“The joke’s on us”, by: Kyle Smith

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Former Congressman Anthony Weiner (D) New York
Former Congressman Anthony Weiner (D) New York

The joke’s on us
New York City used to be a national punchline. If we elect Anthony Weiner, it will be again.
By KYLE SMITH

Anthony Weiner knew he faced a stiff challenge, that he’d be a lightning rod for jokes while getting the shaft from the press. But after blowing a load of money on campaign research, now he’s a big thing. Polling of the electorate shows a rapid rise in his fortunes, he’s still got a huge wad of cash in the bank and New York City voters are starting to say he’s a stand-up guy with an impressive package of ideas. Last week, he exploded in the polls, finishing first in one and a close second in another. Now that he’s officially a member of the political club again, you know he’s got a feeling deep in his loins that it’s time to whip out his true self and act like the cock of the walk on the third leg of his career. If there were anyplace you could smoke anymore, he’d be puffing a Winston and asking New York, “Did you feel the Earth move?”

Sick of such puns? Just wait until Weiner wins — you won’t be able to escape them.

Weiner is starting to look like the tallest guy in Smurfopolis, what with Christine Quinn failing to build any momentum from a huge early lead and the other Democratic mayoral candidates scrambling to offer the most extravagant promises to make the schools worse, the streets more dangerous and the balance sheet insolvent.

Meanwhile, in the Republican ghetto where one in seven voters lives, former Deputy Mayor Joseph Lhota holds a lead, but he’s going to need a whole Lhota luck to stand a chance against any well-funded liberal Democrat with an approval rating higher than herpes.

Speaking of sexually transmitted diseases that just won’t go away: That leaves Anthony Weiner with a good chance of being our representative on the world stage.

Weiner would be a grandiose, overreaching mayor. Because the nation’s highest taxes are still far too low, he thinks New York City should give health insurance to 500,000 illegal immigrants — and, presumably, all the others who flow in after them when word gets around — on the pretext that this would lower costs. Taking on health care from City Hall is like trying to solve Syria or global warming.

We shouldn’t be surprised — it’s not like we weren’t warned that Weiner is a reckless and dishonest egomaniac with an absurdly inflated view of his own potency.

Between his policies, his personality and his perversions, a Mayor Weiner would return New York City to where it was before the relative sanity of the 20 years of Giuliani-Bloomberg: national laughingstock.

Image does matter in a city where tourism is one of the leading industries, a place Mayor Bloomberg dubbed (not inaccurately) a luxury good worth the high prices.

Before Rudy Giuliani stormed Godzilla-like through the city breathing fire on the various obstacles to progress, Gotham was for 30 years synonymous with pollution, disorder, crime, dysfunction and general looniness. A nightly onslaught of jokes from the likes of “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson (who moved the show to Burbank in 1972) and lesser punditry drove home the idea that New York was a place best avoided.

(Sample Carson line: “New York is an exciting town where something is happening all the time . . . most unsolved.”)

Weiner thinks he can put his scandal behind him, but the details are too irresistible for anyone to forget. These jokes are from last week alone:

Jimmy Fallon: “A new poll found that former Congressman Anthony Weiner only has a 15% chance of winning the race for New York City mayor. Although in his defense, he’s a grower not a shower.”

Stephen Colbert: “Weiner would be a great New York City mayor. For one thing, we wouldn’t have to worry about a soda ban because we’ve all seen that he puts more than 16 ounces in his cup.”

Jay Leno: “The Wall Street Journal said that Mr. Weiner didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment. Hey, Anthony Weiner didn’t e-mail or text you back? Consider yourself lucky!”

You think any talk-show host will stop making these jibes one, two, even four years into a Weiner term?

No matter which Democrat wins, we’re probably doomed to a return of the cycle of buying off unions and other interest groups, holding back cops, raising taxes and driving out businesses.

But Weiner’s prominence would magnify his every failure and make it national news, a self-fulfilling prophecy that could reverse the 20-year trend of people and businesses being eager to move here.

