Anthony Weiner Is Wrong - Everything HAS Changed

At yesterday's press conference to address the surfacing of new photos of his penis sent to a female he met online after he resigned from Congress, Anthony Weiner stated that not much has changed since Monday:

"I'm surprised more things hadn't come out sooner," Weiner said Tuesday. "Things aren't that much different than they were yesterday."

"I said there were more things out there," he continued. "We went through this process and worked through some of these challenges and we put it behind us."

Weiner said he was not dropping out of the race for City Hall yesterday and he reiterated that statement today:

A relaxed Anthony Weiner strolled out of his Gramercy Park apartment Wednesday and said that voters are more interested in jobs and affordable housing than the new pics of his private parts.

A day after his second sexting scandal in two years hit the headlines, Weiner said he planned to spend the day catching up on phone calls, working on his new policy book and brushing up on the issues for an evening candidates forum.

When asked about how the latest revelations are affecting him, he said, “I'm fine. I've got an amazing wife and child upstairs. I've got a comfortable life.”

He said that those calling for him to quit the mayoral race never wanted him in.

“A lot of the same people who weren't crazy about me running in the first place now want me to get out, including my opponents,” the former Democratic congressman said.

Despite the latest cringe-fest, Weiner said he expects the “conversation” among voters to stay on moving the city forward.

“This is about the city and about the aspirations of people to make things better,” he said.

As I suspected, Weiner's too arrogant and delusional to do anything other than try and hang on in this race, but he is wrong if he thinks that "Things aren't that much different than they were yesterday."

 

For one thing, the tone and tenor of the press coverage has changed.

 

Where once much of the press were enabling his campaign with fluff pieces about his family life (the People magazine article from last summer, the NY Times piece that unofficially kicked off his campaign) and how well he was being received on the campaign trail by potential voters, his press coverage has now turned decidedly negative.

 

The NY Times and the NY Daily News editorial boards called for Weiner to drop out of the race today.  

 

The NY Post, which had been supportive of his anti-union policy initiatives, didn't quite call for his dropping out but called him a "weasel" and suggested he doesn't have the character to be mayor.

 

And then there are the columnists and commentators in the newspapers and on the political sites saying things like this kind of thing from Michelle Cottle at the Daily Beast:

Anthony is assuring us that all of this is old news. That he’d already told us there were still pictures out there. That, really, as he stressed at yesterday evening’s press conference on the revelations, this doesn’t change much of anything. 

But perhaps recognizing that some people might feel like they had heard this song and dance before, this time Weiner added a fresh wrinkle. When his original sexting scandal broke, the lovely Huma promptly went underground, refusing to stand by her husband’s side during the ritual public mea culpa. But with this new installment, Weinergate 2.0 if you will, Abedin not only stood next to Weiner at the press conference, she took her turn lecturing us all that this is a private matter. Anthony has made some “horrible mistakes,” she allowed. “But I do very strongly believe that this is between us and our marriage.”

How loyal. How poignant. Somewhere in the distance, I swear I heard Hillary Clinton’s heart break for her longtime friend and surrogate daughter.

Alas, in this case, Abedin is so very wrong. This is not just about her and Anthony and their relationship. He wants a life in politics. Wants it so very, very badly. And yet, even after he was driven from Congress, even after he went into therapy, even after he and Abedin began peddling the narrative of their Long Road Back, even after he had started plotting his rehabilitation tour, the man could not keep his dick in his pants and out of cyberspace. We are not talking here about a one-time screw up or even a series of affairs. Nope. This is a kink that Weiner has indulged since before his marriage and even after it vaporized his congressional career and turned him into a national laughingstock—a kink that, by its very definition, leaves an X-rated, irrefutable, and more than slightly icky e-trail.

This is the definition of an ungovernable impulse, my friends, and, as such, it is very much the business of the good people of New York. Because, you know what? In all likelihood, Weiner is going to do this again. No matter how earnest and impassioned his apologies to us and to his wife, and no matter how very sorry he may believe himself to be, the guy is going to wake up one fine morning, look down in awe and wonder at his junk, and think, I just gotta share this with someone new!

If he’s at home with Huma and little Jordan in their Park Avenue South apartment, no biggie. But if he goes off on a sexting spree while kicking it in Gracie Mansion, just think of the potential for blackmail and general civic dysfunction. (If I were a political foe—or, say, someone with a big-ticket city contract on the line—I’d be sprinkling Twitter with honeypot traps left and right.) And please tell me that there’s not anyone left out there who still believes that putting a sexually predatory man in high elective office is going to serve as a deterrent.

None of which is to say that New Yorkers shouldn’t vote for Weiner if they decide they’re willing to overlook his particular predilection. But both he and Abedin should spare us their it’s-a-private-matter piety. With his persistent perviness, Weiner has put his dick squarely on the ballot. Now a city of 8 million will have its say. Must be quite a thrill for a guy with Weiner’s exhibitionist tendencies.

Weiner can try and convince himself that nothing has changed now that his post-resignation dalliances as "Carlos Danger" have surfaced in the news, along with new photos of his penis, but he is going to have a harder time convincing the rest of us.

You can be sure that the press will be digging for more dalliances and photos, particularly because Weiner has denied some of the story about his online escapades that was told on TheDirty.com but won't say which parts are untrue.

Leaving that sort of uncertainty in the story is just asking for trouble, asking for reporters and bloggers like the guy at TheDirty.com to keep digging for dirt.

You can bet that more will surface before all is said and done, that the press is going to feed off Weiner's wounded, skinny-ass carcass, that he will remain the focus of the race and not for good reasons.

It is true that Weiner got a good reception yesterday at the Gay Men's Health Crisis Forum after he gave his second mea culpa press conference, with audience members applauding his energy and gestures throughout.

But let's see what a few days of devastating coverage in the papers does to that kind of reception on the trail, not to mention to his poll numbers.

People are often willing to forgive politicians for their mistakes once - David Vitter and Mark Sanford are good examples of that impulse on the voters' part - but third chances are harder to come by. 

And as Michelle Cottle wrote in that Daily Beast piece I quoted from above, if anybody votes for Anthony Weiner for mayor, they have to be willing to give him fourth, fifth, sixth and perhaps infinite chances, because Weiner is a compulsive sex addict and you can be sure he isn't going to stop his online adventures now.

Not if he can suffer being exposed twice and still walk out of his apartment this morning looking fresh and rested and claiming nothing much has changed since the new penis photos surfaced.