re: #11 MarkAM

Looks like this will generate more publicity for the promoters of “sex addiction” a vague and dubious diagnosis if ever there was one.

Dunno, a person to whom I am related (with SEVERAL degrees of remove, no biological connection) also went to rehab for “sex addiction” and while I do have a sneaking suspicion that this was more about self control than addiction, the things this person did were much, much, much worse than anything Weiner did. They were more or less legal (except embezzling money from his wife to pay for them) but they were awful at the level where, if a politician did them, he would be out of a job faster than you could say “orgies in Mexico.”

Unless something came out about the 17-year-old that I don’t know, I think this is kind of a travesty, and really does exemplify the decline of our political culture (cf. Page on this referencing E.J. Dionne and Andrew Sullivan and Stephen Walt). The only rehab Weiner needs is for narcissism, which is probably suffered by 90% of politicians although his does seem to have been more extreme.

Does anybody even remember when he stood up for the 9/11 first responders on the floor of House? He did things that mattered and nobody else had the guts (or the balls) or the reckless self-regard to do them.