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The Spectacle Blog
The answer to yesterday’s question — how long it would be before Nancy Pelosi reversed course and called for Anthony Weiner to resign — turns out, not surprisingly, to be not very long; Pelosi, along with DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Steve Israel, called for Weiner to resign today. But this apparently was not actually a response to the investigation into Weiner’s messages with a 17-year-old girl in Delaware, according to CNN:
A senior Democratic official told CNN that the decision to call for Weiner’s resignation had “been in the works for several days” and the discussions “between the political committees resulted in an internal Saturday morning deadline for him to resign on his own.”
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the decision “was decided before the Delaware news broke.”
This tracks with my impression that Democrats’ have wanted Weiner to go away for most of the week. But for now, Weiner isn’t going anywhere except to rehab. Says his spokewoman Risa Heller:
Congressman Weiner departed this morning to seek professional treatment to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person. In light of that, he will request a short leave of absence from the House of Representatives so that he can get evaluated and map out a course of treatment to make himself well. Congressman Weiner takes the views of his colleagues very seriously and has determined that he needs this time to get healthy and make the best decision possible for himself, his family and his constituents.
You may recall that Weiner said on Monday, “This is not something that can be treated away; this is my own personal mistake.” (To be fair, he also said he hadn’t ruled out seeking professional help, but this would certainly undercut any hypothetical post-rehab comeback.) Major Garrett at National Journal reports that when Pelosi and Israel called him this morning and told him they’d issue statements demanding his resignation unless he resigned today,
Weiner told them that he would not make a move until his wife Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, returned from her trip to Africa and the Middle East with Clinton. Abedin is expected back on Wednesday.
So the drama extends into a third week. Kirsten Powers (an ex-girlfriend of Weiner’s) asserts that “Anthony will not resign unless there is threat of legal prosecution”; while it’s possible Weiner didn’t do anything technically illegal, it’s also possible that there are more revelations to come.
Bob Grant| 6.11.11 @ 6:05PM
Looks like this Weiner incident is coming to a head but it appears he's standing firm and will not quit congress. To be brief, he's got one eye on his job and another on the investigation that could put him in a pickle, maybe legal trouble.
The problem is his constituents love him and want him to stay. Heck, at this point, it would surprise me if they erect a statue of him somewhere in his district.
Mike| 6.11.11 @ 6:08PM
I don't remember seeing all of the attention and outrage when the subject was John Ensign or David Vitter.
Tome for a hypocrisy alert.
Bruno| 6.11.11 @ 9:29PM
Mike you sure like Weiner. That is alright, it is the way you were born. Remember, your partner should always wear protection.
NoLib| 6.11.11 @ 9:37PM
Please stuff your self-righteous indignation, moron--you're embarrassing yourself.
Ensign and Vitter didn't stick their faces in the camera and lie repeatedly to the American people for 10 days. And they didn't text pics of themselves wearing a cape and tights to 17 year old girls either. Weiner's a freak! lol
W| 6.12.11 @ 1:27PM
Vitter admitted that he paid a prostitute seven years from when admitted, he did not hold a news conference to deny it.
Richard Baker| 6.11.11 @ 6:13PM
As Rush has said many times, in the Democrat party this sort of thing is a resume enhancement. He'll stay in Congress because that party doesn't really see much wrong in this. The shining example would be Slick Willy as a paragon of virtue (remember, everyone lies about sex, right?) So by that standard what has Wiener done wrong? Sad and pathetic little man. Rehab! To accomplish exactly what? How not to get caught sexting?
W| 6.12.11 @ 1:29PM
The reahab is conducted by Bill and Hillary and Carville. You lie, then say it is only sex, it doesn't affect my job,blah, blah.
Mike Ramsey| 6.11.11 @ 6:21PM
Any doubt that this "treatment" will be fully taxpayer funded by virtue of his uber-generous congressional health care plan?
Michael L. Hauschild| 6.11.11 @ 6:35PM
“Leave” must be like “is.” My take is that anyone having taken such an obvious leave of his senses is being asked (even by old “is” himself) to leave the House of Representatives. Not take a “leave” of absence.”