We would become a 4-year-long dick joke.

It’s New Yorkers who are to blame, of course. As a city, we’re attracted to outsize personalities, from Ed Koch to Giuliani.

Perhaps Bloomberg protégée Christine Quinn will turn around her sagging poll numbers to cut off Weiner. But Quinn lacks the spotlight-hogging personality that seems to be a necessary attribute to impress easily bored citizens of what Mayor John Lindsay called Fun City.

We demand an entertaining mayor — so we may end up with one who is a clown.

Source: NY Post

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10 COMMENTS

  1. South Carolina elected a dirtbag to congress that paid for prostitutes with taxpayer money all because he was a Republican and screams Jesus this and Jesus that. Democrats are the only forgiving voters? If you ask me what the South Carolina scum did was much worse.

    • Both Weiner and that fool from South Carolina that you refer to are delusional ego maniacs that put their own indulgences over the business of governing. Neither deserve a single vote.

    • Agreed. I think a lot of Republicans are waking up to the way they’ve been manipulated by their own social conservative proclivities. This sort of “morality” vote is an anathema to the libertarian wing of the Party precisely because attempting to enforce moral codes of conduct of ANY kind through legislation creates systemic inequalities that favor the wishes of a majority over the rights of a minority and is antithetical to the ideals of Liberty as set forth by the founders of this country.

      I have often butted heads with those in the Republican Party who shout the mantra of “this country is a Christian nation”. Anything deeper than a cursory examination of history shows most of the important founders of the United States were deists, atheists and/or serial agnostics and were NOT Christians of the variety we predominantly see today. They men were philosophers and scientists who were riding the intellectual wave of a burgeoning “Age of Reason” and had little time for religion as anything other than a useful soundboard for couching their revolutionary ideas of self-rule and natural rights as opposed to the “Divine Right of Kings”.

      It’s really not about political parties in the sense of which one is best, it’s about the various ways in which the political parties pander to their respective bases of support. Both do it in different ways to different groups of voters with pet agendas that should have NOTHING to do with politics or government. Seeing people who should know better fall victim to the same old lines is the frustrating part.

      In the words of P.T. Barnum: “A sucker is born every minute.”

  2. Brad–you said–” history shows most of the important founders of the United States were deists, atheists and/or serial agnostics and were NOT Christians of the variety we predominantly see today. Have you been to DC and looked at the Capital building, Supreme Court building, Washington Monument etc? I could swear they all have religious carvings everywhere. This says a lot about our history.

    Who are these important founders of the United States that were deists, atheists and/or serial agnostics?

    It appears you are struggling with this religious concept. Did you notice the song posted on the David Cosby COO piece–“Amazing Grace”

    • The buildings in DC are laid out in a pattern that pays more homage to paganism and Masonic imagery than Biblical doctrine. The carvings on most of the buildings are from Greek and Roman lore, Babylonian mythology, and Egyptian religion than Christianity. If you don’t know that, then you weren’t paying attention.

      Christianity itself borrows heavily from symbolism first used in Egyptian and Babylonian mythologies. I don’t have time to go into it, but look up a movie called “Zeitgeist” to get an idea what I mean. It’s all based on constellations, astrology and other pagan symbolism surrounding the solstices and equinoxes.

      Here is a primer of what I mean about Washington DC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LszZ30PCywo

      The founders who were deists, NOT Christians, included George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, for starters. Jefferson and Franklin in particular were openly skeptical of Judeo-Christian religion, with Jefferson being the most openly skeptical and most agnostic leaning in private writings.

      • Brad–you are wrong on this point. But I will say you do have a great vocabulary to express yourself–even though it it guided you to the wrong conclusion.

        • So why can’t they just do this whole damn project as maintenance over a 30 year period and forget about Weinzapfel’s Johnson Controls Contract? Surely Winnecke is smart enough to figure this out.

  3. Who cares. Let New Yorkers elect who they want.
    Concentrate on the idiots we’ve got running here.

Comments are closed.