Mad Anthony Weiner Mis-Tweets

If it should be true that Rep. Anthony Weiner tweeted the image of his package to a comely young lady in Washington, the only word that truly describes his action is: Clintonian.

Given that Weiner married Hillary Clinton’s most trusted aide, Huma Abedin, in a ceremony conducted by none other than Bill Clinton, Weiner’s tweeting or mis-tweeting of his wiener is so rich in political associations and comedic potential that no one in the media has been able to resist it.

As everyone knows, and as Jon Stewart admitted last night, the Weiner story provides so much excellent comic material that it is simply unavoidable, even for Stewart, who counts himself among the Congressman’s personal friends. Link here.

From my perspective, the real question is how to find an angle-- pun intended-- on the scandal that has not already been fully explored.

As it happens, I found one lesson in it all, and, happily enough, you do not have to cover your eyes.

It feels a bit like vindication, but several months ago I dubbed the Congressman, Mad Anthony Weiner. Link here.

I had been inspired by a tirade that Mad Anthony had thrown on the floor of the House of Representatives. 

One afternoon Mad Anthony just plain lost it. He went off; he ranted and raved; he became totally unhinged.

It was certainly not his finest hour. It did no honor to the great deliberative body called the United States House of Representatives.

As it happened, Weiner felt neither regret nor remorse. He actually tried to justify his appalling behavior on the grounds that he felt so strongly about the topic that he simply could not control his emotions.

Thereby, Weiner was falling back on an excuse that has been enshrined by the therapy culture.

That culture tells you that you should not repress your emotions. Thus it encourages and values the full and open expression of emotion, come what may.

Do not fear offending people; do not fear being overly dramatic. If you feel very strongly about something, let fly, let ‘er rip, give ‘em hell.

On that fateful afternoon on the House floor Mad Anthony did just that.

As the slightly dated vernacular would have it, he let it all hang out.

By the therapy culture’s moral standards, he did the right thing. Not only that, but he did the strong thing.

Within the therapy culture, people are said to be strong if their emotions, feelings, and impulses are uncontrollable. As long as your impulses do not tend toward criminal behavior, of course.

Still and all, when you tell people that the way to be “strong” is to make such a pathetic display of your feelings, you are telling them that intemperance is a virtue. Thus, it is weak and bad to suppress your feelings, not to give them full voice.

This represents a fundamental reversal of ethical values.

Classical ethics tells us that we need to have sufficient self-discipline to control the expression of our emotions. If we can, we have strong character. If we lack such discipline, we have weak character.

It has become easy to caricature this ethic. So, let's be clear. It is not saying that you should never express an emotion. It does say that you expression should be fitting to the circumstances. Otherwise you will draw all attention to yourself and drown your message.

If you suffer from the same bad character as Anthony Weiner does, you should get to working building your character.

I fully respect those who have set themselves the task of ferreting out the truth of Mad Anthony’s apparent mis-tweet, but, in a sense we do not really need to know the unvarnished truth.

Regardless of whether he did it, we know enough from his public behavior to judge the content of his character.