Mark Jeffery Koch| 6.11.11 @ 8:35PM
After reading many comments readers have posted since the Weiner episode first became public, it is extremely depressing that apparently so many Americans feel we should have zero standards in our elected officials and believe the congressman's conduct is a personal matter and no one else’s business. This is what the late great Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called the dumbing down of morality, and this says a great deal about the lack of accountability we expect in our public officials.
Married or not, an elected official should not be tweeting photos of a sexual nature to women nor should he be engaging in telephone sex with several women or doing so via the Internet. This is conduct unbecoming a person that sits in Congress, and Congressman Weiner, if he is more concerned about doing the right thing rather than his obsession with staying in power, should immediately resign. What he has proven to everyone is that his main concern is not his constituents but himself.
There are 310 million people living in America and only 535 men and women get the honor of serving their country as a congressman or senator. This is not a right but a privilege and an honor, and we have every right to expect the people we elect to uphold standards of decency and morality. When we as Americans look the other way and do not care when our representatives violate their oath of office by engaging in inappropriate behaviour we dumb down our expectations and get to the point that as long as the representative is supposedly doing their job we do not care what kind of behaviour they engage in while in office. And that is wrong.
We, as citizens, have every right and expectation that the people we elect to serve us do not embarass us and do not engage in activities that embarass the Congress and embarass their constituents. What Mr. Weiner did may be legal (even though it was highly improper) but if he wants to engage in this kind of behavior he may be free to do so, but let him do so after he resigns from Congress. We have a right to expect and demand better from our public officials.
Bob Grant| 6.11.11 @ 9:00PM
Yep. This used to be classified under common sense.
NoLib| 6.11.11 @ 9:21PM
Geez, Mark, if you think the soft-on-Weiner comments on this blog depress you--don't read the liberal, bottom-feeding slugs at HuffPo or DU--you'll be positively suicidal!
Michael L. Hauschild| 6.11.11 @ 8:59PM
Mark,
I totally agree, but here one these very pages Gingrich supporters and Guiliani supporters abound. All we can do at this stage is support candidates that exhibit acceptible behaviour, do not forgive for past discression, and hope we can work out of the delema the same way we got into it slowly but surely by actually taking the time to raise our children ourselves.
NoLib| 6.11.11 @ 9:32PM
Michael, if Americans think it's no big deal to abort their babies, why would a few Weiner's weiner texts and tweets bother them? I mean, what the hey, right?
Our country is a stinking, rotting fish and that rot started with Roe v Wade.
matthew s harrison| 6.11.11 @ 9:26PM
They have rehab for douchebags? I have a long list of potential clients, if anyone can tell me where Weiner went! Where do I start.
Seriously though, this whole cop-out that guys like Dukovny, Michael Douglas, and Weiner use, rather than just admitting they are too weak to control their desire to stray from their wives, is just that-a bogus cop-out-complete B.S. to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.
Weiner, if found to have sent dick-pix to teenagers, should be jailed-FOREVER. He should resign-and his whole idea to go away for a few weeks and hope this blows over, won't work. He is a sleaze-and even the scumbags that comprise his constituents must want him out!
Nick| 6.11.11 @ 11:48PM
Go away, racist pig!
Michael L. Hauschild| 6.11.11 @ 10:10PM
Please pull the Robert Schultz comment from this posting string. I would also request that you ban him from the site.
beebop| 6.12.11 @ 6:03AM
I am not in favor of banning the free speech of any one. Do you feel that by banning someone you have neutered him or he or she has somehow changed their view point? Try to remember that the only way to bring healing is to expose the wound to fresh air ....
Michael L. Hauschild| 6.12.11 @ 9:35AM
That was not free speech, and yes I am capable of discerning that fact. So is AS.
beebop| 6.12.11 @ 4:49PM
I respectfully disagree. Read what you like, discourse or ignore it. But banning speech is a slippery slope.
Besides, libs are their own best example of why they are being rejected by thinking people.
J.C.Eaton| 6.11.11 @ 11:26PM
Isn't this outfit's{the Democrat Party} behavior deliciously predictable?
bert| 6.12.11 @ 12:38AM
So after the phony calls for his resignation the Rat party play the Patrick Kennedy card.
San Fran Nan has her sexual predator / pornographer rep moved out of sight in so called rehab so her buddies in the Obama state media are given cover to move the story off the web and tv.
He will slithering back into Congress in a few months .
Hey Mikey , lets compare scandals .
