Really? No, not really. It’s a joke headline. Further, I don’t really give a shit about the NYC mayoral race. It’s a hack job. Everyone knows the banks and the police union run that town. And poorly.
Although…
There’s one distinct advantage Anthony Weiner has over every other candidate running for mayor of the East Coast’s most hyper-populated urban center, and it’s that we already know he’s a complete scumbag.
Stick with me here. Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson, that Catsimatidis guy who owns Gristedes and advertises during Yankee games, and whoever else is in the running—we all know they’re terrible human beings, right? But we don’t know what kind of terrible human beings they are. Once they get in office, maybe Bill De Blasio is a secret Nazi or something. Rudy Giuliani was, so you can’t say it hasn’t happened before. Doesn’t Anthony Weiner offer some advantage in this regard?
Sure he’s a married man who, as he was telling the press that he felt like a changed person after the disgrace and shame with which he ended his tenure in Congress, continued tweeting pictures of his junk to 20-somethings. Absolutely, that happened. Not up for debate. And the question isn’t even, “is this really all that reprehensible?” because fucking-a-yes, it absolutely is. The question I’m asking is whether it’s better to know what kind of reprehensible you’re getting beforehand.
At its most basic level, this is an issue of hypocrisy. Anthony Weiner—already proven to be walking, talking, cellphone-operating excrement—said he wasn’t going to be a scumbag anymore and then he was still the same scumbag. Fine. At press time, he hasn’t yet dropped out of the race, and what my counterargument to those who argue he should is that with Anthony Weiner, we know he’s a scumbag. Christine Quinn could have shot somebody sometime. Who the hell’s to say? Does anyone even vet these candidates?
Anthony Weiner has already been through the judgmental rigmarole and proven enough of a sociopath to come out of it saying he’s unscathed, talking about how his wife and he knew there would be more revelations of his overwhelming douche-itude, blah blah blah. By all accounts, these were consenting adults—granted one creepily older than the other, but still—and if Anthony Weiner wants to act like a reality show piece of white trash and disgrace both himself and his wife (again), he has the freedom to do it. That’s what being an American is all about.
I wouldn’t ever tell you who to vote for, and the only person I’d really care to see take charge of Manhattan is Mr. Steamroller, but with Anthony Weiner, his lying, cheating and general shadiness are already out there. It’s not a surprise that needs to catch anyone off guard after the fact, years down the line when he starts secretly killing homeless people (again, Giuliani) or taking valuable car-space away for bike lanes that none of the knobs who ride their bikes in New York actually use or come close to obeying the traffic signals for (yeah, Bloomberg). If Anthony Weiner wants to ban large sodas, I’m not going to ask him how many fluid ounces are acceptable. I’m going to ask him whether or not he stuck his dick in it first.
And as far as I’m concerned, that feels like progress toward a more just and open society.
JJ Koczan
jj@theaquarian.com
