If They Were Republicans: Anthony Weiner

A new feature I'm introducing on this blog is a monthly (hopefully) segment called "If They Were Republicans. It's a look at how prominent Democrats and liberals are treated by the press, Leftist politicians, and leftists in general and how that would change if the Democrat in question had been of the opposite political persuasion, and nothing else was different; not the circumstances, not the individual's actions--nothing but what political stance they espouse.

Because he's topical now and likely won't be in a month's time, this first edition of ITWR will focus on: Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Now, for those of you who just arrived from the next galaxy over, I'll explain a little bit about what Congressman Weiner did, and what happened afterward. Basically, in the wee small hours of the morning late in May, a photo appeared on Weiner's twitter feed of a man wearing only grey briefs with a noticable erection. It was uploaded from Weiner's yfrog account and appeared to be meant for a 21-year-old female college student, but apparently the congressman had prematurely shot the upload out and forgot to make the message private. A right-wing website, breitbart.com, saw the incident immediately and ran with it.

On the morning of June 1, Weiner rose early to spit back at Breitbart and others now reporting on the story, claiming his twitter and yfrog accounts were "hacked", that his hands were full doing the job he was paid to do, and that he saw no reason to expose himself to the press any further. However, the congressman's attempts at deflection were woefully limp, and the story continued to grow bigger and longer. While some in the press got on top of this story and rode with it, others came...to Weiner's defense, most notoriously old college pal Jon Stewart and the ladies of the View, who were no doubt impressed by the size of Weiner's credibility.

After a few more women came forward stating that Weiner had also sent them inappropriate photos over the years, Weiner was forced to poke his head out his office door where he was busily tackling his long, hard workload, and admit that indeed he had sent the tweet, and there had been no hacking, and could this story now acheive its climax.

I myself was surprised at how long this story could sustain itself, expecting that the press would handle Weiner with velvet gloves, as they did Bill Clinton, and any other left-wang--WING! I said WING!--politician caught with their pants down. Weiner also evidently believed the press would stroke his ego and swallow any lie he came up with. As far as I'm concerned, however, they did. It was fairly clear most of the journalists covering this story were in Weiner's tent. Just look at what guys like Stewart, Jimmy Fallon and David Letterman tried to pass off as "jokes". "It was Weiner's weiner," commented Fallon, who should have followed up with "What has four wheels and flies?" Come on, a Member of Congress named Weiner showing his caucus on twitter? The jokes practically make themselves.

As far as the news coverage surrounding this scandal, well, it couldn't have been more limp. Howard Kurtz of CNN's "Reliable Sources" refused to even touch Weiner's story, saying that it "appears to be faked", a remark that later came back and went off in his face. Others like Salon's Joan Walsh suggested that Andrew Breitbart was the real villain, here, for daring to break the story in the first place. Even Ed Schultz had to admit that wasn't true.

Now, oddly enough, Reuters falsely labeled Weiner a Republican in their headline on the story, either confused or willfully trying to paint him as if he could not possibly belong to the "good" party. However, one has to wonder what would have happened had Weiner actually been a Republican?

First of all, breitbart.com would still have carried the story, but so would CNN, MSNBC, The Huffington Post, the Daily Kos, CBS, NBC, and pretty much any other news outlet that could get their hands on the Weiner piece. The press would not have worried about whether or not the story was possibly "faked", and absolutely would not have bought Weiner's "hacked" lie, nor his later "prank" description. They would immediately begin digging for more, and would have turned up all those other women on their own, without waiting for them to come forward. Olbermann, assuming he still has a TV show, would label him "The Worst Person in the World" and demand his resignation. Janeane Garofalo would probably suggest he should be arrested, as opposed to being elected "Mayor of New York". The ladies from the View would have a field day with this story.

Also, they would never shut up about it. Until he resigned (which, if he were a Republican he would likely do the day after the first photo was leaked), there would be endless round-the-clock coverage and Weiner's weiner would receive more exposure than anyone would possibly want, and after his resignation, we would see him referred to and remarked upon any time the Left wanted to deflect us from a scandal on their side. Don't believe me? Well how long do you think it will be until we stop hearing about the "scandals" surrounding men like Newt Gingrich, John McCain, Mark Foley, Chris Lee, etc.?

I could see the collective members of the so-called "mainstream" media referring to any Right-wing politician who can keep it in his pants described as "pulling a Weiner" from this point forward. But, unfortunately, we'll never hear that about Anthony Weiner the Democrat, because, well, he's of a leftist bent, so the press dutifully reported on Weiner's flaccid apology and let him go right back to his job.