It sounds like Rep. Anthony Weiner might start measuring the drapes — not to move in but because he’s getting political curtains. After it came out that he had been in contact with a 17-year-old girl online his existing support within the Democratic Party is now collapsing and this includes House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Although police, Weiner and the girl’s parents have all set the online communications were not inappropriate, as I noted here the optics are awful. If he stays he’ll be a virtual pariah. Given that his seat will likely be obliterated in redistricting it’s hard to see now how he’ll stay. But stranger things have happened (this IS 21st century American politics, you know.)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.