Violet on Weiner

Pols can lie about whether they favor banksters or not, about torture, about outing CIA agents, about reasons for going to war and not get the treatment Weiner is getting right now.

Interesting comment.

Also link to Amanda Marcotte at The Nation.

A big, big, big negative which may sink Weiner is the transcripts of sex "chat" with the NV woman. (Do people who "sext" never realize their words could be makd public?) This "ick factor" in those transcripts are very, very, very high.

Further, it appears Weiner or someone close to him knew that he was being tracked by a fairly large group of opponents. Today, on The Diane Rehm Show, a reporter states that they copied Weiner on their warnings to the women!!! Yet he continued. Drat that id. Or those overwhelming hormones*.

All in all, I guess I go with Bloomberg on this: Let his constituents vote their decision about his continued service in the House. And holding an interim election for his seat would be very expensive, for not only the state but the candidates. And would be one more reason for the MCMers to NOT pay attention to what freakin' matters to people.

*Maybe he should get a very thorough physical. Seriously. See my comment at Sky Dancer about the effect of, well, our bodies on our brains and hence on our "selves." I tended to give credence to this researcher's assertions since I experienced, in a small way, the effect of thyoid hormones on how my brain worked.

I saw your comment at violet's -- I don't get your use of that word for this.

http://sashasaid.wordpress.com/2011/06/0...

entitled Oh, hey, some actual feminism here, picks up on comments by Kirsten Powers.

It’s from Kirsten Powers, writing for the Daily Beast. She briefly dated Weiner years ago, remained friends afterwards, and was hoodwinked into defending him last week. Now she’s fed up:

But even if I could see past the lying and extreme narcissism that is noteworthy even by Washington standards, there is the issue of his attitude toward women. What has emerged is a picture of a predator trolling the Internet for women—some half his age—with which to engage in cybersex. We know only about the women who were responsive to his overtures. The odds are very high that he struck out with many, and other women were victim to his unsolicited sex talk. Women should be able to “friend” a married—or unmarried—congressman on Facebook or follow him on Twitter without fear of being the recipient of lewd talk or behavior. Just because a woman “likes” your video on Facebook doesn’t mean you can send her a picture of your penis. This is textbook sexual harassment. It may not be illegal, but it’s definitely unethical. He is in a position of influence, and many women—especially a 21-year-old—would be afraid to report a congressman doing that to them because he holds so much power. Also, he claims none of the women he contacted were underage, but how could he possibly know that?
By far the most disturbing information that we have been privy to—there is, no doubt, more out there that we don’t know—is the transcript of a nine-month “sexting” relationship Weiner had with a Las Vegas blackjack dealer. Radar Online posted the transcript, and it is rife with misogyny and distorted views about women. In referring to oral sex, Wiener tells her, “You will gag on me before you c** with me in you” and “[I’m] thinking about gagging your hot mouth with my c***.” This is not about sex. It’s about dominating and inflicting physical pain on a woman, a fantasy the hard-core porn industry makes billions of dollars on selling to men. You don’t want to gag a woman with your penis unless you have some serious issues with the way you see women.

Lambert, I get your point that of all the crimes (moral and legal) for Versailles to focus on -- crimes which are systemic and hurt millions in profound and life-threatening ways -- Weiner's seem ridiculously small potatoes, or even nonexistent as crimes. While I don't doubt for a moment that all the kerfluffle is elites meant for distraction, but I've got to go with Powers. Weiner's is pretty creepy behavior. Trolling his own fb site to find young women for sex-chat partners? Not good. And again, we get a great rush in defense of a progressive "hero" when what actually transpired is still coming out, with instantaneous dismissals of its possible importance. At the end of the day, the Weiner situation could turn out to be not anything much, but in the wake of the creepy defense by "progressives" of DSK and Assange -- well damn.

Should he resign over it? I really can't make myself care about the answer to that. Yeah, publicly he's one of the few strong progressive voices, but iirc, he still folded on the Health Whatever bill, and most of the time (all of the time?), his liberal votes-- when it doesn't matter-- just provide cover for the rest of the utter failures that call themselves Democrats. On the other hand, is his district likely to get someone better? I'm with Hugh -- it's all so corrupt, what does it matter whether it's him in the seat or not? It's hardly some great injustice if he loses his seat.

Of course, the reaction of his Versailles buddies is total crap too.

sexting and photos to women?

I mentioned above that when I first saw a report of his "sexting" with the NV woman, it was pretty 'icky." As "so big it'll gag you" talk. Excerpts along those lines were presented, without her responses.

When I read the complete transcripts, with her responses and comments, it was clear she was either really into it, really into playing it as a game, or leading him (in this case, Weiner) on.

I'm a really verbal person, and good writing, well-presented ideas, clever presentation, even witty puns can sometimes turn me on physically as well as mentally, just reading them on blogs, in books, etc. But reading that sexting did not do it for me.

So, I kinda assume the woman was into it. To each his/her own.

But, did Weiner send these things to women who had not reciprocated to flirty kind of talk first? I bet most women do not jump right in with "Oh, send me a cock shot!", but might, after some back and forth, indicate in some way an interest in physical looks, attributes....

Just trying to find out if indeed he did just...put it out there, with no encouragement.

Also, I don't tweet, but aren't these supposed to be private, btwn just the two people involved (unless it's a three-way or more-way)?

with his, apparent, gamesmanship on announcing he'd have a vote in committee on single payer, then bowing to leadership asking him to not bring it up and instead he'd get a vote on the floor of the House on it; then, that didn't happen and he didn't say much about it....

Today Susie linked today to Juan Cole's list of least progressive things Weiner has done. (Noting, alas, that Cole has his own blind spots....)

According to Cordova (in Izvestia two days ago), she and Weiner were exchanging messages about conservatives when the penis pic showed up:

Gennette Cordova said she did not even think the photo was real.
It was nearly 9 p.m. on a Friday when Ms. Cordova, who was preparing to head out for the night with a friend, logged onto Twitter and discovered that Representative Anthony D. Weiner had sent her a suggestive photo of himself in gray boxer briefs.
“It didn’t make any sense,” Ms. Cordova, a 21-year-old college student in northwestern Washington State, said in her first extensive interview since Mr. Weiner confessed in a news conference Monday to sending her the photo. “I figured it must have been a fake.”
Ms. Cordova’s experience with Mr. Weiner appears to fit a pattern: in rapid and reckless fashion, he sought to transform informal online conversations about politics and partisanship into sexually charged exchanges, at times laced with racy language and explicit images.
Ms. Cordova, who had traded messages with Mr. Weiner, a New York Democrat, about their shared concern over his conservative critics, said she had never sent him anything provocative. Asked if she was taken aback by his decision to send the photo, she responded, “Oh gosh, yes.”

(via Violet) So yeah, it seems like this wasn't just a consenting adults-type situation.

The reason the rush to defense Weiner as a progressive hero creeped me out, even back when as far as it had been reported it had sounded like he got caught out "just" sending penis pics as part of a voluntary exchange, was because the one extremely obvious thing was that the story that broke was not the whole story (srsly, the whole "my account was hacked!" thing sounded pretty fishy right off). The defense goes up immediately -- because as long as he's a "progressive" "hero" it really doesn't matter what follows, right? His behavior is forgiven, rationalized, and justified before anyone even knows what happened.