It’s a hell of a town

No giant gorillas were harmed in the production of this rant.

This from CNN via Big Government.

Poll: Weiner's constituents want him to stay

            By: CNN's Rebecca Stewart

(CNN)– New York voters are standing by their 9th District man – according to a new poll 56 percent of voters in Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner's district do not think the scandal-plagued congressman should resign.

For those who’ve been on Mars for a week or so, or who get their news from the BBC, Anthony Weiner is the US Congressman for New York’s 9th District (the American equivalent of MP for the old Hampstead and Kilburn constituency) who recently exposed himself to his entire Twitter readership by posting a link to a photo of his erect manhood mise en croute on a bed of freshly laundered underpants instead of tweeting it only to one particular member of a select – ah - handful, of young women for whom it was intended.

So far, so Democrat.

The Marist poll released Thursday was conducted before it was confirmed that Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, is expecting their first child but on Wednesday well after Weiner's much-publicized press conference.

So, let’s get this straight from the start so nobody remains confused before I warm to my theme.

A poll of electors in Brooklyn and Queens (you know: that Brooklyn and that Queens; not some inward-looking Third World city where only the local imam or warlord set the news agenda by using a high-velocity lead-based news sifting process) who knew that Weiner had pixilated his privates and gone public while merely wishing to impress one particular young woman for whatever perfectly legal purposes a person might do such as thing, still think it’s okay for him to represent their interests in the Senate of the world’s superpower.

You’ve got to wonder about the thought processes and culture involved here.

# This guy thinks creating something that more closely resembles the British National Health Service is better than keeping the most successful and largest health industry on the planet; check.

# This guy thinks that our imperiled economy will be improved by increasing taxes and we can trust him to do the arithmetic; check.

# This guy thinks that it’s okay to have a half in, half out attitude to infanticide; check.

(Incidentally, he’s not completely crazy. Unlike many of his Democratic and liberal comrades and erstwhile admirers, he does seem to be aware that Moslem terrorism isn’t just a petrodollar-funded, coriander-flavoured equivalent of angry Methodists complaining about public drunkenness. He has earned the hatred of that large section of the Left that puts the sheer snazziness of Semtex shirts before the right of kids to keep breathing whilst munching their Quattro Formaggios by publicly hoping that the PLO’s United Nations delegation in New York would return to their homeland [well, to one of the two little chunks of the Jews’ homeland near the really big chunk of the Jews’ homeland that Britain had previously conceded to someone else]. Oh, and he noticed how America’s ‘ally’ Saudi Arabia actually supplied most of the 9/11 terrorists and is rather lukewarm in helping to hunt down Islamist terrorists. Weiner has managed to join some, if not all the dots in Islamic teaching about Jews and seems to be firmly aware that if Israel’s encircling, bitter enemies get their way unimpeded by Obama’s anti-Israel administration it’s likely to be lights out for The Light Unto Nations and lampshade time again for the Jews of the Middle East.

You don’t have to be utterly nuts to represent a movement at war with reality and morality. You’re allowed one Bonus Guest Star Truth.

So, fair play to him, Anthony Weiner is better on foreign policy than George Soros and Noam Chomsky in the same way that I’m a better ballet dancer than Roseanne Barr and John Goodman.)

And though respondents may not have been aware of the newest development, almost three-quarters think that Weiner's conduct was unethical,…

The City That Never Sleeps…with farmyard animals or its own children…

…but not illegal. While 46 percent question his personal judgment, only one in 10 now question his professional judgment.

Because nothing says professional judgment quite like accidentally pressing the button labelled ‘Tell The World’ instead of the button labelled ‘Only tell a 21-year-old Washington State woman.’

Can you just imagine him late at night flicking through the details of the US Budget for 2012 – assuming that they set one? Just what will he be paying attention to – and is it the bottom line?

Oh and here’s that context in full again:

After several days of denying that he had posted the image, and saying that his account had been "hacked", he admitted exchanging sexually explicit photos and messages with about six women over a three-year period—both before and after his marriage. He denied that he had ever met, or had a physical relationship with, any of the women.

Because if you’re a sophisticated New York Democrat-voting elector you want your political dreams to be upheld by passionate advocacy in the United States Congress, then you’re really going to want your guy in Washington to be, in decreasing order of preference:

A)      a liar;

B)      an ineffective lair;

C)      a passive partner in a mainstream media plot to frame an honest journalist;

D)      an internet perv;

E)      an unsuccessful adulterer.

I bet he’s got one hell of a pitching arm too.

Pressure has been building within Democratic circles for the seven-term congressman to resign, but Weiner insists that he will continue to serve as the representative of New York's 9th district, with the blessing of his wife. But his constituents are split on how successful he'll be if he remains in office. Almost half-48 percent– say he will continue to be effective in carrying out his responsibilities

To recap, he’s noticed that murderous anti-Semitism exists in orthodox Islam and has bravely stood up against his own deluded partisans to excoriate it but still can’t quite distinguish between ‘racial suicide’ and ‘political suicide.’ Coming from the city whose inhabitants legendarily can describe the content, quality and dimensions of their lunchtime sandwiches in millimetric detail, they sure seem to lack attention to detail to the people who are supposed to oversee what makes the Big Things work.

…and 43 percent say he will not be effective. The five-point margin indicates that his constituents are statistically tied.

To chi-chi retro brass bedsteads with fur-lined chrome handcuffs or Gucci silk scarves, no doubt.

Weiner has made phone calls to colleagues and supporters…

Aha, aha, aha ha ha ha!

 …in the aftermath of his public apology for sending inappropriate photos and messages via social media. Whether the impact of his actions will haunt him during a bid for re-election remains to be seen..

Anthony Weiner International Man of Mystery.

…. as Weiner's political future hangs in the balance.

Aha, etc, (see above.)

Thirty percent of 9th District voters say they'll definitely vote for him again, 31 percent say they'll definitely vote against him, and almost four in ten are undecided.

The Marist poll was conducted among 512 adults in the 9th Congressional District of New York on June 8, 2011. It has a sampling error of plus or minus five percentage points.

Why do culture and ‘private morality matter in politics?

It’s not that great and good leaders can’t have private faults and still produce (mostly) good results.

We can think here of some of the Founding Fathers' ownership of slaves whose classical scholarship, reformed Western Christianity and respect for history produced a country that underwrote the prosperity and freedom on half a world for nearly a century, via immolating itself in a civil war that abolished slavery almost by accident. You can think of Winston Churchill’s drunkenness, depression and actual or alleged adulteries, yet he struggled against the Nazi war machine with armed forces weakened and reduced in number and morale by more modern and sophisticated and liberal political and cultural establishment until such time as Britain’s truly liberal successor stepped up to the crease and in so doing stepped up to the plate. He was partially involved in the Foreign Office’s ongoing betrayal of the Balfour Declaration, but at least a denazified Europe he helped to create possessed free ports from which the surviving European Jews could embark for their once and future homeland.

But the Founding Fathers at least had heard of Cincinnatus and knew the Sermon on the Mount and so recognized that power and government has its limits beyond the will of the powerful and Churchill knew that Western Civilization existed and was worth fighting for. These people had morals and values that underpinned their politics, fail them though they sometimes did, and that gave them strength and motivation to struggle on towards a less awful world..

But who can stay the course against determined campaigns of tyranny and terror and the widespread acceptance of petty crime and illegality, and recognize and deal with the way that here on Planet Earth money just plumb runs out sometimes with little more than ‘Let it all hang out’ and ‘We are stardust’ to fall back on? Forward. Whatever.

Who would want to? The Honorable Flasher from New York?


Picture from here.