I’m going to think about Anthony Weiner this one last time

March 3, 2022 3:37 PM

Monica Hesse gives a thoughtful take on Anthony Weiner wanting to be "of service" and venturing back into the public eye once again. (Link in post is from 12ft.io to get around paywall, here is also the WaPo link.)

"And you have no idea how many different ways I have tried, over the years, to think about Anthony Weiner.

If this isn’t rehabilitation, what is? The power corners of America — politics, entertainment, media — spent several years necessarily cleaning their houses of offenders. Do we expect all of these men to stay outside forever? Are we to read these re-entries as genuine admissions of shame and guilt, or are we to wonder why they need to reenter the public eye at all?

Anthony Weiner: Is there anything to admire about the fact that he simply won’t stop seeking comebacks? Something uniquely American? One recent Saturday he repeatedly told co-host Curtis Sliwa that he wanted to be of use. Of service.
Maybe what we now want from Anthony Weiner is. . . nothing. Maybe the problem is he keeps trying (and trying and trying) to give himself to us?

Anthony Weiner: There is a Spanish phrase, pena ajena, which has no direct English translation. It is used when someone else’s embarrassment is so great that it spills over, and you yourself feel embarrassment, and that is how I feel about Anthony Weiner."

posted by jenfullmoon (37 comments total)

Wanna be of service? Volunteer at a food bank. Wanna be in the public eye again? For the love of God, no. Go away.
posted by Artful Codger at 3:58 PM on March 3, 2022 [66 favorites]

People deserve second chances, but most of them should line up at the back of the line behind the thousands, millions, or billions who haven't gotten a first chance.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:04 PM on March 3, 2022 [78 favorites]

Is this man — this milksop, this harlequin in boxers — actually single-handedly responsible for our current political reality?

lmao

I also have spent time thinking of Weiner, of how wretched and jerry-built everything had to be in 2016 so that this one man's entirely predictable inability to keep his dick holstered would lead to the beginning of the end of the US as we know it.

Maybe what we now want from Anthony Weiner is. . . nothing.

Exactly. He's got a lot of skills; so do other people who are not him. In feudal times, a monarch or warrior who was no good at the job could throw it all over and become a monk. Many times I've thought there ought to be some kind of secular monastery for guys who suck. They could farm, ranch, sell fruitcakes or handmade furniture, just generally get out of everyone else's way.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:17 PM on March 3, 2022 [61 favorites]

Many times I've thought there ought to be some kind of secular monastery for guys who suck.

Isn't that what a seat on a Board of Directors is?
posted by pwnguin at 4:20 PM on March 3, 2022 [50 favorites]

So you don't have to bother reading the article: Weiner has a new radio show, but instead should go away forever.
posted by The Tensor at 4:27 PM on March 3, 2022 [14 favorites]

I suspect his idea of "service" involves showing off his looks, running off his mouth, and flaunting his sexual everything. He needs to be a public (and pubic) showoff. He's not interested in any quiet service that doesn't involve making us all hear about "Weiner" in the media again. He wants to be ME ME ME PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEEEEEEE!!!! and "I WANNA FUCK PLEASE LOOK AT MY DANGER PENIS."... Look, as a wannabe performer I kinda get the urge to show off (albeit not in the way he wants to do it), but the dude will not take the hint that nobody wants to hear about him and the awful shit he did in the past and the awful shit he will probably do in the future, either. He made an ass of himself, went to jail, humiliated his wife who doesn't deserve it, and helped ruin the world we live in, all because of his need to show off his peen.

And yet, somebody gave him a radio show?! The mind boggles.

I guess where I'm really going with this is, I'm surprised he isn't going for some kind of sex worker career.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:32 PM on March 3, 2022 [16 favorites]

I mean, this is an improvement over Andrew Cuomo, who is running ads questioning the credibility of his accusers only months after he resigned in disgrace. But still, these dudes had their chances, and there are plenty of other people to fill public roles who have NOT made problematic choices.
posted by metasarah at 4:34 PM on March 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

Maybe society can come to a compromise: Anthony can have a show nobody listens to, if he endures the Oracle's advice.
posted by pwnguin at 4:41 PM on March 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

there are plenty of other people to fill public roles who have NOT made problematic choices

This is the thing that I keep coming back to. We’re not talking about a skill so rarified that we need to accept how terrible a person is (and honestly, I’m not really sure there *are* any of those), this is politics, specifically American politics which has turned into an intensely hypocritical contest to see which candidate can smash the clay feet of the other candidate first. We had a decade long pissing fight over whether or not Bill Clinton inhaled or not. Gary Hart was hounded out of politics over an affair, Edwards, too. Any political issue Weiner goes into for the next forever will involve his actions being put front and center, overshadowing whatever the issue is, and giving the GOP free shots at the party as a whole with their intensely hypocritical asides about how the whole party is a bunch of molesters and people who cover for them (ignoring actual molesters under investigation in their own party, natch).

