Commentary

Weiner's Formspring

  • by July 26, 2013
With all the salacious puns and unsavory visuals floating around the Internet this week, I realize that we all need a Weinervention — me most of all.

Therefore, I promise that this is my last posting about Weiner — at least until he pulls out of the New York mayoral race.

That last line is just the kind of infuriating, self-justifying, doublecross-filled (and double entendre-laced) announcement the man himself has been relying on since this latest sexting/ phone sex scandal has materialized.

This time, one of the “up to three” relationships he was having (while supposedly chastened, at home with his newborn son, being, as his wife told People Magazine, “the best father” and “best husband” he could be)  involved Sydney Leathers, a name you can’t make up. She claims they were having phone sex twice a week. Whereas a name like “Carlos Danger,” aka Weiner, you obviously can make up, but so wish he hadn’t (Letterman subsequently dubbed him “Carlos Danger, Gaucho of Love.”)

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What’s new to say? Well, there is  the technology angle. Originally, Weiner  broke some ground in advanced Congressional genitalia capture on Twitter.

Once he stepped down, he moved on to the medium of Formspring. (Which doesn’t seem to have survived long enough to profit from the Weiner news.) But Formspring sure sounds dirty — like a combination of foreskin and Rumspringa, the year off  for 18-year-old Amish kids who are allowed to go wild with the English people.

But he used other platforms, too. As Jimmy Fallon recounted it, "It was revealed that Anthony Weiner sent nude pictures of himself to this woman using a 'Carlos Danger' Yahoo email address. His wife was shocked. She said, 'You still use Yahoo?'"

So far, the New York Daily News and the New York Times have called for him to get out of the race. The New York Post has yet do to that. Its very existence as a tabloid at this point seems to be based on front page Weiner coverage. How could they deny themselves headlines like “Polls support shrinks to 16 per cent—Hard Numbers,” while showing a mostly naked Leathers from the back, taking selfies of  her pink-thonged tush?

Speaking of tushes, Weiner himself has said that these questionable behaviors are  “behind him” and that his wife has it in her “rear view mirror,” and that they are both moving ahead.  He also says he’s working  it out privately, and the issues are between him and his wife.

I don’t understand how anyone can agree that his private life is his private life, when he was the one who insisted on repeatedly making his privates public.

And though the possibilities of Weiner jokes never end, it really is getting clinically ill.

The fact that he upped the ante on the whole charade by making his smart and attractive wife, Huma Abedin, stand by his side at the news conference, professing her love for him, proves that they are both, at best, caught up in the same  sick reality distortion field. 

From this point, you’d expect some contrition, or at least for him to lie low for a bit. Instead, exhibiting the traits of a psychopath, Weiner seems not only NOT to be humiliated in any way, but instead he’s acting turned on and energized by all the attention he’s getting.

He even went as far as saying that this second eruption came about during a “rough patch in my marriage,”  strategically moving the blame to his wife.

As one expert, Andrew Vachss, wrote in the New York Times back in 1993 about such psychopaths, “Sexual predators are already narcissistic; they laugh behind their masks at our attempts to understand and rehabilitate them. We have earned their contempt by our belief that they can change—by our confusion of 'crazy' with ‘dangerous,’ and 'sick' with 'sickening.'"

 And it is bad for the Democrats. It brings back all the hesitation people like myself had for Hillary until she proved herself as a senator and Secretary of State.  People so desperately want to believe in Huma, and believe that she is strong and her own person in this relationship.

But at the press conference, she acted like a woman who recently escaped from sexual slavery in a basement, but still wants to please her abuser.  She is Abedin the abettor and enabler. Without her, he could not have run, because she drew on her Clinton contacts to fund-raise, and has used many of the Clinton operatives in the campaign.

Gloria Steinem posited that perhaps Abedin is suffering from “Stockholm Syndrome.” But many feminists are trying hard not to knock her. (There’s even a “Huma for Mayor” movement afoot.) 

A post on Time.com actually gushed that at the press conference, Abedin looked “radiant,” and wasn’t standing “behind” her man, but instead was , “horizontal” to him. Way to stand your ground, Huma.

Score one for our brave new digital world: It’s much easier to spot the markings of a psychopath if he is  using all of his tricks flagrantly on social media, as Weiner has done.

Certainly, there’s no shortage of available, ambitious young women in small towns who can’t get themselves on a reality show and are eager to start getting attention from powerful, married politicians. Like Leathers, they can now come of the woodwork and be paid and treated like media stars for their revelations.

