Some years ago, I made the biggest mistake of my "media" career. No, not a crotch shot. But not good, either.
I was engaged in a pretty emotional back-and-forth with my former classmate and longtime friend Michael Kinsley, one of the most respected journalists in America. At the time, he was the editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Times, and along with some friends and students, I was waging a campaign of sorts to draw attention to the fact that women were woefully underrepresented on the opinion pages of newspapers, including my hometown paper, the LA Times.
In the exchange of e-mails, frustrated and exhausted, I wrote a sentence I never should have, which was interpreted as a personal attack based on health issues. I didn't intend to be insensitive or cruel. God knows, I have suffered enough loss in my life. But I sent the e-mail and copied the women who were working with me. And then it went "viral" — a term I'm not even sure I understood at the time. Michael was angry and rightly so. His friends, among them columnists with wide audiences, went after me viciously. I tried to explain. I tried to apologize. To this day, I have tried sending messages through mutual friends expressing my regrets, to no avail.
I learned a valuable lesson. In the old days, you could make a mistake, apologize to the person involved and close the book. For better or worse, things went away. A few months ago, my daughter was writing a piece for the Harvard Crimson about growing up in a family where rape (of me) was simply a fact of life. I told her about the first story that ever appeared in print about my experience, in the Harvard Crimson no less.
She spent the better part of the day in the archives looking for it, but it was before the Internet, and it simply doesn't exist anymore.
Life is different these days. If you don't think before you hit the "send" button or the "post" tab, there is no undoing of the damage. Everything is findable.
Congressman Anthony Weiner has a lot of explaining to do to his beautiful and talented wife, who may well decide she doesn't want to listen. But what should be a personal matter between a husband and a wife is instead an international sensation.
Did he really think he could post a crotch shot on the Internet and the world wouldn't know? Apparently he did. And he is not the only one.
I cannot begin to count the number of times I have told young (and not so young) people that what they post on Facebook or send out on Twitter is part of their school or job application, that employers and admissions officers pay attention to these things, that if you don't want your boss seeing you smoking pot, you shouldn't post a picture of a bong on your Facebook page. And I cannot begin to count the number of times they ignore me and then can't understand why they didn't get the job or the school.
The Internet has brought us access and information we never had. It has allowed us to make connections that once would have been impossible. It has turned the world into a much smaller neighborhood than I ever could have imagined.
It has also turned expectations of privacy on their heads and mistakes into scandals that may be forgotten, but never will be lost. I am still sorry for my mistake, and I expect that Weiner will be sorry about his for the rest of his life.
To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM
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8 Comments | Post Comment
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As always liberals will defend their own to the end no matter what.
Its personal as between him and his wife: he has a lot of explaining to do to her is the usual refrain, a refrain that is intended to deflect from the real and serious issues. I care not for his wife or what she thinks or will do, so far as I can tell she is an avowed Clintonista and can have expected nothing else from a Demorat.
The real issues, studiously avoided by Estrich are these:
1. Weiner is now a proven congenital, pathological liar. He cannot be trusted at all. He lied on his intial tweeter posts after his mistake in pressing the wrong button. He lied to the press and the public in his first interviews endeavoring to deflect the truth with the absurd if someone threw a cake at a speech giving bs. He premeditatedly lied at a series of press conferences that he called and conducted from his congressional office for the specific purpose of lying.
2. He knowingly lied when endeavoring to slander a US citizen and investigative journalist and in endeavoring to destroy that citizen's reputation.
3. Weiner by virtue of his congressional position and committee memberships is privy to certain security briefings and has shown hinself untrustworthy and indeed a security liability in that regard. He has done so by proving that he is a pervert and in pursuit of his perversion prepared to leave himself open to blackmail and to lie therafter.
4.Weiner has brought Congress into disrepute. I do not say the Democratic party into disrepute because as Susan demonstrates Weiner is the face of the Democratic party. Nothing atypical about Weiner there.
4. Wiener ( by deflecting and clinging to his job) along with those like Estrich that further endeavor to deflect opinion in the face of his self inflicted humiliation and dishonor have made it difficult for all fathers (who are not Democrats) to teach their sons about honor, integrity and truthfulness and the penalities in life for living without honor, integrity and truth.
