Waiting for the Next '-Gate'If I were Rep. Anthony Weiner — and thank goodness I'm not — I would just sit tight. Sure, for the moment he is God's gift (should I say package?) to late-night comedians. Jay Leno mused that the reason it took Weiner so many days to call a news conference was he "wanted to wait until his pants came back from the dry cleaners." Conan O'Brien said the good news is that the rep found out he can keep his porn name — Anthony Weiner. And David Letterman rolled out the top 10 questions to ask yourself before posting a photo of your "deal" on Twitter. These included "What Would Brett Favre Do?" "Do I have a last name that would make this especially embarrassing?" And No. 1: "What could possibly go wrong?" Yet as recently as 2009, Letterman himself sat in the Weiner seat, admitting to a series of affairs with his underlings. Said the Los Angeles Times back then, "It remains to be seen whether the CBS comic's admission ... that he had sexual liaisons with female employees while he was involved with his now-wife, the mother of his 5-year-old son, will fade away with a few late-night punch lines." Note to LA Times: It did. Faded like a cheap T-shirt mistakenly washed in hot water. (Not that I would know.) How many people laughing at Letterman's Weiner jokes even remembered the funnyman's peccadilloes? For that matter, how many remembered the horn-dogging of other higher-ups, from Newt Gingrich (cheating on his wife while he railed against then-President Bill Clinton for doing the same) to New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey (cheated on his wife with a man) to New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (cheated on his wife with hookers AND did it in his socks). Where are they now? Hanging their heads in shame? Let's see.
If Weiner needs any cheering up — and somehow I suspect he does — he should consider how quickly the fallen aren't so fallen anymore. The klieg lights of shame just keep moving. No sooner does Arnold Schwarzenegger admit to fathering a love child with his family's housekeeper than the International Monetary Fund's Dominique Strauss-Kahn is accused of trying to rape a hotel maid. It was actually hard for John Edwards to get his own headline the day he was indicted for allegedly using nearly $1 million to hide his own horndoggery (and out-of-wedlock baby) during the 2008 presidential race. The guy could end up in prison for 30 years! You can almost hear him shouting, "Hey, what's my sex scandal, chopped liver?" But how could the media help themselves? The other stories were so much newer and shinier. And then along came Weiner with the name and the photos and the Twitter angle. It was like trying to resist free phone sex from a Facebook friend. The press is weak and fickle. In fact, the press is a lot like Anthony Weiner. And that is why the tweeting, cheating twit should take heart. If he can stand a few more weeks or months of ribbing, something even bigger will come along. And he'll be second banana. Lenore Skenazy is the author of "Who's the Blonde That Married What's-His-Name? The Ultimate Tip-of-the-Tongue Test of Everything You Know You Know — But Can't Remember Right Now" and "Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)." To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM
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