Weiner

Anthony Weiner should resign. Plain and simple.

Why, you ask? Not because he exchanged pictures of himself with six different women. No, not that. They were, after all, just pictures and it isn’t against the law to exchange pictures with others as long as it is between two consenting adults (and the pictures are of those same adults).

And not because it is akin to cheating on his wife. No, not that. After all, he has done this picture thing for over 12 years and he has only been married for a year. Granted, it would have been nice if he would have stopped this behavior when he met and fell in love with his wife. But that is an issue between him and her and she can react the way she wants. We can give her advice but no one is inside their marriage or inside her mind (and heart) and it is up to her to decide what to do.

No, the reason he should resign is because he lied and his behavior was stupid.

He lied when, a week ago when this story broke, he kept claiming he had been hacked and refused to take responsibility. He denied he had done anything wrong. He was indignant and self-righteous and the whole time he knew that he was guilty. So then he stood up at a press conference (without his wife, I might add) and tried to seem contrite and said he did it, was sorry and he wouldn’t resign.

Well, I’m sorry. That is a little too late. The lie has already been told. It is out there. On tape. He should have been honest from the beginning. Coming out a week later, when he realized there wasn’t any way to deny it anymore, is just sad and pathetic. It shows a tremendous lack of character. We don’t expect our leaders to be flawless but we do expect them to be honest and upright and truthful. His credibility has plummeted and it is going to be difficult to have faith in anything he says in the future.

Then there is the fact that his behavior was stupid. I mean, please, he sent the pictures over the internet. Over the internet! The internet is not private. Once you hit the SEND button, it is out there for anyone to see. In this day and age, anyone who uses the internet should know this. If you don’t, then, I think that you aren’t playing with a full deck in the intelligence category. If he shows this lack of knowledge about something this common and so widely used, then how we can trust him to know about things that are less commonly known? One of the things we want our leaders to do is to look at the vast amount of information out there and decide what is important and what is irrelevant so they will know how best to lead this country. If he doesn’t understand a simple thing like the internet, how can we trust him to understand things that are far more complicated?

This has nothing to do with him being Democrat. After all, even though I am registered Independent, I tend to vote Democratic. This isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue. There are people on both sides who lack moral character. This is just that, a lack of moral character. And someone like that should not be in a position of leadership. So he should sincerely apologize, to both the country and especially to his wife, resign, and spend the foreseeable future reading and studying what it means to be a moral, upstanding, decent person. Maybe then we can accept him as a leader once again. Otherwise, he will always be viewed as a flawed, sad, indecent man with a gargantuan ego. Not someone I can support or respect as a congressman of the United States.