5. Because Congress passes moral judgments inherent in passing legislation, Susan by not advocating his immediate resignation and indeed anyone else that does not so advocate is supporting the absurdity of a pathological liar and pervert passing moral judgment on all of us and legislating for all of us.
The fact that Susan consciously avoided the real issues when she had opportunity to do so and did not call for Weiner's immediate departure is entirely probative of the moral decay that is endemic within liberalism.
Comment: #1
Posted by: joseph wright
Wed Jun 8, 2011 12:49 PM
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Hey Joseph:
I must've missed your call for Vitter to resign.
dave perez
Comment: #2
Posted by: david
Wed Jun 8, 2011 9:57 PM
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If Congressman Weiner had said the first Friday night "Hey, I have a private life; it's none of your business", this story would have been over. It would be between he and his wife, where the sexual aspects of this tawdry (and icky) activity belong. Instead, he lied from the beginning and then kept lying. Additionally, he concocted lies about others, saying he'd been hacked and pranked, casting aspersions, yet again, on the "vast right-wing conspiracy". But he lied, again and again. If you or I lie to the government, we can go to jail - ask Martha Stewart. If we lie to our boss, we can be fired. He lied to his employer - us, the taxpayers who pay his salary. The very least of the consequences of his public, repeated lying should be that he is no longer employed by us. The honorable thing for Congressman Weiner to do would be to resign. Further, if Nancy Pelosi really meant she was going to "clean the swamp", she'd force him out.
Comment: #3
Posted by: Lesley Barnard
Wed Jun 8, 2011 11:19 PM
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When I read this column, even though the title is about Anthony Weiner, it seems more like a general story about being careful about what you post online or email. Estrich used herself as an example, then Anthony Weiner, and then said about how many people post things online that should not be posted. Maybe a different title would have suited the article better.
All in all, it seems like people don't use common sense when posting things online!
Comment: #4
Posted by: WG
Thu Jun 9, 2011 4:19 AM
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Liberals, including Susan, don't believe there are people in this country who don't rape, don't send lewd pictures, don't cuss, don't do porn, don't have affairs and DO lead moral lives. It's just part of the disease known as liberalism and explains why immoral behavior is acceptable in their politics.
Comment: #5
Posted by: Early
Thu Jun 9, 2011 6:49 AM
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To dave perez. I guess that you did miss my call for Vitter to resign because at the time I did not feel it incumbent upon me to copy you in on my e mail to him directly or to ask you conference in when I called his Senatorial office.
That said its is striking how dave proves my point entirely in that by reflexively crying Vitter! and thereby endeavoring to relativize the actions of Weiner, he demonstrates that Weiner is indeed the acceptable (to Democrats that is) face of the Democrat party and that Weiner is not an atypical Democrat.
To WG. The fact that all you took from the column is that one must be careful about what one posts on the internet is demonstrable of the whole purpose of the piece which was to deflect from Weiner's perversions and his patent unsuitablilty for office.
Susan's (lack of comment) and deve perez's comments are probative that moral decay is rank in Democrat and liberal circles and that liberalism is indeed a mental disorder.
Comment: #6
Posted by: joseph wright
Thu Jun 9, 2011 10:32 AM
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Hi,
Would someone kindly explain to me just why are Democrats asking for Rep. Weiner to resign, other than sheer stupidity when 98% of Democrats in Congress found former President Bill Clinton innocent of all charges for a lot worse [crimes to be exact]. After the impeachment scandal what bar is left?
Thank You.
Nuff Said...Dennis
Comment: #7
Posted by: Dennis
Thu Jun 9, 2011 11:14 PM
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ms. Estrich and all commenting on her article view the Weiner affair as solely a matter of rambunctious glandular impulses It is that, but more besides. Weiner first emphatically denied all of Breitbart's allegations, knowing all the while they were true. That means he knowingly and falsely called Breitbart a liar, both to his face and to a national audience. That is a slander, and a self-serving slander.
Now, Andrew Breitbart is not one of my favorite people, But that is entirely a matter of no account. Slander a saint, or slander someone you think deserving of contempt. The second is as contemptible and legally punishable as the first. Ms. Estrich and her admirers might contemplate the reach of the maxim inscribed in the arch of he Supreme Court: "Equal Justice under Law". If it is forbidden to slander Mother Teresa, it is forbidden to slander Andrew Breitbart.
Comment: #8
Posted by: Rally Girl
Fri Jun 10, 2011 11:39 AM
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