Ted Kennedy knowlingly let a woman die a slow death while he called his campaign manager.
Barney Frank ran a male prostitution ring , fixed parking tickets for his hustler boyfriend , latest boyfriend was arrested for growing pot while Barney was at the house,
Weinser , the sexual predator/stalker/psychopath sending unwanted vile graphic pornographic shots of himself to young girls and teens.
Vitter and Ensign cheated on their wives .
Lets see who wins as usual , the Rats hands down as usual !
NoLib| 6.12.11 @ 3:22AM
Hey, you forgot old horndog Clinton who was porking 21 year old interns in the Oval Office while ignoring Sudan's repeated pleas to take custody of Bin Laden!
I don't think you could get more derelict than that!!
rendite| 6.13.11 @ 1:16AM
Wasn't our "first black President" also ignoring genocide in Ruanda during these White House sexcapades with Monica?
Ah, the distractions.
Then he teamed with pal Tony Blair to order NATO (90% US jets) to bomb Belgrade.
Simultaneously he's selling the Lincoln bedroom to the highest bidder (donor) and letting ICBM rocket technology 'walk' its way to China courtesy of another donor or two.
No, screwing on the job in no way impacts the supreme focus on that job and an impeccable discharge of one's duties.
beebop| 6.12.11 @ 6:08AM
If a 46 year old man -- having seen the consequences of what telling LIES after being caught doing something most of us wouldn't -- runs to tell lies and then compounds it by not coming clean when he says that he is "confessing," then I am not sure whether there is any sort of therapy to fix stupid. He's going to need some anti anxiety meds and some for depression because rooms will go quiet when he returns to DC.
Marriage counseling might be a good turn as well.
Conservative View| 6.12.11 @ 9:03AM
WHY RESIGN?
It isn't necessary to have to have rep. Weiner resign. The leadership of the Democratic Party in Congress needs only to reassign committee chairs. Just take Weiner off of the committees he is now on, and place him on meaningless committees such as the Congressional trash and garbage committee, or the Senate page reimbercement committee.
This will achieve a couple of things, first; that the reporters will have little use in talking to a member of the trash committee about much of anything, and second; the people in his district will no longer have a member of Congress who can "help" them. The little man is spanked, put in the corner and told to just stay there. I doubt the man could long survive such a demotion.
Oldefarte| 6.12.11 @ 11:10AM
"....Congressman Weiner departed this morning to seek professional treatment to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person...."
Shazam, maybe that professional treatment is possibly a high-priced HOOKER? Also, IMO, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, Steve Israel and nancy Pilosi should instead resign!!!!!!!!
Mark | 6.12.11 @ 11:16AM
As I've said before, here and elsewhere, the problem is his constituency. They WILL re-elect him by a significant margin. The crowd he represents doesn't care about this. Don't forget this bunch can be incited to near violence in SUPPORT of murdering children, why should they worry about a few dirty pictures and sexting ? The ONLY thing he has to worry about is if his party can pressure or force him to resign. He's got a job for life, heck, he could be killing and eating kittens and his district would ask him for the recipe.
SoCon| 6.12.11 @ 6:17PM
Mark, the problem is the American people. Weiners in Congress wouldn't exist in a moral society. Our country is sick--just look at our decline in all areas.
matthew s harrison| 6.12.11 @ 1:42PM
Mark-That is pretty much what I said-and I was called a racist! Hilarious the left, aren't they? Not a brain among the whole lot. They spit on Vets coming home from Nam and yet they pith babies at the rate of about 70 million per 30 years-and not only that, but most are black! And I am the racist for stating that his constituents are reprobates! Classic lefty deflection-on all counts. Nothing but moral reprobates and degenerates who want to see the US tumble into chaos and filth. .....which they are accomplishing.
SoCon| 6.12.11 @ 6:20PM
Matthew, I agree the left is deviant, but you're wrong about the racial make up. There are more whites than blacks in the democrat party. Almost all the leaders are white, too.
This is not a racial issue, it's a moral issue.
JimH| 6.13.11 @ 8:19AM
Rehab? How do you treat being a perv? Do you apply electric shocks while the subject views pictures of nude girls?
lin | 6.13.11 @ 2:24PM
Are there actually rehabilitation facilities that offer treatment for dullard-ism?