The Weiner affair: chauvinism and American politics

I have a full spate of articles to write this week, but none, in and of themselves quite merit the usual 1500 words I like to write. While this may be true, what is equally true is that I am incapable of saying anything meaningful in 140 characters or less. Yet, my professional obligation as a writer dictates that I should tweet. This morning, feeling a little bleary-eyed from the sugar rush of the graduation party for my daughter, I dragged myself out of bed and sat with my wife in the front garden, mainlining coffee like a dope fiend, in the hopes of salvaging the day after a physically exhausting week preparing our yard for my daughter's well-deserved celebration.

High above us, on the electric wires that transverse the wooden poles like uniform trees, sat a mourning dove, singing its doleful hoo-WOO-hoo, hoo, hoo. Now that's a tweet, I told myself. Only five words. Pessimistic tones, maybe, but darned if that same mourning dove doesn't fly to the same spot every morning and sing a sad song. He draws a predator's attention away from a nest, where his mate sits on her eggs. Next, the robin, with its many cries and scolding pipes in. It doesn't like that we are so close to its mate, and it scolds us. Usually, it is loud, piercing, waking us up even in the false dawn of a full moon some nights, more verbal than the mourning dove, but definitely tweeting at less than 140 characters.

Both birds tweet to protect their mates. And in my early-morning stupor, I pray that my daughter some day finds a man who has values that are closer to those of these birds than those of our politicians.

About two weeks ago, bdnews24.com let me know that it was on several different social networks. One of which was twitter, and that I could follow at #bdnews24. I decided that it was a good time to run an experiment in marketing my name on Twitter, and even though I had nothing to tweet, I wanted to see how many followers I could acquire in 10 days. Who knows? Perhaps if I could acquire a few hundred followers, I could get these followers to become interested in my book, and I could generate some sales.

For the next week, using various techniques, I upped my totals. I had created a username, #88acres, back in 2009, and I'd managed to accumulate a grand total of 38 followers. I barely used the account, and I saw no useful purpose in tweeting that which could be facebooked or emailed. But everyone, from my agent to my publisher insisted that I should tweet, so I did a little research and learned how to accumulate followers quickly and easily. I learned how to get about 100 followers per day, and over the span of a week, working about one hour per day, I had 1,300 followers, and was following 2001 strangers. It is a wonderful source of mostly useless information.

My whirlwind education into the world of twitter extended only to the accumulation of followers. I had no idea that one could somehow pass along photos via a twitter account, until the events of these last few weeks in scandal politics came to the fore with the resignation of NY Congressman Anthony Weiner, who twittered obscene photos of himself to young women.

What?

First of all, what was he thinking? The guy looks like the "after" picture of Ramses IV (I mean after mummification). Secondly, he's a public figure.

Third of all, and most importantly, he's a married man with a wonderful wife, who is carrying his first child.

For me, spousal abuse, a topic which many of our bdnews24.com Opinion writers have covered eloquently in light of the Rumana Monzur tragedy, can take many forms. I understand that while the ugliest, most outward manifestation of this abuse is physical, many means exist by which to perpetuate an abusive relationship. It just strikes me that electronic philandering is one of the most bizarre forms I have ever heard of.

The story of a minor congressman should only be interesting to people in Bangladesh because Congressman Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin worked for Hillary Clinton as an intern, and when Clinton became the Secretary of State, she became Clinton's deputy chief of staff. I am sure she has the ear of the Secretary of State when it comes to Southeast Asia. Abedin, a Michigan native raised in Saudi Arabia, speaks English, Arabic and Urdu. She is a Muslim.

A year ago, Weiner, a Jewish man, and a representative of parts of Brooklyn and Queens, in New York City, became her husband. He foreswore alcohol to respect the dictates of his wife's faith, and fasts during Ramadan. Former President Clinton officiated at the wedding ceremony.

