Don't Resign!

Matt Yglesias:

It has to be the case that the kind of character that matters for a public official isn’t the same as the kind of character that matters to be a good husband and father. After all, you want a responsible public official to neglect his family and friends (“hard-working”), to display a certain kind of ruthlessness and cunning (“negotiation”), to be a bit of a phony in certain situations (“diplomacy”), and all kinds of other things that don’t carry over straightforwardly from personal life to public affairs.

One of the funnier things about these scandals that break out seemingly every other week now is it's always those most hardened against government, the people that stomp around "oh fuck 'em, they're all fakes!!" etc that then swoon to the ground blubbering that they just can't "trust" so-and-so anymore.  "Sniff, snifff...he looked America in the eye and LIED to us!  Waaaaaah!"  They spend their days and night rolling their eyes that so-and-so is lying about things like the economy and war and terrorism and that's just par for the course, that's just how politicians are, but being a creepy dumbass with Twitter is a bridge too far for their precious selves to handle.  Which is nonsense.  Do I trust Anthony Weiner as a guy?  Of course not.  I'm sure he's as much a douchebag as any politician behind closed doors.  But unlike people who love to bray about "family values" and then get married 5 times before getting caught sucking off the gardener, I don't sit around worrying about what sweethearts they are.  Joe Q. Public being a sweetheart to his wife doesn't affect anybody except Joe Q. Public's wife, but a great Congressman can actually make thousands of lives better. Yes it sucks and if I was Weiner's wife I'd leave him, but I'm not his wife.  He didn't stare into my eyes and promise he'd love me forever; he said he'd fight so poor people can get healthcare.  We don't give a shit how great a husband our doctors are, or our lawyers, or the banker.  And yet when it comes to people whose job almost by definition is to be a bullshitter so that we can get what we want, we hafta constantly act surprised when they're not baking cookies for the Cub Scouts every night.

What Weiner did was stupid.  And embarrassing.  And he's earned all the potshots anyone wants to throw at him.  And if come election time people wanna throw him out, that's how it goes. But to think I'd risk a setback on any kind of agenda I think is best for millions of people because I might not wanna sing Hungry Like the Wolf into a hairbrush with him is asinine.

Meanwhile, David Vitter is still in the Senate, and he broke the law while being proven a giant hypocrite.  Gingrich gets to run for president, and if Bill Clinton could run for president he'd get about 65% of the vote.  If Weiner just waits it out a bit he'll be fine.  One day, he'll be pissed he got into this mess without actually having sex with anyone (as far as we know.) Politicians getting in hot water about this shit nowadays is like waiting for a bus: just give it a few minutes, and another one will come along.