Weiner Walks Away With Head Held High

Anthony Weiner, the unnecessarily harassed former Congressman from New York, today announced his resignation from the House of Representatives. The announcement comes after Weiner admitted sending inappropriate images to fans of his, including one that appeared to be his bulging underpants.

Weiner had taken a leave of absence from the House, presumably to clear his head and confer with his wife, who had been overseas. She returned yesterday and Weiner announced his resignation today. It is not immediately clear who will replace Weiner in the House, though the seat is considered a virtual lock for the Democrats.

As I said before, Weiner will rise again. What he is alleged to have done is stupid, harmful to his marriage, and the mark of someone who has some sort of personality flaw. What the media and the Republicans did in savagely beating Weiner into submission is far worse than anything Weiner did.

Consider the things that other folks have done and they remained in office:

George Bush: Lied to the American people and dragged the nation into a needless war in Iraq, killing god-only-knows-how-many innocent civilians and wasting the lives of American soldiers. Never got impeached despite deserving it.

Bill Clinton: America's horniest president banged an intern, lied about it in court, got impeached (but not convicted) and kept his seat.

Senator David Vitter: In normal times, a conservative hypocrite who pushes moral values while banging prostitutes would be shunned by the political class. But these are crazy times, and as long as the sex involved girls, the GOP seems cool with it. Vitter kept his seat.

Ted Kennedy: Uncle Ted actually killed someone, after he got hammered (allegedly) and drove his car off a bridge into water. His passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned after Kennedy (allegedly) did not immediately go for help. Kennedy got re-elected roughly four billion times until he finally died, unfortunately not from drowning.