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People who outwardly proclaim one strict standard of marriage and conduct, then betray it in private, are arguably more hypocritical and offensive than people who are outwardly nonjudgmental, open and accepting of different people's sexuality and life choices, and who themselves engage in sexual misadventures.

I think people should be more concerned about a politicians, politics instead of personal life (unless it's crime-related).

Absolutely. But we can judge a person's character based in part on their personal life. I don't appreciate Weiner lying, think it was a dumb thing to do, and he should absolutely be criticized for it. He's in a position of public trust and we should be able to hold our elected representatives to certain standards, and feel confident that we can trust them to do their job and represent our interests honestly.

biccat wrote:

alarmingrick wrote:Well, i don't see them holding up the "family values" they ram down our throat when they're paying people that they despise for thing that they hate.

Wait, so the problem with Vitter is that he has standards but fails to live up to them. But Wiener should get off because he doesn't have standards?

Last i heard "sexting" wasn't illegal unless they are underage. and if i'm not mistaken, Vitter didn't get in trouble in Vegas. i think that's breaking the law everywhere else?

Mannahnin wrote:Absolutely. But we can judge a person's character based in part on their personal life. I don't appreciate Weiner lying, think it was a dumb thing to do, and he should absolutely be criticized for it. He's in a position of public trust and we should be able to hold our elected representatives to certain standards, and feel confident that we can trust them to do their job and represent our interests honestly.

I don't care if a politician is a jerk or not I just want good policies.

biccat wrote:
I can't imagine in any way how this is even remotely relevant. But thanks for the input.

Maybe the Congressman's wife enjoys the fact that he sends pictures of his dong to other women, maybe she accepts it as inevitable.

What you think of marriage has no necessary bearing on what he, and his wife, think of marriage, and I think living a social life which is acceptable to oneself is more important than pleasing people that would very obviously never vote for one anyway.




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biccat wrote:
Wait, so the problem with Vitter is that he has standards but fails to live up to them. But Wiener should get off because he doesn't have standards?

Why not? If I don't like hypocrites, and I genuinely believe that Vitter is a hypocrite and that is the problem with his behavior, then there no issue with my understanding of his behavior.

In any case, what any of us not in his district think is not relevant to Wiener's judgment. He doesn't represent us, and he shouldn't give a damn about us outside of our ability to impact partisan considerations.

dogma wrote:If I were the Democratic Chair, I would defund him because he did something politically stupid.

Got to agree here. It's like Clinton, I didn't really have a problem with what he did, I had a problem that he was stupid enough to get caught.

I really hope he isn't pressured to, or does resign. He is, by far, my favorite Congressman, and has always been. That interview Manahin put there was brilliant, and he was completely right.

I really know he wanted to say "Listen, you don't even know what the feth Socialism is, so stop saying it and using it like its an insult."

He didn't even have an affair, the media has to blow it out of proportion just to get a cheap story.

He was messing around, having some harmless fun.

Karon wrote:
He didn't even have an affair, the media has to blow it out of proportion just to get a cheap story.

Nah, its being floated because he's good at what he does, and there are significant interests at stake when it comes to embarrassing new talent.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
I can't imagine in any way how this is even remotely relevant. But thanks for the input.

Maybe the Congressman's wife enjoys the fact that he sends pictures of his dong to other women, maybe she accepts it as inevitable.

What you think of marriage has no necessary bearing on what he, and his wife, think of marriage, and I think living a social life which is acceptable to oneself is more important than pleasing people that would very obviously never vote for one anyway.

Could be. However, his conception of marriage is irrelevant to my comment.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
Wait, so the problem with Vitter is that he has standards but fails to live up to them. But Wiener should get off because he doesn't have standards?

Why not? If I don't like hypocrites, and I genuinely believe that Vitter is a hypocrite and that is the problem with his behavior, then there no issue with my understanding of his behavior.

In any case, what any of us not in his district think is not relevant to Wiener's judgment. He doesn't represent us, and he shouldn't give a damn about us outside of our ability to impact partisan considerations.

You can genuinely believe that a hypocrite is a bad thing.

However, I think a person who has standards and fails to live up to them is better than someone who has no standards at all. Arguing that his behavior is excusable because of a lack of hypocrisy is admitting that he has no standards for good behavior.

Don't make it personal, folks. -Mannahnin

biccat wrote:
Could be. However, his conception of marriage is irrelevant to my comment.

Of course its relevant. It determines whether or not you believe people should be able to do certain things they want to do as regards sexuality. I'm guessing you don't, but I could not reasonably make that guess without first making the comment, and receiving a response.

biccat wrote:
However, I think a person who has standards and fails to live up to them is better than someone who has no standards at all. Arguing that his behavior is excusable because of a lack of hypocrisy is admitting that he has no standards for good behavior.

Well, no, its arguing that his standards for good behavior are different. One cannot live without standards of any sort.

dogma wrote:

Karon wrote:
He didn't even have an affair, the media has to blow it out of proportion just to get a cheap story.

Nah, its being floated because he's good at what he does, and there are significant interests at stake when it comes to embarrassing new talent.

