"Huh-huh-huh...huh-huh-huh...huh-huh-huh...""Yeah...you said 'Weiner!' Yeah! Yeah! WEEEEEINNNNER!"
"Yeah...he Twittered his tweeter...cooool!"
From Barbara Walters to Bill Maher, the self-inflicted scandal that Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from New York, is trying to dig out from under is yet another embarassing example of the Victorian, prurient, titillation-oriented mindset of the American public.
"Huh-huh-huh...huh-huh-huh...huh-huh-huh...You said..."
Weiner, who disappeared into some sort of rehab facility after finally admitting that he had, indeed, sent explicit texts and photos of himself to I'm not sure how many women, is done. His own party leaders are calling for his head.
"Huh-huh-huh...huh-huh-huh...huh-huh-huh...You said...!"
There are major concerns abourt ethics violations. He may have, according to one report, taken the photos or written the texts while in his Congressional office. There is concern he might have used a government cellular phone to photograph himself and send the messages.
Never mind that. The voting public wants to see the photos and read the racy texts. Ethics? What's that?
I mean, one of the big online posts about the Weiner affair was Walters' reaction to seeing the photos, which she described as "flattering." Maher took a segment of his show Friday night to read from the texts. Even the legitimate press is recoiling in mock horror, proclaiming in tabloid-style stories "She's pregnant!" in reference to Weiner's wife, overseas right now with her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who also knows a thing or two about sex scandals -- remember la affaire, Monica? That was, of course, of equal proportion when it came to rousing America's lusty side. The sad thing is I'll bet you more people knew what Bill Clinton did with a cigar than why he was impeached.
Americans are pretty uptight in general when it comes to sex. It comes, of course, from its Puritanical roots. And, when it involves a politician, they get even more uptight and morally indignant when, truth be known, they wish they were on the giving or receiving end of whatever transgression was committed.
And, it is also an opportunity for members of the opposing party to do a little partisan bashing. If it's a Republican caught in the midst of a scandal, the Democrats will point to the hypocrisy of the GOP's proponents of family values getting caught with their pants down, so to speak.
"Huh-huh-huh...huh-huh-huh...huh-huh-huh...You said..."
If it is a Democrat who is caught, the Republicans will bray about how liberals are out to destroy the core of morality that the nation was borne under, which is just as ludicrous because, well, the Founding Fathers were a pretty randy bunch.
"Hey, Butt-Head, isn't Randy that ass-munch from 'American Idol' who calls everybody 'Dawg?' Yeaahhh...thought so...What's he got to do with this?"
"Nothin', dumb-ass...randy means, uh...huh-huh-huh...you know..."
"Oh, yeah...right...got it!"
Our North American neighbors from Canada and Mexico scoff at the feigned indignation; our European friends wonder why it really matters if no laws were broken. They sort of understand that as long as their leaders are truthful about what happened, then it becomes a personal matter and nothing more, which is as it should be.
But, Americans don't react the same way, which is why almost every politician caught up in one of these things immediately tries to deny it.
You'd think they'd have learned by now that it's not so much the act as the cover-up that gets these guys into trouble. And, yeah, I mean guys. Political sex scandals are pretty much exclusive to the boys' club. Very, very few women, except for Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, who railed against Clinton for his affair with a White House intern, get caught. Perhaps they are smarter, better liars, or more discreet.
But, rarely is the law broken in any of these scandals until the investigation begins and they swear to high heaven they are innocent. Of course, they also justify their actions with some rather interesting definitions of what cheating is and isn't and then parse their statements like a lame, jailhouse lawyer who knows just enough about the law to sound stupid.
It really doesn't matter because the public isn't interested in all that legal stuff,just give 'em the dirt and they're happy. Perjury? Ethics violations? Misappropriation of government funds or equipment? Who cares? Tell them, instead, how many times they scored, when they scored, how they scored and where they scored.
"Huh-huh-huh...huh-huh-huh...huh-huh-huh...You said..."