He is damaged goods, and the goods weren’t all that great to begin with. Move on.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:17 PM on March 3, 2022 [8 favorites]

Key and Peele's take.
posted by doctornemo at 6:28 PM on March 3, 2022 [14 favorites]

I'm sorry WaPo drew attention to his show, and to him. He can serve us best by finding a job away from vulnerable people, because he is a serial sexual offender and exploiter. He's probably pretty bright, pretty competent, but he's such an asshat.
posted by theora55 at 7:46 PM on March 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

when someone else’s embarrassment is so great that it spills over, and you yourself feel embarrassment

"Douche chill"
posted by echo target at 7:49 PM on March 3, 2022 [5 favorites]

Maybe if Weiner wants to be of service, he could start servicing people, become a sex worker. He'd get all the attention he could want, and be paid to be paid that attention!
posted by hippybear at 7:53 PM on March 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

I don't think it is fair to require migrant farm and ranch workers have to deal with Anthony Weiner.

That can't fall upon them.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 8:14 PM on March 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

100% chance he has another scandal. The more successful he gets the faster it'll happen. He's not doing this out of a desire to be useful and it seems obvious what his real desire is.
posted by feloniousmonk at 8:14 PM on March 3, 2022 [10 favorites]

If you want to put all of the disaster from Trump's victory in 2016 on him--and you shouldn't, but he was one of the dominoes--then the most useful thing he could do right now is head to Ukraine, and pick up a rifle. Anything short of that I'd like him to just vanish and not think of him again until his obituary.
posted by stevis23 at 8:42 PM on March 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

Texas could use a useful Railroad Commissioner which has nothing to do with railroads but is meant to ride herd on the sleazy oil and gas industries. Hardly any women and no kids there.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 9:20 PM on March 3, 2022

Anthony Weiner: Is this man — this milksop, this harlequin in boxers — actually single-handedly responsible for our current political reality?

Yeah, that's a wince-worthy line in an otherwise decent piece. The emails would not otherwise be noteworthy, any more than Benghazi would be, if our current political/journalistic situation weren't so catastrophically fucked.

As for whether or not he can find useful work, I'm pretty sure that no one that I know personally has enough money to pay me to give a shit. Fifteen-year-olds, dude. At least I got a useful phrase, "pena ajena", out of thinking about someone that I wish that I'd never have had cause to think of again.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:39 PM on March 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Know who could use a second chance?

Eliot Spitzer.
posted by mikelieman at 5:18 AM on March 4, 2022 [7 favorites]

What more do we want from Anthony Weiner?

Mostly, less Anthony Weiner.
posted by flabdablet at 5:32 AM on March 4, 2022 [14 favorites]

If you've done stuff that's hurt a lot of people, and you've turned over a new leaf and really want to work for the public benefit, you find a way to do so quietly, behind the scenes, where you're not going to just keep reminding people how much you hurt them and others. Because going out and drawing attention to yourself cancels out any benefit you might actually be providing to the public.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:19 AM on March 4, 2022 [12 favorites]

I kept thinking about this. You know it's not sincere that he wants to be of service, because he could be. Go to the animal shelter and clean the shit clumps out of the cat litter! Give old folks a ride from the grocery store! Take people to the polls! I mean, logistically there'd be paperwork and not everyone would be able to accept his help, but the point is there are things he could do without being a name. Is he doing them? Well, if he is, we shouldn't know about it, so maybe. But what do you think?

Yeah, that's a wince-worthy line ...

I did think it was funny. It's not exactly his fault that everything was such a house of cards, but this is why public office is supposed to be a public trust -- your own misdeeds can hurt more people than ever before possible.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:39 AM on March 4, 2022 [8 favorites]

God yes, all these men we kick to the curb who don't stay there, who keep whining and weaseling back into public view, because someone with a platform lets them.

