At the far edges
of chutzpah—Anthony Weiner and Eliot
Spitzer.
Even
in New York City, a town famed for chutzpah,
Weiner’s performance this week was far-out. There he was trying to deflect
disclosures that his practice of wholesale sexting didn’t end after he abruptly
resigned his seat in the U.S. Congress two years ago when his sending many women
naked pictures of himself and raunchy online messages was first revealed.
“I said that
other texts and photos were likely to come out and today they have,” declared
Weiner at his press conference Tuesday. He sent them for more than a year after
he quit Congress vowing to deal with his sexting habit.
After his short stay out of politics, Weiner came
back in full force in May announcing he was running for New York mayor to
succeed term-limited Michael Bloomberg. And, in recent weeks, as he campaigned
aggressively, he had shot up in the polls and was the front-runner. He insisted
Tuesday that he would remain in the race.
Spitzer, who
resigned suddenly as New York State’s governor in 2008 for “personal
failings”—it was revealed that he was a regular client of a high-priced
prostitution ring—announced earlier this month he was running for the Number 3
job in New York City, comptroller.
Lavishly
spending from his family’s fortune made in New York real estate, Spitzer has
been on a hyper-intense campaign, paralleling Weiner’s, and also, according to
the polls, making political headway.
This week, a new
Spitzer TV commercial flooded New York TV beginning with Spitzer declaring, “Look,
I failed. Big time.” But having as New York attorney general been “sheriff of
Wall Street”—taking on wheeler-dealers there—he said he should now be given “a
fair shot” to return.
Weiner and
Spitzer have become veritable gags in New York City politics—indeed, laughing
stocks on the national level.
Andy Borowitz’s humor
blog on The New Yorker website Tuesday
was headlined, “Weiner Continues Sexting During Apology.” It claimed—in jest,
of course—that “Weiner stirred controversy today by continuing to send dirty texts throughout a
press conference devoted to apologizing for his behavior. Mr. Weiner was
halfway through his apology when reporters noticed him remove a phone from his
pocket and aim its camera lens unmistakably in the direction of his pants. After
seeing the candidate snap a photo of the pants region and then send a text,
reporters bombarded Mr. Weiner with questions, asking him if he had in fact
just sexted. ‘Yes, I did, but I swear this was the
last time,’ he said. ‘This behavior is now behind me.’ Mr. Weiner then
concluded his press conference by removing his shirt and snapping a quick shot
of his naked torso.”
And
serious issues about stability are being raised.
Frank
Bruni in his column in The New York Times
on July 9 wrote that Weiner was “angling for a gigantic promotion. In the
narrative he’s constructed, his mortification has made him a new man, so we’re
supposed to give him an extra measure of our trust and hand him the reigns of
the most important and most complicated city in the country. I know we like our
mayors brash, but we needn’t accept delusional in the bargain.”
As
for Spitzer, Bruni skewered his record as governor charging—accurately—that he
“was shaping up to be a self-righteous, self-defeating disaster of a governor.”
As
governor for little over a year, Spitzer proclaimed himself a “steamroller”—and
in his dysfunction exhibited the sensitivity of such a machine.
Commented
Dan Janison in a column in Long Island’s Newsday
on July 12, “Politics is just one business, of course, where ruthlessness can
be a character reference and hypocrisies are inevitable. But a prospective
public servant’s ability to act sensibly also is worth considering.”
Weiner
and Spitzer are Democrats. Dr. Kenneth Sherrill, Professor Emeritus of
political science at the City University of New York’s Hunter College, has
stated that “the two of them, in two different races, may have the effect of
pulling each other down” by giving Republicans a chance to present Democrats as
morally challenged.
There
has been, however, a history in America in recent years of forgiving scandal-scarred
politicians. President Bill Clinton managed to survive his affair with White
House intern Monica Lewinsky, beat impeachment and now has become an elder
statesman of the Democratic Party. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford
abruptly resigned in 2009 after he disappeared for a week and it was disclosed
that he was in Argentina pursing an affair with a woman there—but he was
elected to a seat in Congress earlier this year. In an article this month on this, The New York Times related that “all
across the country” politicians “tainted by scandal, some of them seemingly
mudded beyond saving,” have gone on to survive politically.
Still,
can Weiner and Spitzer make it when their behavior, perhaps forgivable to some,
is combined with a lack of stability and an absence of sensibility—and a meshugganah arrogance?
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