Sad, isn't it?

I don't think so. I would take every opportunity to snipe at the rising stars in the opposition.

Wiener is a big boy, he knows how to fight back, and has actually done a decent job of it. He's like Rahm Emanuel less the racial epithets.

This story was worth 5 minutes of time on tv in total. And I don't own a tv.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
Could be. However, his conception of marriage is irrelevant to my comment.

Of course its relevant. It determines whether or not you believe people should be able to do certain things they want to do as regards sexuality. I'm guessing you don't, but I could not reasonably make that guess without first making the comment, and receiving a response.

No it's not relevant. My moral outrage is not based on his standards for his own conduct, but rather on his conduct.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
However, I think a person who has standards and fails to live up to them is better than someone who has no standards at all. Arguing that his behavior is excusable because of a lack of hypocrisy is admitting that he has no standards for good behavior.

Well, no, its arguing that his standards for good behavior are different. One cannot live without standards of any sort.

No, it's not arguing that his standards for good behavior are different, it's arguing that because he doesn't have an articulated standard he shouldn't be held to account for any standard.

Although if you buy into the silly theory that he should be held to a different standard, how do you explain his contrition?

A more interesting issue: why are people excusing him for his false accusations of a federal crime against people who simply reported on the issue?

biccat wrote:
No it's not relevant. My moral outrage is not based on his standards for his own conduct, but rather on his conduct.

You may not be a relativist, but relativism is a real thing, and it does matter when determining what your standards of conduct are.

biccat wrote:
No, it's not arguing that his standards for good behavior are different, it's arguing that because he doesn't have an articulated standard he shouldn't be held to account for any standard.

Nah, no one said that, you're paraphrasing to advantage.

biccat wrote:
Although if you buy into the silly theory that he should be held to a different standard, how do you explain his contrition?

Easy, politics. Also, lots of people are idiots who are easily offended.

biccat wrote:
A more interesting issue: why are people excusing him for his false accusations of a federal crime against people who simply reported on the issue?

Because people who accuse people of a crime are not legally liable for anything?

Young Newt would otherwise be in prison.

I couldn't care less about whatever sexual misadventures he got up to, that's between him and his wife.

But the guy told lies. And not just little denials about something he knew he did, he was out there accusing people of committing crimes, saying someone had hacked his twitter account. That's seriously dodgy, and not the kind of thing we should accept from our politicians. It's a shame, because he had good talent and a good understanding for what the US needs, and could have been a very effective politician. But the willingness to cross a big line like accusing others of committing a crime just to cover his own tracks is terrible, and speaks volumes for the kind of mischief he might get up to cover a non-sex related scandal that came up later on.

Thing is, people have kind of skipped past the fact that he told a big lie like he did, in part because we expect our politicians. That's a serious problem.

If there's to be any reform in US politics, the Democrats need to draw a line in the sand over this. If he is forced to resign because of Republican noise machine, then that's just politics as usual, a point scoring operation built around filling the daily news cycle with bad stores about the other side.

But for a party to actually set a standard on the conduct of it's representatives... well that'd be something.

Hehe. Wiener.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
No it's not relevant. My moral outrage is not based on his standards for his own conduct, but rather on his conduct.

You may not be a relativist, but relativism is a real thing, and it does matter when determining what your standards of conduct are.

As has been addressed before. While this is a perfectly factual statement, it actually bears no relevance to this conversation.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
No, it's not arguing that his standards for good behavior are different, it's arguing that because he doesn't have an articulated standard he shouldn't be held to account for any standard.

Nah, no one said that, you're paraphrasing to advantage.

I never said anyone said that. I'm simply pointing out the logical basis for the "he isn't a hypocrite" argument. If you don't like it, maybe you should dispute that argument, rather than trying to advance the theory that he shouldn't be held to account for his actions.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
A more interesting issue: why are people excusing him for his false accusations of a federal crime against people who simply reported on the issue?

Because people who accuse people of a crime are not legally liable for anything?

Yes, actually they are. Here's one example: Defamation.

False accusations, particularly of criminal wrongdoing, are both actionable and can result in criminal consequences.

But like I said, nobody cares that he accused people of federal crimes, because he's a liberal, and it's all about sex, amirite? Just like Clinton never lied to cover up a rape allegation, it was just about the hummers.

Who did he accuse of a crime, again?

Sebster has it right. The guy lied about it and that's why he should be done. He lied and he got caught. His credibility as a congressman is done.

Mannahnin wrote:Who did he accuse of a crime, again?

He claimed Andrew Breitbart used hackers to manipulate his twitter account into sending the pictures.

Which is plain and simple an awful thing to do, even to pondscum like Breitbart.

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biccat wrote:[But like I said, nobody cares that he accused people of federal crimes, because he's a liberal, and it's all about sex, amirite? Just like Clinton never lied to cover up a rape allegation, it was just about the hummers.

No, that's all bs.

Weiner was disgraceful in his actions in defending, Breitbart and his little cheerleaders like biccat are just as bad in playing for false moral outrage as long as it's a democrat who did something scummy.

