So Representative Weiner (D-NY) was caught with his pants down.  (You know I’m not clever enough to have made that up).
Who is this latest representative with an over-inflated sense of himself?  This guy:

 

 

 

(I hope this picture isn’t in the midst of his amorous communiqués).

 

 

 

 

 

Others have already written about the “men in power and what do they think they can get away with,” angle, so I won’t beat a dead horse.  (Though Newt Gingrich must love the quote in the title of this post).

What I am finding disturbing is just how much time we spend on the organs of politicians other than their brains.  With a large wave of anti-intellectualism sweeping the country, it only makes sense that the media (and its audience) need something else to focus on, but let’s get some perspective people.

There’s no excuse for any of their misdeeds, but if it’s not illegal, should we let it cloud our judgement of how well (or poorly) they’ve done their jobs?  A watershed event was the investigation into the alleged financial misdeeds of President Clinton that morphed into a sex scandal that had nothing to do with the initial investigation (to the tune of some 70 million taxpayer dollars).  And yet, during his administration the debt actually decreased–the only time to do so since 1981 (that’s 30 years folks).  But what is he remembered for? Monica and a blue dress.  The politicians’ wall of shameful libidos goes on and on from there.

Personal foibles and fiascoes happen on both sides of the aisle (*cough* though more hypocritically on one particular side *cough*), but I’d rather be focusing on their performance (well, their job performance) and intelligence/rational abilities than what happens in their bedroom. (Even if what happens behind closed doors–a quaint euphemism in the 21st century with Twitter, Facebook, Little Brother, etc.–isn’t particularly well-thought out).  It’s rare that a politician’s intellectual integrity is called into question unless they so epically fail without a handler or cue cards that it simply can’t be overlooked.  Of course, even then, their ardent supporters might try and rewrite history to match their heroine’s revisionist tendencies.

So what we seem to have here is a focus on personal events and a vitriolic desire to air the other side’s dirty laundry.  Perhaps if we spent the same amount of time, interest, and energy on solving the issues that face our nation, we’d actually be further along.

[Steps down from his soapbox].