I. Don't. Care.  It's fruitless and boring.  Boring.  

If one is looking to politicians for moral role models, perhaps one should recalibrate one's notions of a role model.  People will argue that poor decision making in personal life automatically translates into poor decision making in professional life.  True?  Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the individual.  Just because someone is imbued with a supposed true moral compass, by themselves or by their followers, does not mean the decisions they make are the right or good ones.  Don't believe me?  Then refresh your memory by looking back to all the bad decisions based on bad and wrong information (and right information that was flat out ignored) that got the country involved in the mess that was Iraq.  That people lied and so many died...Somehow, that's more obscene to me, in light of the lives destroyed, resources squandered, in a war that was prosecuted on falsehoods.

Nothing Weiner did rises to the level of national security risk.  He needs to apologize to his family, friends, the women with whom he was involved and to his constituents, not the world.  This is why the nature of his offense doesn't really interest me.  I don't expect anyone to live their lives without doing something that will most likely be considered as stupid, especially in the political arena.  What I would hope they wouldn't do, is lie about it if confronted with something, justified or not.

After all, isn't it supposed to be an admirable trait, to own ones' supposed transgressions?

To paraphrase Dieter from Sprockets, "This habit of exposing yourself has become tiresome!"