Which is why both parties need to police their own ranks more strongly. The current situation, dependant on muckrakers driving keeping this in the news cycle until the politician is forced out by approval ratings, is a grim state of affairs, serving only to drive the standard of the media so low that scum like Breitbart are considered journalists.


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Sgt_Scruffy wrote:Sebster has it right. The guy lied about it and that's why he should be done. He lied and he got caught. His credibility as a congressman is done.

It's not that he lied. Clinton lied about getting a blowjob.

But Clinton didn't say 'no, I didn't get a blowjob, and Monica Lewinsky committed a federal crime in pretending I did.'

There's a serious difference there.

biccat wrote:
As has been addressed before. While this is a perfectly factual statement, it actually bears no relevance to this conversation.

Again, that's incorrect. I can, with perfect legitimacy, question the basis of your moral outrage, which is what I'm doing.

biccat wrote:
I never said anyone said that. I'm simply pointing out the logical basis for the "he isn't a hypocrite" argument. If you don't like it, maybe you should dispute that argument, rather than trying to advance the theory that he shouldn't be held to account for his actions.

Then you're still wrong, stating that he isn't a hypocrite only acquits of hypocrisy, which requires the substitution of a separate basis for moral outrage. The point is to force the morally outraged person into a situation which leaves them no choice but to admit that they're outraged because they're concerned about the sexual choices of consenting adults, at least if the sex is the key point of contention.

biccat wrote:
Yes, actually they are. Here's one example: Defamation.

False accusations, particularly of criminal wrongdoing, are both actionable and can result in criminal consequences.

To engage in defamation, you have to defame someone. Saying "A hacker did it." "Or a political opponent did it." is not defamation. I suppose you could claim that "hackers" and "political opponents" are groups that can be subject to defamation, but it would be a dubious argument. I believe you also have to prove injury, which would be difficult here.

biccat wrote:
But like I said, nobody cares that he accused people of federal crimes, because he's a liberal, and it's all about sex, amirite? Just like Clinton never lied to cover up a rape allegation, it was just about the hummers.

You clearly care, and others do as well if the news media is any indication




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sebster wrote:
He claimed Andrew Breitbart used hackers to manipulate his twitter account into sending the pictures.

Did he accuse him by name?

dogma wrote:Did he accuse him by name?

No, but by claiming the image was hacked, Breitbart became the obvious culprit. Others in the media made the logical assumption, and then Weiner stood by as they accused Breitbart.

He did apologise for it as part of his confession, so there's that.

sebster wrote:
No, but by claiming the image was hacked, Breitbart became the obvious culprit. Others in the media made the logical assumption, and then Weiner stood by as they accused Breitbart.

He did apologise for it as part of his confession, so there's that.

Well, yeah, its obvious that he was speaking of Breitbart, but what's obvious in normal conversation is not usually going to hold up when legal repercussions are considered. As fa as I know Breitbart himself hasn't even bothered to bring suit, and he certainly isn't above doing so.

Wardragoon wrote:Okay, this is all over the news still and I wonder what your guys' opinion is on this.
My personal opinion on him is pretty neutral, by my figuring I think most of your representatives and senators are schticking it to their various aids.

I'm living the dream of watching feminists defend him. Images of glorious campaign ads against him and the Democratic Party.


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Monster Rain wrote:What else is there to say, other than he made some terrible decisions and is getting raked over the coals for it?

Protip: Don't send pictures of your mule to people you barely know.

Its coming out he was tweeting underage girls. Thats beyond "meh" to officially "creepy sewaty old guy at the keg level."


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Chowderhead wrote:Hehe. Wiener.

Yes Team Wienie is officially pissed off at the appropriation of their good dachshund name brand. As we speak wiener dogs are en route to deal with him. Unfortunately when a short dog goes on a long walk it takes awhile...

Frazzled wrote:

Chowderhead wrote:Hehe. Wiener.

Yes Team Wienie is officially pissed off at the appropriation of their good dachshund name brand. As we speak wiener dogs are en route to deal with him. Unfortunately when a short dog goes on a long walk it takes awhile...

Maybe thats why my dogs been so keen to trying to get out of the yard lol trying to deal with those that give the breed a bad name

Exactly.

dogma wrote:Well, yeah, its obvious that he was speaking of Breitbart, but what's obvious in normal conversation is not usually going to hold up when legal repercussions are considered. As fa as I know Breitbart himself hasn't even bothered to bring suit, and he certainly isn't above doing so.

I don't think there's anything there legally. My standard of behaviour for people holding as much power as a political representative is more than if they technically broke the law. They have tremendous power at their disposal, even just throug access to the media, and so to throw out a lie like he did knowing it would directly impact someone who simply hadn't done what he was about to be accused of is terrible.



I don't think Breitbart would even think of bringing suit. He's an experienced muckraker, so he'd know that he's already won this round, and scored a lot more personal fame among the footsoldiers of the GOP, and that means being one step closer to that sweet, sweet right wing pundit gravy train. He can almost see Palin from where he got to this week.

Besides, to win he'd have to prove damages. He'd have a hard time proving harm to his reputation given that, you know, he's a scum bag.