Why Weiner Should Resign

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk


Now that Anthony Weiner has raised the white flag of surrender on the fact that he did, in fact, send lewd pictures of himself and lied to cover it up, the next great battle is convincing him that he should resign his office. Yesterday, he said he would not resign, and if precedence means anything among Democrats, chances are he won't. Yet, there are several reasons why he should.

First of all, there is still a possibility that he was not completely truthful even yesterday at the New York press conference. He says he did not use government resources to send those images. Yet, it appears that in at least some, the images were sent from his office.

He says there was no actual infidelity in the physical sense. That remains to be seen.

He also tried to downplay his actions in the famous Seattle bulge picture by saying he sent it as "a joke". There is no delicate way to say this, but let's just say that erections tend not to occur during moments of humor and vice-versa.

But the biggest concerns about Weiner are that when it comes to issues of judgement and credibility, he has lost both. The lack of judgement in a congressman sending lewd pictures of himself to young women he has never met speaks for itself. In doing so, he left himself open to blackmail. How could he think that none of these women would ever come forward? In terms of credibility, this is the man who let his minions and friends in the media spread the story that he had been hacked. Two names were mentioned as hackers for over a week as Weiner let it happen. You may think that Andrew Breitbart is a self-promoting bottom-feeder, but he was not guilty of hacking. His story was true, and in fact, it appears the worst of Weiner's photos, the most explicit, have not been released, which is yet another reason why Weiner would be wise to just go away. Weiner lied repeatedly to the media both in groups and individually in separate interviews. How can he ever be believed again?

Yet, he knows that Bill Clinton survived. He knows that Ted Kennedy survived. He knows that Charles Rangel survived, as well as other Democrats. The most he will get from the House Ethics Committee is probably a censure. Big deal.

Republicans are somewhat correct in stating that their own miscreants resign when discovered, while Democrats stick it out. Mark Foley and Chris Lee come to mind. Yet, they should not crow too much. Within the Senate, Larry Craig and David Vitter, both Republicans, are still there. They both should have resigned, but they did not.

At some point, the public needs to know that their elected officials are not all a bunch of egotistical, power-hungry jerks who think they can live under a different set of rules than the rest of us. The honorable thing for Anthony Weiner to do would be to resign from Congress. At this point, it appears he will not do so unless his fellow Democrats in the House force him to. That is because Anthony Weiner is not an honorable man. Forget the pictures; they are but a sexual peccadillo. It looks like Weiner's character flaws go deeper than sex.