Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi asked one of the more salient questions about the Weiner affair: “what the hell do you have to do to be disqualified from high-level politics in this country?”
In a short piece titled “Electing Anthony Weiner Isn’t As Funny As It Sounds,” Taibbi slams Weiner as a “21st-century flasher who used the U.S. Congress as a raincoat.”
I don’t mean to sound like a prude, but what the hell do you have to do to be disqualified from high-level politics in this country? When someone told me a while back that Weiner was running for Mayor, I thought it was a joke. This married politician sent unsolicited pictures of his penis to female strangers on the Internet! It’s not a crime, I guess because indecent exposure laws haven’t been updated for the cyber age, but basically, he’s a 21st-century flasher who used the U.S. Congress as a raincoat. Then he got caught, had to resign from Congress in what normally would be shame and disgrace, only to turn around and start doing it all over again pretty much immediately.”
As far as Matt Taibbi is concerned, for those wondering if shame is dead in America, Anthony Weiner might serves as one indication.