The rest of your list--Meh!

It was mentioned on MSNBC that he used taxpayer funds to travel to see his mistress. That is a crime.

Boinking said mistress, not so much.

Which is my point.

They might be limitd by very real statue of limitations and a high profile case, so I give them a little slack as they build the case.

Laura Fink raised that issue yesterday, so I went looking...

But the cops are involved.

As to the rest... Weiner some might not have been consensual, vitter, there you have it. The rest, we are seeing a paradigm shift, I Think, of what is acceptable and it's not morals, but respect. Why these issues are becoming larger and larger.

Oh and wiener might paralyze city hall as much as Filner already has.

He needs to go to the Betty Ford equivalent for creepsters who troll the Internet.

Kind of like noting that Lindsay Lohan has substance abuse issues.

Behavior destroys person's job, nearly destroys marriage.

Person continues behavior.

Two scenarios: either (a) he never tried to quit the online sexting with strangers, (b) or he tried but was unable to.


How would either not disqualify him from office on the grounds of impaired judgment?

The OP was about moralizing.

The guy is likely unfit for office because of demonstrable bad judgement, if nothing else. But that's the province, solely, of NYC voters. Which isn't you or me.

His behavior is troubling just about any way a person decides to look at it.

If it were me, I don't know what I'd do. This sex crap aside, I think he's the best candidate but damn . . . . what might be next??. But that's just me, observing from a good distance to the south of NY.

What he is:

someone who will engage in race-baiting and pandering to bigotry to get ahead. He race-baited David Dinkins and the city's entire black community to start off his career (running in a primary right after the Crown Heights riots), and he pandered to conservative/orthodox Jews in his district by affiliating himself with a rightwing, racist outfit called the Zionist Organization of America (people who think Bibi is a squish).

someone who loves to show off for the cameras

someone who never earned the trust of his fellow NYC delegation members

What he is not:

someone with a record of accomplishment

someone who has ever shown leadership on an issue

someone with any kind of administrative or supervisory experience

someone capable of governing his own behavior

Any sleaze can read Daily Kos or Democratic Underground and rattle off the talking points people like to hear. John Edwards proved that. And thus it's the case with Weiner.

YOU get to vote for him. I don't.

YOU have the duty to know about him (and you do) and form your own opinion of him (and you did).

And his weewinkie didn't much play into it except as evidence of his (un)fitness for office.

I have no argument with any of that. There's no moralizing there. You'll get my attention every time. Some cluck clucker going on his dixpix and nothing else gets no attention from me.

Lies about it, continues to do it.

It's not really about morality, but about judgement, propriety and fitness for office.

I think the *reaction* would be much different. We remain, after all, a double standard society. I can't even imagine how the media would deal with it.

I think those predisposed to moralizing would be MUCH more harsh with a woman.

just SEXUAL MORALITY, but of judgment, propriety, and ethical behavior (lying).

I feel as though you're moralizing to us - that we should not judge what we find offensive behavior.

Anthony Weiner has betrayed some serious character flaws. He is standing for public office - to represent the people of New York City. Yes, the people SHOULD judge, based on their standards of ability and fitness for leadership.

. . . . . parsing his actions into suitability for office, or even simply being worthy of *your* vote, is perfectly fine.

People vote based on haircut, or boxers vs briefs. Surely an issue such as this is more weighty and worthy of consideration.

I just don't like the idea of "morality" getting mixed in.

Please don't interpret that as defending winkie tweets. It isn't.

Let's use Bill Clinton as an example. His affair with Gennifer Flowers didn't trouble me in the least. The fact he tried to hide it was normal and (again, to me) untroubling. The allegations of Paula Jones, if reasonable, might have been troubling, but I found them incredible (without credibility), as did most people.

