Weinergate just keeps growing.  As I write this, more women are coming forward with stories of sexual tweeting… and boy oh boy that’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.

“Sexual tweeting?”  If you’re over fifty you’re probably scratching your head like me because the whole Twitter phenomenon seems like mass stupidity.  Now we’re getting a glimpse of the level of conversation taking place in that medium and it’s not pretty.

Star magazine has the latest Weiner peccadillo and this time it involves a “middle-aged” woman here in Nevada, so somehow a sexual scandal involving (yet another) New York politician has forded the Mississippi, climbed the Rockies, hiked across the salt flats, and touched my state.  Say what you want about Weiner, the guy seems to have a long reach.  First a college girl in Seattle, now somebody in Nevada.

The Nevada woman wants to remain nameless and when you read some of her tweets you can understand why.  Good grief, lady, why did you come forward at all?  Have you no pride?  How can a woman reach middle age and write such sophomoric sexual crap to a sitting congressman… or should I say standing congressman since that’s the way he described himself?

Weiner: “ridiculous bulge in my shorts now, wanna see?”

Nevada woman: “yea! Can u send a pic? i want to sit on your [wiener] so bad right now”

Weiner: “jeez, im rushing. let me take a quick pic”

Nevada woman: “how r u gonna go to work with a raging [wiener]?”

I can answer that question for her.  Weiner is the kind of congressman who works best in that condition because he’s better able to screw the American taxpayers that way.  Before last week, Weiner was best known for giving shrill, nearly-hysterical, obnoxiously-loud, profoundly-rude speeches on the floor of the House advocating more money for every possible government program.  He’s the guy who said, “Make no mistake about it, every single Republican I have ever met in my entire life is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry,” and he’s known for physically attacking office furniture when he’s angry.

He’s also known for verbally abusing his staff, which until last week everybody assumed meant the people who work for him.

Weiner tried to stonewall last week by refusing to answer direct questions about the photo of his package tweeted to the 21-year-old college girl on May 27.  He claimed his Twitter account was hacked and he didn’t send the picture and the dog ate his homework, but on the other hand he couldn’t say “with certitude” that the picture wasn’t him.  Apparently he dresses in the dark or something and doesn’t recognize his own underpants.  After that, he clammed up and let his staff speak for him… which is how the problem got started so God knows how that’s going to help.

Right this instant (June 6, 1:00 PM Pacific Time), as I write this, Weiner is supposed to be holding a press conference.  It’s even money whether he plans to announce his resignation or announce his latest excuse.  Republicans tend to resign under these circumstances but Democrats are difficult to shame.  After all, they’re already Democrats.  They tend to cling to power until they’re dragged kicking and screaming from office… sometimes in handcuffs to prison.  William Jefferson didn’t resign when the FBI found bribe money hidden in his freezer and William Jefferson Clinton didn’t resign when they found his semen on Monica Lewinsky’s dress.  And that’s just the William Jeffersons of the Democrat Party.

So I’m guessing Weiner will stand up (so to speak) and admit a little bit, but continue to stonewall, continue to lie, and, most importantly, refuse to resign.

What strikes me about all this hullabaloo is not so much the scandal itself, but the weird confluence of the man’s name with his transgression.  What are the odds that a man named Weiner would get caught sending a picture of his wiener?  And did you know that the proper pronunciation of the name “Weiner” is not ween-er but rather win-er, with a long ‘i’?  So this is a man who decided at some point in his life to purposely mispronounce his name to make himself sound like a dick.

There’s a certain amount of wisdom in that, give the guy credit.  “Know thyself,” as the ancient Greek maxim says.

Weiner’s eponymous* scandal reminded me of Barney Frank’s equally eponymous scandal wherein he was caught hosting a gay whorehouse in his home back in the 1980s.  (While serving as a congressman from Boston.  See what I mean about it being hard to shame a Democrat?  He’s still a congressman.)  Weiner and his wiener, Frank and his buns, what are the odds?

So I started looking at other names in congress, looking for future trouble because I’m a patriotic American, and found all kinds of people who worry me.  There seems to be an extra large allotment of Dicks, Franks, Willies, Johnsons (8 of them!), and Peters, first of all, plus many other problematic names.  John Boehner, Speaker of the House, for instance.  I hope his wife is keeping a close eye on him.  She should probably make sure he doesn’t have a Twitter account and keep him away from Rep. Mary Bono (R-California) and Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Alabama), even though ol’ Jo is a man.  In fact, the way the Speaker cries all the time, Mrs. Boehner should worry more about Mr. Bonner than Mrs. Bono.

Rep. John Dingell (D-Michigan) has a suggestive name but it’s so cute he’s probably not dangerous.  Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri), on the other hand, sounds like serious trouble.  And we can assume that Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) is a dog, right?  We better watch him, and Rep. Lloyd Dogget (D-Texas) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Virginia), too.  Frank Wolf sounds like double trouble.

I’m not that worried about Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California)—she’s a different kind of dog—but Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) might attract some trouble from the various near-Weiners in Congress: guys like Rep. Leonard Lance (R-New Jersey), Rep. Billy Long (R-Missouri), and Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi).  She might even get a proposition from Rep. Jackie Speier (D-California), who knows?  Those California women are wild.

Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tennessee) is obviously trouble waiting to happen, it couldn’t be clearer, and it sounds like it’s too late to stop Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland).  Let’s just hope he was discrete.

Then we have the kinky ones like Rep. Bob Hurt (R-Virginia), Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California), and Rep. Judy Chu (D-California), and the filthy ones like Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), and Rep. Thomas Petri (R-Wisconsin).  We don’t want to even hear about their scandals.

If it’s names that create the problems, Congress might have a lot of scandal in its future, that’s all I’m saying.  Thank goodness Rep. Ed Pastor (D-Arizona) will be around to clean up the messes.

Weiner: “it won’t go away. And now im taking pics of it, making me harder still”

Nevada woman: “so hot! U are making me wet again”

Weiner: “jeez, I have to go. ill hit you later.”

Nevada woman: “aawww…u better”

[UPDATE: Weiner has finished his press conference and it went exactly as I expected.  He admitted sending a photo of his wiener to the college girl and having “inappropriate communications” with five other women but insists he never used government equipment for his Twitter-twatting (©J.P. Travis) so he didn’t violate any rules of the House of Representatives and therefore won’t resign.  Like I said, it’s difficult to shame a Democrat.]


* from Gk. eponymos “given as a name, giving one’s name to something”


From Reno, Nevada, USA        Tweet

June 7, 2011 - Good laughs Jim. Funny how NBC News didn't even mention this last night, but somehow found time to bash Palin. If this were a Republican, this would be the only thing NBC was reporting. The hypocrisy among liberals is pathetic. Let's hope everyone remembers this in November. - Todd L., Michigan

June 7, 2011 - So who's the 'jackass" now? (Weiner repeatedly called a persistent reporter that name at one of his earlier press conferences.) If nothing else, the scrawny little twerp should flash his puny manhood from more studly duds instead of those scrungy, old girly underpants. - Boomer Pie, Michigan

June 7, 2011 - Weiner clearly doesn't have the judgement to be in congress making decisions about the future of America. He needs to go. If he won't go gracefully, then somebody should kick him in the ass. - Maxie, Florida