LAW BREAKER, SENATOR VITTER IS STILL IN THE SENATE, BUT ANTHONY WEINER HAD TO MOVE ON…WHY?
Gary Ater
June 22, 2011
...Ex-Congressman, Anthony Weiner
One of the questions that is not seriously being asked today is, "If there can be members of congress that committed crimes that were much more heinous or egregious than Anthony Weiner´s sex-texting, (which was not against the law), as embarrassing as it was, why was it that congressional members from both parties were so strongly insisting that Anthony Weiner resign?"
Republican Senator David Vitter (R-LA), who actually did break the law by hiring prostitutes, and other controversial scandals such as those of the Democrat´s Charlie Rangel, Bill Clinton, and Barney Frank, why were these individuals allowed to stay in their public offices?
And let´s not forget about the late Senator Ted Kennedy and the Chappaquiddick scandal.
With Senator Kennedy admitting that he was driving drunk and then ending up with a drowned, dead young woman in the back seat of his car, plus his failing to report the incident right away, Kennedy still remained as a US Senator for decades.
Well, as expected, it appears that the reasons for all this had something to do with "big money", but perhaps not in the way that you might imagine.
Most average Americans don´t realize that everyone that wants to run for a seat in the House of Representatives, they must first show that they can raise about $1,000,000 in campaign donations, before they approach their respective parties. Once they have done that, their party will review them and their background and if they "pass muster", they will probably get additional help in added financing or campaign advertising. But most importantly, they will also be given a party rolodex with people to call on for future potential campaign donations.
If they then win their first election, in order to run for re-election in two years, they must immediately start working on raising another $1,000,000 for the next election. What this means is that as soon as a congressperson enters their new congressional office, going after donations starts immediately all over again, but that´s not the end of their expected efforts.
Now, the party does work closely together with their congressional members, especially if they should need some extra help in their particular districts. But every congress member is also given a financial bogie that they must raise that is over and above what they need for winning their own re-election. This "extra" bogie goes into the party-pool for the use of those members coming up for re-election in the current year.
We now know that Mr. Anthony Weiner was in fact, a unique congressman in today´s politics. Weiner really was one of those rare congressman that was there in the House, primarily for supporting his constituents as his #1 priority. But congressman Weiner was also being required in his last election period to bring in $200,000 above and beyond his own campaign dollars for the Democratic "pool fund". Unfortunately, all he brought in for the pool was $75,000 in donations.
It is also now being said that Anthony Weiner was not very well respected by a number of his fellow congressional Democrats. Some have even said that his focused dedication to his constituents kept him from being "one-of-the-boys" with the other members in the congress. And it is said that this lack-of-mutual-respect was also because of the way he treated his other congressional members. As a brash "Brooklyn Jew", this situation was apparently true, but in the area of raising money for the team, Mr. Weiner was never considered a major financial supporter of the Democratic party.
In addition, Mr. Weiner always spoke his mind without any regard for, or to whom he was addressing.
Yes, he was well known to cause the White House to complain to the Democratic leadership when Weiner publicly criticized his own president and when he went after various members of the White House staff. And he didn´t just stop at the White House when criticizing other members of the party´s leadership. So, yes, Mr. Weiner was not considered your average political party "team player".
Therefore, when you look at the large amounts of the political donation money that Mr. Rangel, Mr. Clinton, Mr. Vitter, Mr. Frank and Mr. Kennedy consistently brought to their respective parties, they too might have been looked at very negatively at the time of their public transgressions, had they not been the very large "financial party fund-raisers" that they became. Yes, publicly criticizing your party´s leadership is one thing, but criticizing, plus consistently not being a major financial party contributor, that´s another thing altogether.
The other key issue within the aggressive GOP side of congress against Mr. Weiner was that it was becoming very well known that Anthony Weiner was in the process of going after the questionable activities of the wife of the conservative US Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas. Weiner was said to be seriously looking into her potential illegal activities where the conservative associate justice should have perhaps withdrawn himself from some US court cases due to his personal conflicts of interest.
Needles to say, with Obama in the White House, the Republicans do not want any interference that might cause them to lose their one-vote majority in the current conservative and activist US Supreme Court. Therefore, anything that the Republicans in congress could have done in assisting the immediate exit of a very effective investigating Democratic congressman, that issue was very high on the GOP´s "to-do" list.
Yes, what Anthony Weiner did was very wrong, and for lying and not immediately admitting his transgressions, he is now paying the price. But what he did was not illegal. Morally wrong and highly embarrassing yes, but he did not break the law. Unfortunately, he stupidly thought he could get away with lying about it, and it is a shame that the Democratic congress has now lost such an effective member that really did believe in being a good public servant.
But this is not all just about the sex-texting issues. The real issues regarding Anthony Weiner, and other congress members, go much, much deeper and it is more fundamental in understanding what it seriously takes to serve long-term in the US Congress.
The final issue with Mr. Weiner´s problem vs past scandals is the latest technology that was used that allowed the pictures in question to be distributed liberally on both TV and across the internet. In all the previous congressional transgressions, there were no inappropriate or scandalous, "pictures for the media". Weiner´s initial lies and the "Tweeted" pictures may have been the "Weiner Straws" that finally broke the camel´s back.
From now on, the lesson is that all politicians should be very careful about what they either, "Tweet" or post on FaceBook. As with the many past videoed political speeches and along with the Nixon, Watergate audio tapes, these things last forever.
Copyright G.Ater 2011
Follow me on Twitter: gater01
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