well duh. the only thing shooting straight with regards to basso is the bull**** constantly spewing from his warped mind.
Well... If you're campaigning on "family values" or some other equally nebulous affirmation of nonexistent morality, you should be made fun of and resign when caught engaging in lewd behavior. But even then, this is only an issue to me when your voting record indicates your punishing others for similar liaisons, i.e. "do as I say, not as I do." If you're caught cheating on your wife you should probably go through the grinder a bit, because it's indicative of cognitive dissonance between what you profess and what you do. What's interesting about that however, is that as Americans we're flaming r****ded about it - if Rick Perry got caught cheating on his wife he'd get all sorts of hell, but if he campaigns on complete and utter lies and backtracks all over his pledges while in office, nothing happens...same with Obama. We're a nation absolutely trained to not analyze the actual politics, but to focus on the superficial. The entire history of US politics is just a long series of clever ploys to keep the working poor fighting amongst themselves and not fighting against corporate-government tyranny. Clinton almost got impeached for a blowjob, but his illegal wars, his callous endangering of children in Iraq and the USA...those were accepted without comment or appreciable criticism. There's also a bit of a catch-22 here, in that attempts to ignore this stupidity require one to acknowledge that the politician in question was stupid when he got himself in this mess regardless. Put another way, Weiner should have been smarter given his position, but even that statement is a tacit admission that I am judging him based on some silly moral objection. There are no heroes. Anyone feeding you some patriotic nonsense to the contrary is just divorcing you from reality.
Are you serious...? If you get elected because you make a big deal about your shining example of sexual morality, and then get busted on it, it reflects poorly on you professionally, not just personally... because you chose to make your personal life part of your profession.
You're comparing elected officials to athletes, really? You don't see any difference between someone elected to office to run the country versus someone who plays a game for a living? Yes, people all over engage in similar or worse activities, but they aren't elected officials, they a PRIVATE citizens and some go to JAIL.
so it's okay for Kobe to have extra marital sex but it's not okay for Weiner to exchange sexual messages over the internets?
yes, really. they are elected to do a job. you are confusing them with the clergy, common mistake around here.
Yiu don't think weiner's phone sex on his office phone reflects poor professional judgement? You don't think his "affairs" made him vulnerable to blackmail, or other methods of coercion, by business interests, lobbyists, union officials, or other nefarious parties?
Where did I say marital infidelity was OK? I'm sure their wives are equally embarrassed, humiliated, and disgusted over their husbands actions. People want to say what Weiner did isnt hypocritical, though didn't he break the vows he took on when getting married? The same goes for Bryant. Again, Kobe Bryant wasn't elected by the city of Los Angeles to run the Lakers, and even if he was there is a fundamental difference in what we expect out of elected officials (to keep their nose clean while looking out for OUR interests).
It's not "okay" for either, but the relative high ground in that comparison is held by Kobe, who has no "duty" to anyone but his fans, who are free to stop supporting him by not purchasing his shoes or other merchandise. Weiner was elected for public office and should be held to a higher standard.
Donny I am going to have to disagree with most of your posts on this thread. I do agree it would appear worse if he ran on family values and claimed how much he loves his wife and family, etc etc... But I almost think it's inerhent that we elect people to office based on our perception that the person is inherently a decent, honest, hardworking individual that loves his family regardless if he runs on it or not. We elect people based on our own values and most Americans values includes respecting and being honest with your family. Again I didnt really know much about Weiner prior to this incident but how he handled it clearly shows he has a lack of integrity and respect for his family, friends and constituients. Now is that someone you really want serving you? It certainly reflects on his character so you cant simply brush it off and say who gives a fu*k. I seriously doubt if he ran today he would win and that is because most Americans do give a fu*k.
since it wasn't with professional associates, no. If it had been with a lobbyist or something like that, then absolutely.
My whole point is that it isn't something worth giving a f*** about, and the fact that we do care illustrates just how crappy our priorities are. You and several others feel that his personal transgressions involving sex and love taint his character as a professional, I don't see it that way. Agree to disagree.
I think I agree with this. As an example to reinforce the statement above, see Scot Brown. While I don't care, I bet quite a few folks would raise an eyebrow at the idea of a dude posing nude in a magazine. Yet, he was honest about it, shrugged off the jokes, and it became a complete non-issue. That being said...I do agree with Donny (as I stated above) that the real problem here is our collective obsession with silly scandals while totally ignoring far more egregious (and common) breaches of the public trust.
Phone sex on his office phone? Link? (if true, not cool of him to do... using public funds, time, resources... but still very small beans in the big picture of political trespasses... once again, I'm way more upset by a politician f***ing the country, rather than f***ing some random girls/guys). He's only vulnerable to blackmail because we're stupid enough to care about it, when really it should be a non-issue. So no, it doesn't bug me. He can do whatever he wants, within the law, on his own time. If we choose to base our votes on that, then that is our problem, not his.
