The fall of Anthony Weiner, whose once promising career in Congress was cut short by a sexting scandal, is now all but complete. He has copped a plea admitting to transmitting obscene material to a minor, a 15-year-old girl, which is a felony with a penalty of up to 10 years in prison, though he may get just two years. At the same time, his long-suffering wife, Huma Abedin, a consigliere to Hillary Clinton, has filed for divorce. There will be no reconciliation.
Weiner admits now that ‘I have a sickness.'
The news that Anthony Weiner liked to send selfies of his naked body to females he had encountered on social media, some of them under-aged as it turned out, was the cause of a lot of tittering in the media.
When the stories started to come out, Weiner was an up and coming congressman from New York, married to a powerful advisor to Hillary Clinton, at the time still considered a likely future president of the United States. The salacious nature of the behavior drove Weiner out of Congress and then derailed a bid to be elected mayor of New York City. The story even brought a rare moment of embarrassment to Jon Stewart, Weiner’s old college friend and at the time host of “The Daily Show.” Stewart admitted that if his chum had been anyone else, he would have been all over the story with his usual mocking.
Effect on the 2016 presidential campaign
The Anthony Weiner saga took a turn when the FBI seized his electronic devices and found a treasure trove of electronic correspondence with his estranged wife, Abedin.
The discovery caused the Bureau to reopen the investigation into the matter of Hillary Clinton’s unsecured email server in October 2016 which was only closed again two days before the election. Team Clinton has blamed that event, in part, for her unexpected defeat at the hands of Donald Trump.
The former congressman’s life is in ruins
By all accounts, Weiner was contrite to the point of being in tears at the court hearing. No matter, if he serves time or not Weiner, will have to register as a sex offender, the modern Mark of Cain for which there is no recompense. He has lost everything for giving in to urges that the current Internet and social media has given people the opportunity to ruin themselves with great abandon.
At the age of 52, Weiner will have decades to live with the consequences of his actions. Right now he is a man more to be pitied that to be reviled. His life and fall should serve as an object lesson,