Now, fast forward to the Monica Lewinski thing. *THAT* stuck me as bad judgement. A blow job in the oval office anteroom is just a stained dress too far, even for me. What was he THINKING???? Had *that* happened when he was running for office might have changed my . . . . . nah. I'd still have voted for him. Him or Poppy? Not even close. But back to my point. He had consensual sex (to me, a blowjob is having sex) with an adult woman. It was kinda skeezy. But to the real point, it showed horrible personal judgement. And it is that demonstration of bad judgement that would have bothered me. Not the actual spilling of the presidential splooge.

I really think we're on the same page. The difference, it seems to me, are kind of subtle.

His own press office in 2011.

. . . . to "begin his healing."

Does *anyone* think for a minute this was unilaterally voluntary?

because I honestly don't particularly care I guess. Maybe that's sad, but I'm more outraged about the whole Zimmerman thing and this just isn't hitting my radar when the Zimmerman thing is taking up my capacity for outrage.

So I'm not up on just what he did. I heard he texted women photos of his penis - women who never said they were interested or wanted that kind of attention? Is that right? I don't honestly know and I might be piecing together unrelated bits of stuff and I might just be confused, but if he did that then that is sexual harassment and is against the law. If he only texted women who indicated they were interested, then that's another matter. But it isn't OK or neutral or irrelevant if he's harassing random women.

I guess it depends on what he specifically did.

I don't think people should not be allowed to hold office because of legal but questionable sexual choices. If their choices appear to be misogynist, then it might make me personally chose not to vote for them, and I hope other people would make that same choice, but I don't like making people's sexual choices more important than what they actually did in their duties as an elected official.

the truth showed off a very ugly facet of his character, not that cheating on his wife and hurting his family just so he could get off didn't also show an ugly facet of his character and give his political enemies endless ammunition against not just him but Democrats in general.

When these liars and cheaters show such bad judgment in one area of their lives, they open themselves up to questions about their judgment in other areas. Spitzer has my special contempt for sabotaging himself in the way he did, which sabotaged the people who voted for him and the state he was elected to govern.

Clinton did not commit perjury. You are free to judge him from a moral standpoint but not free to make up the facts.

license was suspended over his lying.

In April 1999, about two months after being acquitted by the Senate, Clinton was cited by Federal District Judge Susan Webber Wright for civil contempt of court for his "willful failure" to obey her repeated orders to testify truthfully in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. For this citation, Clinton was assessed a $90,000 fine, and the matter was referred to the Arkansas Supreme Court to see if disciplinary action would be appropriate.[25]

Regarding Clinton's January 17, 1998, deposition where he was placed under oath, the judge wrote:

"Simply put, the president's deposition testimony regarding whether he had ever been alone with Ms. (Monica) Lewinsky was intentionally false, and his statements regarding whether he had ever engaged in sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky likewise were intentionally false...."[25]

In January 2001, on the day before leaving office, Clinton agreed to a five-year suspension of his Arkansas law license as part of an agreement with the independent counsel[clarification needed] to end the investigation. Based on this suspension, Clinton was automatically suspended from the United States Supreme Court bar, from which he then chose to resign.[26]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Bill_Clinton#Results

You can find several articles picking apart Judge Webber's reasoning. I knew her (and her husband Bob) back in the 80s. Liked him and never liked or respected her. In fact everyone I knew (that was a liberal, progressive or Democrat) felt the same.

Like I said - everyone is free to judge him (or me or you) from a moral standpoint.

Before the Clinton case, the term "sexual relations" had a specific general meaning and legal meaning. It used to mean coitus. The term was critical in paternity cases before DNA testing became popular.

This judge redefined the term such that anyone who was born by natural childbirth or has been breastfed is guilty of committing "sexual relations" with their mother. It's nonsense. They had to rewrite the dictionaries and law books in order to make a claim that he lied.

in a very intimate way, then, like a chickenshit coward, lied about it - proving he knew it was wrong and looked bad. Clinton hurt his family, party, and his country with the amount of time and attention his self-indulgent, unprofessional behavior took away from doing what he was elected to do. You bet I judge him -- I voted for him, and my tax dollars helped pay his salary, whether I voted for him or not. I hold people at his level to the high standards the office they are running for demands, and if they violate those standards, then I am going to criticize them.

