Weiner vs. Qaddafi

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Thursday, 16 June 2011 11:36

Itâ€™s an odd race of sorts but it seems that the competition is on nevertheless. The political question this week which continues to develop moment by moment is who will the Obama administration succeed in removing from office first: Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, Bashar Assad of Syria, or Anthony Weiner of Queens.

Unless NATOâ€”the North Atlantic Texting Organizationâ€”gets involved in the tenuous Weiner situation, which way this situation will break remains anyoneâ€™s guess. So far, the real and original NATO has proven rather inept, indecisive, and even disorganized when it comes to dealing with the despotic criminals out there murdering their own citizens by the thousands.

On the Weiner situation, my pedestrian and rather casual observer sense which is no different than yours tells me that for a congressman of the United States, this guyâ€™s biggest problem was that he had too much time on his hands. Whether Weiner is halachically Jewish or notâ€”some say he is, others say heâ€™s notâ€”is irrelevant. The fact is that he has a Jewish-sounding last name and represents some of the foremost Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Queens.

Congressman Weiner is in the midst of a classic self-made hardship that doubles as a nightmare. How could this accomplished man who began to pursue his political ambitions as a teenager in Brooklyn be so brazen and just downright crazy and behave in such a wanton and distasteful manner? Weiner dreams about holding onto his elected office, claiming that the activities he indulged in may have indeed been borderline psychopathic but, he says, were still not illegal. And thereâ€™s nothing on the law books that says you canâ€™t be somewhat out of your mind on occasion.

When is the last time you saw a photo of Muammar Qaddafi without much of his clothes on? If anything, Qaddafi is somewhat the opposite of Weiner in this particular area. Whenever you see a picture of Qaddafi, heâ€™s wearing a cute little hat and is covered in layers of streaming robes in Middle Eastern Bedouin style. Qaddafi may be nuts but heâ€™s not going to photograph himself in the shower with his Blackberry held at armâ€™s length. I guess there is crazy and then there is crazy.

Let me say this about Anthony Weiner: I think he is a good, well-meaning, and hardworking representative who cares about his constituents but just lost his mind when it came to a certain type of activity. Sadly, Weiner does not have too many friends even in his own Democratic party in Washington right now. The leadership wants him out of there as soon as possible because they say he is a distraction from the Presidentâ€™s failed policies. I would argue that this is a good thing. They say yesterday would not have been too soon for Weiner to resign.

President Obama said on Monday that if it were him confronted with this type of situation, he would indeed resign. The odd thing is that last summer when veteran Congressman Charles Rangel was censured by the Congress for neglecting to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in income from property he owned and failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in taxes, somehow the president and the Democratic leadership could not summon the courage to ask Rangel to resign. Rangel hung in there, absorbed the condemnation of his colleagues, paid his taxes, and went on serving in Congress.

Weiner, in my estimation, certainly needs some professional help, but somehow I am seeing his offenses as being disgusting and, like he has stated, pretty stupid, but nowhere near as criminal as the offenses committed by Mr. Rangel. Yet criticism of Mr. Rangel was not forthcoming from the president or from the Democratic leadership despite the shame that Rangel brought on the Congress. At the height of the Rangel crisis, he was feted at an 80th birthday party attended by political leaders like Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo. It could be that Weiner is just too young.

There are at least two other leaders besides Mr. Weiner whom President Obama cannot decide what to do about. One is Mr. Qaddafi about whom the State Department said that despite the relentless bombing of areas around the Libyan leaderâ€™s homes and headquarters, that the objective of the operation was not to displace the despot. On the murderous Assad in Syriaâ€”who to date has killed more than 1,300 Syrians that we know aboutâ€”the Obama administration has no announced position, nor have they taken a stand.

While they straddle the diplomatic fence on uprisings in the Middle East, they have determined conclusively that Anthony Weiner (unlike Assad in Syria or Saleh in Yemen) cannot be reformed and that he must go and that he should do so immediately. Itâ€™s important to reiterate clearly so that the reader does not misunderstand, I find Weinerâ€™s behavior more than repugnant and I am additionally no big fan of his for a number of different reasons. But there is something else going on here beneath the political surface.

I have at least temporarily concluded that this cannot be exclusively about Weinerâ€™s depraved Twitter photos. Acting with such decadence cannot be the sole reason for Democratic leadership to coordinate a full frontal assault on the beleaguered congressman. There just has to be more to it, and this is what it is.

It has to be some of the words and phrases strung together by Mr. Weiner in response to the presidentâ€™s attempted shifts on the U.S. policy toward Israel. One needs to be aware that Weiner is an Obama man on just about every aspect of policy. But it did not serve Weinerâ€™s interests in his district to go along with the president on Israel. And to his credit, he did not.

Just two weeks ago, in the aftermath of Obamaâ€™s pre-1967 borders speech, Weiner boldly stated that he thought the president was, â€œselling Israel down the river.â€ On a previous occasion, Weiner said of Obama that on Israel policy, â€œthe President has it all wrong.â€ At this juncture, it has become abundantly clear that Mr. Obama is not more sensitive on any issueâ€”the floundering economy, the painful scourge of unemployment, the stagnant financial marketsâ€”than he is about his policy and attitude to Israel.

Of course, Weiner could have gotten away with pounding the president if he would not have placed himself in such an impossibly vulnerable political position. Obamaâ€™s Chicago style politics are merciless. When the Chicago political machine goes for the jugular, thatâ€™s considered a form of compromise. The organized Democratic response and the presidentâ€™s speaking out on the Weiner woes are not about some impulsive tweeting by the congressman. Itâ€™s silly and misguided to believe that it is.

More than anything, people seem to be at a loss to understand Weinerâ€™s behavior. It was probably explained best by one of the young people who was a recipient of Weinerâ€™s obscene tweets. She told the New York Post this week that she just didnâ€™t understand why the media was so consumed by Congressman Weinerâ€™s misdeeds. Right there within the context of her lack of comprehension of the congressmanâ€™s foibles is the answer. The press is obsessed about the subject for the same reason Weiner was. If you can explain one, you can understand the other.

For us, that Mr. Obama is unsure about what to do about the future of Muammar Qaddafi and Bashar Assad but at the same time knows exactly what Anthony Weiner should be doing is a curious matter that speaks volumes.

Comments for Larry Gordon are welcome at editor@5tjt.com.