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Kim Voynar

By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com

On the Stupidity of Weinergate

Okay, look.

First: Yes, Anthony Weiner has a bad name for a politician. With that name, he was always a late-night-talk-show monologue waiting to happen, right? And yes, what he did was stupid. But the Republican reaction to Weiner’s stupidity, the ridiculous calls for him to resign? Please. The hypocrisy boggles the mind.

It happens on their side of the aisle, and they’re all compassionate and warm as they close rank: “It’s a private matter between him and his family and his God,” blah blah blah. Schwarzenegger fathers a love-child and hides it for TEN YEARS, oh, what-evah. Newt Gingrich screwed around on his second wife with his third — while leading the charge against Bill Clinton over a consensual blowjob from an intern. And on and on and on. But a Democrat gets caught Twitter-sexting and it’s suddenly a huge deal that has … what exactly with Weiner’s ability to do his actual job?

What, we actually expect politicians to have some kind of higher moral standard? Seriously? How ridiculous is that? Criminy, if you kicked out of Congress every man who’s screwed around on his wife; or received a consensual blow job from an intern, crack whore, male prostitute, high-priced call girl or aide; or indulged in some weird sexual fetish involving tropical fruit, granny panties or horses … who the hell would be left?

Oh, riiiiiiight. The women would be left. Because when’s the last time a prominent female politician got knocked off her pedestal for screwing around with high-priced male escorts or having secret babies or sending pics of her boobs to young male admirers?

I’m not saying women never cheat on their marriages; in fact, supposedly women cheat on their marriages almost, but not quite, as often as men do. You’d think it might stand to reason, then, that a certain statistical percentage of women in Congress (in the years since women have been allowed to serve in Congress, in spite of the impediment of having vaginas instead of penises) would have been caught with their panties down by now, wouldn’t you?

Check out this Newsweek post from 2009, which details the affairs , by year and party, of our lofty politicians. It’s worth noting, perhaps, that at that time, at least, the Democrats and Republicans were at evensies when it came to getting caught with their dicks swinging in the breeze. It’s also maybe worth noting that the one woman politician who got caught was a Republican, Helen Chenoweth — who was also a vocal critic of Clinton.

If statistically speaking over half of married men will cheat on their spouse at some point, why would we think that an aspiration to be a politician — by definition a position of some ego-inflating prestige and privilege — would somehow make a man less likely to cheat on his marriage? If anything, wouldn’t someone with the personality required to be a politician to begin with be more likely to cheat and not less?

And really, why is it anyone’s business anyhow? I don’t make my voting decisions based on how likely I think someone is to screw around on their spouse or not. I take it as a given that they likely will screw up their marriages and a further given that such marital indiscretions are the business of the two people who are married to each other.

Are there studies that correlate a person’s tendency to cheat on a marriage with a greater likelihood to be incompetent at one’s job? To commit other acts of questionable morality? Committing an actual crime, or taking kick-backs or bribes related to one’s job, those kinds of things I would find concerning in a politician. But I’m actually more bothered by the hypocrisy of a politician lambasting a colleague for martial infidelity when he or she is doing the same damn thing, than I am about the actual screwing around.

Then again, at this point in my life I kinda figure: If you’re in a relationship and you’re banking your own happiness and sense of self worth on this person never hurting you, never being unfaithful to you, or thinking or fantasizing about being unfaithful to you, never lying to you or keeping secrets from you, never growing or changing? You are foolishly setting yourself up to one day be very, very broken, because relationships do not stay the same over time. The person to whom you say “I do” will be a completely different person some ten or 15 years down the road, and one of the ways in which they very well may be different is in the realm of being faithful to your relationship. Does this suck? Yes, it does. But it’s reality. Is this why, for so many people, infidelity is an insurmountable hot button issue when it comes to elected officials? Because their public affairs tap so deeply into our own private, deep-rooted fears and insecurities?

Politicians should make it easier for us. Just be up front about their flaws and foibles. Then we’d know going in what we’re getting, and we’d have to blame ourselves, not them, if we have a problem with their behavior in their personal lives if (when) it gets revealed. Here’s the kind of honest campaign ad I’d like to see:

“Hi, I’m Joe Politician. I’ve been married for fifteen years to my wife, who was a very attractive blond sorority girl when we met in college. Then we had a few kids and … well, you can see the result. She put on 30 pounds that she hasn’t taken off, her ass has cellulite and her boobs sag from years of nursing my kids. She’s gone from a size 4 to a size 14!

“Meanwhile, check ME out. I look good, don’t I? I got elected to freaking Congress, man. Did you know we have our own fitness center? I know, I hear you whining again about layoffs and no health insurance, but enough about you. You people and your issues. Let’s talk about me some more.

“Do you know how hard it is NOT to get laid in this town once the chicks know you’re a Congressman? Christ, I can barely keep them off me. My interns and female staffers wear sexy outfits just to turn me on, my female constituents are always flirting with me on my Facebook page and Twitter account … what am I supposed to do? I was faithful to my marriage for a lot of years. And hey, what my wife doesn’t know isn’t going to hurt her any. I deserve this, right?

