So we’ve just gone through something called Weinergate. At least, I think we’re through it. Maybe not. Dude seems to have mastered the modern art of photographic self-portrait via cell phone and mirror. So who knows what new, wince-inducing, modesty-free gems may be circulating by the time you read this column? But let’s assume that for now, the news cycle known as Weinergate has finally shot its … well, has finally fizzled out.
Which enables guys like me to ponder it all and then unleash a hot batch of undoubtedly regrettable wisecracks concerning this whole bizarre business, one of the few sex scandals in history where there was no actual sex. (Wait. I forgot. Phone sex counts. It also counts as cheating. Let’s get real here.) So first, I’d like to thank the congressman for making this all possible. I was gonna say you can’t make this stuff up, but upon further reflection, I don’t think that’s correct. You can make this stuff up, but you’d have to be a creative genius a la Twain, Roth or Vonnegut to do so.
Second, I have to point out something I haven’t heard any talking head mention, but it’s significant. If our main focus in the news cycle for a couple of weeks was Weinergate, then that means the world has been a relatively smiley face place. I mean, how bad can things really be? Because when viewed from that larger macrocosmic perch, one has to admit—this Weinergate saga is some damned funny stuff. A congressman blows himself up by … tweeting photos of his junk? Come on!
Speaking from the smaller, microcosmic, Nevada-oriented perspective, one can only hope that this Weiner mess will keep Harry Reid’s finger off that send button the next time he’s all worked up and ready to tweet a photo of his junk to some shapely coed. (OK, sorry for that. And five years ago, wouldn’t the sentence, “I’m going to tweet a photo of my junk” have been unintelligible jibberish? “I beg your pardon. You’re going to what?”)
Not heard from at all during this scandal is Weiner’s wife, the exotically attractive and intensely private—no way was she gonna dutifully stand there during those excruciating press conferences—Huma Abedin. The reason I bring her up is not to speculate about her future with her sext-maniac husband, but to wonder about her recent road trip to Africa with her boss, who happens to be none other than the current secretary of state, Hilary Clinton. My, my, my, to be a fly on the wall in the conference room of that jet as it roared across the Atlantic, with Mama Hilary giving counsel, comfort and advice to her wounded, rattled and royally pissed-off girl Friday. One can only wonder at the number of times Hilary used the phrases, “I hear you,” “I can relate,” and “At times like these, I like to think of Lorena Bobbitt.”