We don't need them. They have nothing to offer. They are of negative utility. They need to just go the fuck away.
posted by emjaybee at 7:37 AM on March 4, 2022 [11 favorites]

People deserve second chances

Weiner got his second chance in 2013. He would very likely have been elected Mayor of New York then if he had been able to control himself. Check out the excellent documentary Weiner chronicling his run in that election if you haven’t.
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:41 AM on March 4, 2022 [11 favorites]

Anthony Weiner wanting to be "of service"

On this, we can trust a person who understands an overwhelming need for regular servicing
posted by CynicalKnight at 8:52 AM on March 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

Anthony Weiner, probably not.

Al Franken, hell yes!
posted by Billiken at 9:06 AM on March 4, 2022 [7 favorites]

"Know who could use a second chance?

Eliot Spitzer."

He received one with a CNN show, I believe.
posted by Selena777 at 9:21 AM on March 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

The desire to be "of service" also demonstrates his massive ego: he views himself as SOOO uniquely important and qualified that the world NEEDS him, even if we don't realize it, so we just need to look past his "errors in judgment," and by gum, if we can't do that, he's just going to have to make us. (see also Ghidorah's comment)
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:07 AM on March 4, 2022 [6 favorites]

To Weiner, "of service" means "being seen and heard." He would literally not understand what you are saying if you suggested he should go out and ladle soup at a homeless shelter.

The problem with him being a news commentator or columnist is ... he's never been remotely interesting as a politician or policy maker. When he went down for the first time, there were literally zero people saying that he ought to be spared because of his genius, zeal, etc. Harvey Weinstein had more support, at least until it was clear he was literally a rapist instead of just a terrible creep and harasser.
posted by MattD at 11:33 AM on March 4, 2022 [4 favorites]

Yes, people deserve second chances (and I'd argue that they often deserve more than that, I think anyone who is willing to make honest and meaningful restitution deserves another chance) but no one deserves a public platform or wealth. The problem with so many of these guys staging comebacks is that they want their old life of wealth, fame, and privilege back. And I can't blame them for that but we, the public, are not obligated to give it to them.
posted by lunasol at 2:01 PM on March 4, 2022 [9 favorites]

I concur that becoming a secular monk is an appropriate vocation for a serial abuser. One of our local serial abusers of young women now works at a local hardware store, and there is some debate about whether this job is "too public facing" for his victims and those who might have to look at him. It's an interesting debate, to be sure.
posted by RedEmma at 2:07 PM on March 4, 2022 [5 favorites]

I have nothing constructive to add. You all have said it better than I. I do have two things I'd like to say:

1) Fuck you, Anthony Weiner, for probably giving us Trump. If I ever see you, I will probably yell at you and still somehow feel worse for having done it

2) Why is the person who non-consensually exposed himself named Weiner and why does his face also look like a damn penis? How does that happen?

That is all. Thank you for letting me accompany you as we scream into the void.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 6:22 PM on March 4, 2022 [5 favorites]

McSweeney's put out some choice commentary on both Weiner and Spitzer years ago. It's well-trod ground, and these dudes can delenda est their public personae.

Fragments from "WEINER! The musical"

Fragments from "SPITZER! The musical"
posted by MengerSponge at 8:11 PM on March 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

he says he's not a bad guy trying to get better, but a sick guy trying to get well. maybe this is a hint our society has overmedicalized everything? maybe he's just a fucking asshole and sex criminal? maybe his redemption is to just stop being an asshole for like, i don't know let's say 20 years, and hold down a day job without hitting on teenagers and then we can revisit?

not everything is a "sickness." or, if this is, then maybe every socially inappropriate behavior is, and then sickness has no real meaning at all.
posted by wibari at 12:16 AM on March 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

he's never been remotely interesting as a politician or policy maker. When he went down for the first time, there were literally zero people saying that he ought to be spared because of his genius, zeal, etc.

1, at least. I was bummed because he seemed like the only mainstream dem commentator who seemed as pissed off as every single one of them should be. It was probably a gimmick and it's not as if anger=stability, but it's always galling to hear people be calm about existential threats, and he was an exception in the 00's.
posted by bootlegpop at 2:41 AM on March 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

> Al Franken, hell yes!

He's doing just fine.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:04 AM on March 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

..I'm definitely more hopeful than this guy.. wow.
posted by firstdaffodils at 7:34 PM on March 8, 2022