I definitely respect Wiener for exposing (sorry) the ugly side of politics over the many years he was in Washington.

Democrats take the position of resigning when they are caught with their pants off (even if there is no insinuation of physical contact with women on the other side of the country), but there is something that precious few talk show pundits have been discussing in recent weeks.  The difference between the Wiener scandal and all of the other, ignoble, far more egregious and often criminal cases of salacious sexual impropriety among Repubs, is solely that the Repubs have not been caught engaging in their exploits on camera.  The pictures went viral because they could go viral.  It was far too easy for Wiener to have accidentally mixed his public photo cache with his very private cache.  He doesn’t sound like the most tech-savvy guy in the world to begin with.

In principle, I’m not surprised how many people have x-rated photos of themselves online, even headless ones and even among heterosexuals, although I would wager that far fewer women are asking to see body parts before taking someone in the ether very seriously.  I’m not surprised that the exchange of pictures is not dominated by teenagers, as some reports have recently shown, but let’s remember that Anthony Wiener was not in Congress lecturing others about sexual morality and he was certainly not preaching his views to the public about what people should do in their private lives.

I wish Wiener luck on his new marriage and prospective fatherhood.  I don’t think they should try to make him to go rehab.  No no no.