Carefully, intelligently, purposefully, passionately and successfully, Anthony Weiner maneuvered himself into a position as a major player in the United States House of Representatives, becoming a leading light in the liberal side of the Democratic Party, and a likely candidate to be elected mayor of New York City.
Yet while all these beautiful moves were being perfected by Mr. Weiner, he was also playing a different tune on Twitter, sending questionable, risqué, and even lewd photos of himself to young women whom he apparently did not even know.
It had to end. And when it did, Weiner played it well, claiming his Twitter account had been “hacked” and that he was outraged, and that No – he did not send those pictures. Then he was asked the inevitable question about one of them: “Is that photo a picture of you?” All he had to do at that point was to say that no, that was not him and that should have been the end of the entire matter, and cause for investigation of those damnable “hackers”.
But then the story turned. Weiner refused to say that the picture was not of him, and that immediately told the rest of us two things: 1) That the photo WAS a picture of him, and 2) That somebody else, somewhere, somehow KNEW it was a photo of Weiner’s private belongings. And the story began to intrigue the reporting pool of the world. It turned into a great spiritual-like quest, a marvelous riddle like a Zen koan similar to the famous “what is the sound of one hand clapping?" People who disliked Weiner joined with those who loved him and with many others who didn’t care about him and now huge numbers of people who had never even heard of him before, all sought the answer to Weiner’s Dilemma. He had stumped the entire world!
A great spotlight from heaven, or somewhere out there, now found and focused on Weiner. As a brilliant advertising executive or marketing director might dribble out pieces of enticing information and with a look in his eyes normally reserved for carnival barkers, Weiner led us all down his tricky little trail. Like a great performance in some marvelous Olympiad spectacular, every step he took was seen, photographed, videotaped, recorded and breathlessly watched. Such a level of attention is normally reserved for erupting volcanos, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis, and similar catastrophes and disasters.
So now. Having failed in everything else, Weiner tried to throw himself on the world's pity plate. Finally he says, he will tell us what he claims is "the truth". But it won’t work. Not now. Now when we have seen how perfectly he lies. When he finally tells us what we all knew, and even elaborates somewhat upon that, we now KNOW he is hiding the really bad stuff - and we all what to know what he is NOW covering up?
So we will forgive him – of course we will, but we will only forgive him as a human being. We can not forgive him as an ideal. He was at one time, something very special. He was part of every human dream, he was someone you could count on, rely on, trust and believe in. That is what made Anthony Weiner very, very special. Now he is gone. His shell will apparently remain with us for a while. He can still be a politician and still do some things that most politicians do here and there, now grinningly welcomed as one of their own, but the shell will remind us of what once seemed to be, and the rotten smell of decay will remain with us until he finally departs our midst.