. . . and, there won't be an inch of room for any of that, because of the predictable attention paid to his prevaricating, his perversions, and his penis.

That's the real issue here regarding Weiner and his candidacy. We have better things to do than spend our time making, what may be, reasonable arguments like yours; instead of focusing on things like the state's food assistance waiting line and backlog.

And that point is a subtext in my OP. Not that many will see that. And saying "shut up already and look at the ISSUES" is now meta and lockable.

Wall Street will be glad to hear it.

Further, humans are complicated and full of dichotomies.

Have a swell day.

mind, then it's not my business. I'm talking about wives that stay with them and the partners to their sexual exploits. I don't care unless a woman is forced to do something she doesn't want to do.

And that's why Weiner had to resign? It is almost never the "morality" issue but the ensuing cover-up that brings the problems.

For the most part, I don't care about infidelity or sex scandals but I do care about lying/covering them up.

As far as Weiner is concerned, if I were a NY'er I wouldn't vote for him. He's shown an incredible lack of judgement and care when it comes to having a scandal-free career in politics and I doubt his capacity for good judgement.

you're right, it still comes down to what is lawful and what isn't. For some reason, we expect well-known people to be less human than others. I can forgive anyone a mistake if that's what it is. With Weiner, it seems he picked up a truly bad habit. It doesn't seem normal to me that someone who wants a career in politics would disregard the "rules" of politics.

So you are wrong on a few cases there.

But like most DU'ers, I am not interested in someone's private life. Unless through sheer stupidity they make it public.

Use of the cash is a whole other issue. I am not condoning that.

We don't truly yet know if Weiner's weenie pix were initially wanted or not.

Mostly, they get passed around to friends and colleagues so everyone can have a good laugh and the sender gets put firmly into the "creeper" category.

he took the religion out and just left his personal opposition. While he was cheating on his wife.

and back to reporting news. Unfortunately, they've found this tabloid crap attracts viewers.

They lost me in 2004. I have no plans to tune in again.

!/4 of what is called new is news . Filner is just your normal sad case of a masher that causes great harm if people think his behavior is okay .His M.O. goes past moral discussion , he is able to hire and fire to get his sickness out there.

I do remember that when he was a candidate for President, Straight folks were thrilled to hear about his traditional Baptist view of marriage 'It's just a part of me' he said and the Straights lapped it up 'I see marriage as between one man and one woman, my daddy was a deacon you see'. He gave that same speech dozens of times with 'poor Elizabeth' nodding along although she knew the truth. They attacked and libeled goo people to advance their own power and wealth, they lied, both of them. They harmed others. Rich, bigoted people.
Straights LOVED his 'Baptist tradition materials'. He never apologized, she never apologized, his boosters never so much as said sorry, and now all I hear is that those who objected were 'moralists'.
This bullshit where straights pretend sex never matters to them is so old, so tired, so contrived it is hard to deal with it. Straight society has claimed to care very much about who sleeps with whom. They have to 'evolve' and many are still 'unsure'. They allow their States to discriminate against their neighbors because of sex. Then a straight guy gets in hot water and suddenly it's 'why should this matter? The moralists!!!'
Same folks who cheered for Rick Warren. 'Why should it even matter?' they say.
Barf.

Just curious. Do you deny that Straight Society has spent centuries blathering about other people's sexualities? Do you deny that in most of this nation it is legal to discriminate against gay people AND that we don't see Straight Folks unhinged about that actual injustice the way they get about Tony? I'd love to see Straight Society get in an uproar because their States allow injustices but they don't. They do get all 'why does it matter' when it is one of their own. When it is others, the bullshit is allowed to go on unanswered. The difference is stark and definitive.

You failed to answer. I guess that explains it all.

cognitive dissonance, I think you've got it covered.

Have a really nice day.

You just did engage. You responded to my post. Carry on with your cogdis.