I wonder if the rampant indiscretions are a historic part of the Washington scene made more visible by the current media. Many would claim that plenty of politicians have "stepped to the side" throughout American history. I may be naive to think so, but I believe that somewhere in our history, an era of self-discipline and adherence to a moral code must have existed, and that many great Americans must have resisted temptation. Even if this is not the case, I cannot imagine that those individuals who were responsible for our rise as a nation would have had so little self-respect as to use such an prevalent and public form of communication such as twitter to send intimate photographs to complete strangers, that their wedding vows would mean so little to them, that they would willingly humiliate their families.

In the case of Hillary Clinton and her Protégé Abedin, these scandals really demonstrate the inherent view of women as objects, and a woman's, even a powerful woman's — tolerance of such behaviour. The feelings of the women involved in both cases were not the focus of the press. People were more interested in the sordid details of the affairs than in the fact that in both cases, these politically connected  men had not only committed acts that disrespected the most important promise a man could make, but had also disrespected the woman they claimed to value the most.

One of the most famous cases of abuse in the history of the United States was that of long-standing US Senator Ted Kennedy. Kennedy, younger brother of President John F. Kennedy. Ostensibly a proponent of women's issues. Kennedy was responsible for the 1969 death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign worker. After a party one night, Kennedy claimed to have offered Kopechne an innocent ride, although he could have had his chauffeur drive Kopekne home. Kopechne left the party secretly with Kennedy, who accidentally drove his car into a river. After he swam to safety. Kennedy went to a hotel, slept through the night and did not report the accident to authorities until the following day. By that time, Kopechne had drowned.

Because no Kennedy could go to prison in Massachusetts, Kennedy not only served a suspended sentence on a guilty plea for leaving the scene of an accident, he was re-elected and served in the US Senate until his death in 2009. In 1970, Kennedy used his political influence to keep the details into an inquest about the incident a secret.

In any case, the consequences of dangerous and predatory behaviour have risen since 1969. In the case of Kennedy, the most severe incident of disregard for a woman's life, Kennedy got a slap on the wrist, and went on to be lionised by women's groups throughout America. In President Clinton's case, the US congress attempted to impeach the president, not for his indiscretion, but for perjury and obstruction of justice. He was not forced out of office, and is still married to Hillary.

In Weiner's case, the congressman was forced to resign. While I don't think that pristine moral conduct should be prerequisite for representing ones constituency, I think respect for women must be a prerequisite when at least 50 percent of the individuals represented by a politician are women. And we really have no place in American politics for Weiner's form of creepiness. I say good riddance to Weiner. But what of his marriage?

We Italians (and half-Italians) have a beautiful word — Vendetta. It is a concept that I think I would invoke, as a father of daughters, in every case I have mentioned. As 18th century as it may seem, I do not think the men in my family would ever allow the abuse of one of our women to go unpunished. I always tell my girls to invoke the "one strike you're out" rule of dating. One mistake by a man and you must end the relationship. Violence and philandering are not forgivable offences. The custom of dating allows a woman to spend enough time with a young man to assess the boundaries of his conduct under stress, and a man who will break a promise or misbehave once will most assuredly misbehave again.

Unfortunately, as excellent a mentor as Ms. Clinton has been for Abedin, on matters of career, I don't think advising forgiveness is wise. If either of these powerful women were my daughters, I would have advised them to "dump the bum". Ultimately, if every man knew that their conduct would be scrutinised by a woman's family, if they knew that serious breaches of conduct would lead to the automatic dissolution of the relationship, perhaps our politicians would think twice about inviting young interns into their offices.

And our congressmen would leave the twittering to the birds.

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Frank Domenico Cipriani writes a weekly column in the Riverside Signal called "You Think What You Think And I'll Think What I Know." He is also the founder and CEO of The Gatherer Institute — a not-for-profit public charity dedicated to promoting respect for the environment and empowering individuals to become self-taught and self-sufficient. His most recent book, "Learning Little Hawk's Way of Storytelling", is scheduled to be released by Findhorn Press in May of 2011.