It’s a sickening new cycle.  Weiner is a terrible distraction from the needs of New York City.

 I don’t get why men like him and Spitzer feel they belong back in politics, as if it’s their birthright. Why don’t they use their talents and time to pursue philanthropic work for a while? They could earn some credibility by doing some good. 

Meanwhile, as with his largely invisible mayoral opponents, we are all feeling crowded out, tired of hearing about Weiner’s wiener.

11 comments about "Weiner's Formspring".
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  1. jamie fishman from fishman & mallon, llp, July 26, 2013 at 5:57 p.m.

    i like it but i disagree about the use of psychopath. I dont think that term even remotely applies here. Sociopath yes. But psychopath is Bates Motel territory which this isn't. The fact that he can seem to stop this behavior doesn't make it psychopathology.

  2. Ruth Ayres from Harte-Hanks, July 26, 2013 at 6:05 p.m.

    Great post. I tend to agree with Gloria Steinham's Stockholm Syndrome but only because of a small detail during their press conference. When Huma finished and moved away from center stage, Weiner said "Don't go far". Authoritatively. She needs help. He needs to be medicated and locked up.

  3. Barbara Lippert from mediapost.com, July 26, 2013 at 6:12 p.m.

    Jamie-- thanks for your comment. I am not a psychotherapist, but I like to play one on the web. It was probably dangerous for me to use either term, but from the reading I've done there actually is not that much difference between them. He is definitely a sexual predator who can't stop, and there's got to be some clinical definition for that. Like any addict, he said he's not an addict, and uses all kinds of excuses and assigning guilt to others. Going back to sending NUDE photos of himself and then running for Mayor is something.

  4. Barbara Lippert from mediapost.com, July 26, 2013 at 6:16 p.m.

    Ruth-- thanks. I agree with you. He does need to be locked up. And I can't for the life of me understand why she is with him (even if she is pregnant again. Did you notice her loose outfit?) She is a competent woman who can easily support herself, and the longer she stays with him the more she will alienate all of her friend and colleagues.. And raising her kid or kids with him could be pretty devastating-- worse than separating.

  5. Ruth Ayres from Harte-Hanks, July 26, 2013 at 6:29 p.m.

    Wow it didn't occur to me that she could be pregnant again. She does look radiant.

  6. Jonathan Hutter from Northern Light Health, July 26, 2013 at 6:54 p.m.

    I don't think Weiner knows or cares if he's coming or going. Or going or coming (and always too soon).

  7. Larry steven Londre from Londre Marketing Consultants, LLC and USC, July 26, 2013 at 7:29 p.m.

    Excellent Barbara. I'd rather be watching and reading about Mad Men. In Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie said “All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” Well, Weiner is pixie dust, for sure. What a total loser. Hope New York makes him a zero. How could any rational person vote for him or would even think of voting for him. "L" for L-O-S-E-R.

  8. Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, July 26, 2013 at 8:32 p.m.

    You are so right. SHe is showing signs of abuse. Did you see how threatening his looks were to her ? Did you see the fear behind her smile ? The more you look the more you see it. Ruth, you got it. As for addiction, ask any addict and they will tell you that all addicts steal and lie and if they say they don't, they are lying, just like him. Curbing an addiction takes a very long time and never cured. He will do it and worse again. This is worse than what Spitzer did or even the crackpot in one of the Carolinas. Weiner is a predator, not just a cheater. How could anyone even imagine how he would act if he had any real power as a mayor ?

  9. Jodi Bornstein from None, July 26, 2013 at 8:38 p.m.

    Is she being abused? Is she being medicated by their therapist? And by the way, what type of marriage counseling are these two getting? As appalled as I am about his pathetic behavior, I am even more upset about Huma standing by and condoning this idiot. It is mind boggling. As upsetting as this whole saga is, Barbara, at least you made me laugh.

  10. Barbara Lippert from mediapost.com, July 26, 2013 at 10:05 p.m.

    Huma is the one who mentioned that it took "a whole lot of therapy..." but didn't mention where or with whom. He has never mentioned it specifically in his "road to being a better man." I think he's not a willing participant-- going through the motions, and thinking he's too superior to have to change.

  11. Leah Carr from Margules Properties, July 29, 2013 at 9:39 a.m.

    He denies he's an addict or has a problem. Perhaps if he admitted it we'd feel a little (bit) different about him. As far as his wife, I think we need to be reminded that she is a very young woman and while she's clearly intelligent, she has limited life experience especially as a wife and mother. I believe she is trying to figure it out and will find her way. I hope she does soon.

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