As Hot Air reports, a former congressman, former candidate for mayor of New York, and convicted online sexual predator Anthony Weiner has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for sexting with a teenage girl. He also has to submit to Internet monitoring, serve a three-year supervised probation after he leaves prison, and register as a sex offender. Weiner’s fall would be Shakespearian if it were not so sordid and pathetic.
What Weiner lost
When the sexting scandal started, Anthony Weiner was an up and coming Democratic politician, a member of Congress, married to Huma Abedin, a confidant to Hillary Clinton who many thought would be president.
Because access to a smartphone was added to Weiner’s baser impulses, he lost the political career, the wife, and now his liberty. He will live the rest of his life as a disgrace, an object of ridicule and scorn. He might also bear an even worse burden, that being the defeat of Hillary Clinton at the hands of Donald Trump.
Did Anthony Weiner sink Hillary Clinton?
Hot Air posits the following theory. An investigation into Weiner’s emails uncovered Hillary Clinton’s unsecured emails that, for some reason, was being stored on his laptop. Then FBI Director James Comey made his announcement concerning the Clinton emails shortly before the election after they were discovered.
The theory is a little far-fetched.
Hillary Clinton lost the election all by herself partly for storing classified emails on an unsecured server for her convenience, not to mention committing other crimes and misdeeds going back decades. Of course, Team Hillary is looking for scapegoats for her defeat and Weiner will do just as well.
Weiner’s use of a smartphone for the slaking of his sexual perversions did have one direct political effect.
His sexting led directly to the election of Bill de Blasio as mayor of New York. Absent the scandal, Weiner might have been expected to win the election easily. Weiner may be a liberal Democrat, and all that implies, but de Blasio is quite on a different level where radicalism is concerned, as New York City is finding out to its cost.
What happens now?
Weiner’s prospects for any kind of life after prison are pretty grim. How will he make a living? One cannot imagine anyone employing him. His prospects for any political comeback are outside the realm of possibility.
Lest one feel too much sympathy, one has to remember that Weiner was the author of his destruction. Clearly, he had uncontrollable impulses. However, he might have sought help earlier and thus salvaged something of himself.