“And if she does find out, we’ll deal with it the way cheating spouses in my district deal with it every day. Statistically at least half of you hypocritical assholes cheat on your own marriages. Who the hell are you to judge me? I’m not a saint, but neither are any of you people. You cheat on your taxes, run red lights, lie about your kid’s age to get the free kiddie meal at IHOP, download internet porn, AND you probably make mix CDs, which some people might consider stealing. Maybe you even eat grapes in the produce section or park in the fire lane or handicapped spot or drive in the HOV lane when no one else is in your car. Sure you do.

“Now that we have all that out of the way, let’s talk about the issues that are actually relevant to the job I was elected to do … ”

Yeah, an honest politician. That’ll be the day.

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7 Responses to “On the Stupidity of Weinergate”

  1. Robert Hamer says:

    That’s why Charlie Wilson was such a great politician: “I won’t blame booze and won’t suddenly find Jesus.”

  2. nick says:

    Another moron who missed the point entirely. It’s not about the sexting. It’s about the cover up, the lying, the false defamation of others. And in the case of the MSM, it’s about their double-standards at play (upplay the slightest gaffe of a prominent Republican, downplay the fact that Obama DOESN’T KNOW THIS ISN’T THE YEAR 2008).

  3. christian says:

    After Arnold just scammed the state of Kaleefornia for eight years with the help of Darryl Issa (and others who shoulda known better) the Weiner story is pretty limp.

    And that scumbag Breitbart just showed his “x-rated” pic to scumbags Opie and Anthony – after Breitbart claimed he was holding it back out of respect to Weiner’s family.

    And the fact that Breitbart and Drudge are closeted…

  4. Kim Voynar says:

    Nick, really? Calling me a “moron” is what you come up with for a person who has an opinion that’s different from yours? Do you go through life assuming every person who has a different perspective than you do suffers from mild mental retardation? What a solipsistic view of the world. If you have a relevant point to make, make it.

    Yes, yes, it’s about the lying, sure, and the coverup of this enormous scandal … of what? A guy engaging in sexual banter over Twitter with female admirers, which was nobody’s business to begin with but him and his wife. Of course he lied to cover it up, because he didn’t want to deal with exactly what’s happening now. Venture a guess, will you, as to what percentage of the members of Congress are NOT hiding some skeleton in their closet?

    And it’s about the lying and hypocrisy of Republican politicians who ignore the moral failings of the men in their own party while loudly clucking for the resignation of those on the other side of the aisle. And further, it’s about whether it’s reasonable to hold elected officials to a particular moral standard in their personal lives when non-criminal issues — like infidelity to a marriage, which has zero to do with a person’s ability to carry out the job to which they were elected — crop up in the private life of a public person. AND it’s about whose idea of what constitutes morality gets to be the standard.

    And the MSM, really? Let’s talk about the double-standards over at Fox News, shall we?

  5. Bob says:

    I won’t call you a moron Kim but I think you’re completely off on this one. The Republicans have been much more quite about this than the Democrats who have been calling for his resignation.
    I was searching for an article that suggest if this was a Republican who did this the media and the Democrats would throw him out of office so fast his head would spin. And I came across this article that suggests that the Republicans are overreacting. This Man is a liar and an idiot. Anyone who is in congress and does this should not be in congress just because they are SO STUPID to think they will not get caught! It’s the sheer ignorance of the act that should not be tolerated followed by the lying about it.
    But I am absolutely convinced if this was a Republican that had done the exact same thing the outcry from the media would be 100 times worse, like on MSN or the Daily Show with John Stewart of ABC nightly news or NBC news. And the outcry from Democrats would be very loud. So far the Republicans have not been loud and not spoken much at all about this and to this point it’s been the Democrats in Congress that have spoken out against this.
    Btw Fox is not near as bad as MSN is to the left. I am middle of the road and most the time Fox gets lambasted by only the left media when it telling the truth whereas MSN has been sickingly supportive of Wiener. The only time I think Fox goes too far right is its coverage of politics…and MSN (not MSM) is so far left and ridiculous on every single subject is hard to watch.

  6. Bob says:

    Correction:
    “Stewart OR ABC” in 3rd paragraph.

  7. Kim Voynar says:

    Bob, thanks very much for offering a different perspective politely, and for sticking to actual issues.

    However, I do disagree with your statement here: “This Man is a liar and an idiot. Anyone who is in congress and does this should not be in congress just because they are SO STUPID to think they will not get caught!”

    Politicians throughout history have screwed around, Bob. I would submit that you’d be hard pressed to find a politician who hasn’t screwed around on his marriage. So my question to you is this: Is it honestly your argument that on both sides of the aisle, and in all branches of government, any politician who is unfaithful to his (or her) marriage should be removed from office?

    Because for me, I draw a line between stupidity like Weiner displayed here, which I consider to be between him and his wife, and a politician, say, sponsoring anti-gay legislation while engaging in acts of gay sex in the closet. THAT kind of hypocrisy, I cannot stomach.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon