As IF Times

link Anthony Weiner: poster child for mistrust – baltimoresun.com.

People get tired of this story because it is so base.  Weiner himself perpetuates the saga by virtue of not resigning after the queasy details of his personal peccadilloes have been revealed.  Otherwise, it would have been  old news by now and people would have moved on to the next scandal.

Now the story takes a different dimension.  The focus is no longer on Weiner, it now shifts to the constituency that he represents because there are reports that by a simple majority there, people support him.  This is the root of some of the malaise that infects society at large. The cliche goes that people deserve who they elect and this gets proved again and again.  Less than a year ago Charlie Rangel, the permanent Democratic fixture in New York was censured for all kinds of offside activities while sitting as a congressman.  Avoiding taxes was one such issue, which is only noteworthy because he was one of the authors of the federal tax code.  Lovable Chuck managed to ‘golly gee, shucks” his way out of that one.  The lovable rascal didn’t have to resign, because, well he’s so gosh darn charming and the people loved him.  Besides, his explanations for his transgressions were all innocent enough:  He forgot, or didn’t understand the complexities of his tax issues.

Mr. Weiner, to his credit did a full mea culpa.  There was no room for misunderstandings, no accidents, no reasonable explanation of his recreational proclivities.  Despite his impressive Pinocchio impersonation, the people in his district still think enough of Weiner to allow him to represent them.  He’s still their boy!  This is great for Weiner, because now, he doesn’t even have to pretend to be sane!  His public knows that he’s warped  and they don’t care!  Not that this is a big surprise, given his New York district, which, like San Francisco on the other side of the country support their own varieties of mixed nuts.   What this means however, is that for the rest of the population, they must endure policies passed in no small part by the input of these flaky representatives.  Essentially, the wacko predilections of these districts are transmitted to the nation as a whole, truly a tyranny of the minority. 

This also means that crafting rational policies to deal with large scale social and financial issues are entirely moot excercises.  Obviously, trying to reason with people of these constituencies would be like explaining string theory to monkeys.  It’s very much a mob mentality.  To attack the leader of the mob, regardless of how eminently unlikeable their personalities, is to attack the mob itself.  I’m sure even Weiner is surprised by all of this support.   People can take encouragement by these episodes.  This means that anyone but anyone can run for public office.  As a matter of fact, they should actually publish a picture list of requirements to make it simpler for those who can’t read, (incidentally not a dis-qualifier).  Apart from shallowness of character, extreme narcissism and lack of any rational judgement, pants being on fire would be good credentials to have.  The major stipulation is that you need to bring along  a few million voters who are just like you.   Next thing you know, Alec Baldwin will be running for mayor of New York….

link RealClearPolitics – Video – MSNBCs Martin Bashir: Palin Bus Tour In “Breach Of Federal Law”.

It’s amusing to the point of farce.   So if you are minding your own business, driving around in a bus painted with the American flag visiting places of historical interest, you are in danger of breaking federal law.   Hmm.  Sarah Palin is not exactly your run of the mill individual of course.  But to our knowledge, she has not advertised her trip, her stops, nor participating formally in any political event.  It’s just that the ‘news media’ are chasing her around like pimply faced paparazzi hoping or expecting something to happen.  CBS even stated that the caravan of media hounds trailing the bus is ‘dangerous’.  Dangerous maybe to the idiots following her around counting the times she invokes, ‘shucks’ or ‘golly gee’.  Maybe they’ll catch the bus speeding.   Ooh..Ahh….

At the same time, a Democratic congressman from New York is apparently in danger of violating some kind of federal law, by virtue of having an image of his crotch in tighty whities sent to the twitter account of a Seattle student.  The ironically named congressman Weiner, is giving every evasive answer except the direct one to the question of ‘was it your hot dog?’  His inability to be frank about this is suspicious.  In so much as a crime of some kind was actually perpetrated here, by hackers or by lying about it, wouldn’t it make more sense to have a caravan of news hounds chasing the Weiner around?  Shouldn’t Weiner be the one being grilled?

On the one hand, a private citizen is just minding their own business, having a sightseeing road trip and the media are frothing.  On the other, an elected government lawmaker flashes his sheathed Oscar Mayer over the Internet and he gets a page 6 mention in the New York times.   As long as Palin doesn’t have Death to America painted on her bus, why should the media by covering her like she was Brad and Angelina on their 23rd adoption?  The derangement syndrome which has gripped the liberal media has not abated at all in over 3 years.  They pursue her like Ahab stalking the big white whale.   In the case of the brewing scandal surely to be dubbed ‘Weinergate’, shouldn’t someone be looking into the judgement of an individual who is amused by puerile displays of exhibitionism…..ok, allegedly.  I guess the media think this is a ‘small’ crime…. Hey, he’s a New Yorker; they’re prone to all kinds of wacko behaviour over there.  But enough titillation, back to the real criminal, Sarah Palin.