Turns out the Congressman is not just a Weiner but, in the parlance of our people (his, mine and Jon Stewart’s), a “schmuck,” the difference between the male member as metaphor for “stupid, foolish, or detestable” or simply clueless, as the euphemism for a smaller organ his surname suggests. Then again, he may now have earned the highest rank in the Yiddish lexicon of penile designations for the unwise–a total “putz.”

In calling Anthony Weiner “half-smart” before he finally admitted that he Tweeted that picture of his genitals and lied about his computer being hacked with messages to women, I had seriously misjudged his puerility, an unforgivable offense in the current political climate.

But such embarrassment pales in comparison to that of his longtime friend. On the Daily Show, Stewart makes a few jokes about pictures of his contemporary’s relative virility and bare-chested buffness, then quickly swivels to the indictment of the Congressman’s human shield, John Edwards, whose exploits make Weiner’s look like a schoolboy prank, as his refusal to resign suggests.

We are in “Crimes and Misdemeanors” territory here, Woody Allen’s bitter 1989 rumination on male morality linking adultery all the way from embarrassment to murder. How much punishment fits the crime?

Matt Bai, a reporter who closely covered Edwards for seven years, is torn in contemplating what would be suitable, noting “what’s disappointing to anyone who once took Mr. Edwards seriously…is the absence of…genuine, unqualified contrition. Not the kind that says: ‘Look, I said I was sorry a hundred times, and I know I was a crappy husband, but I observed the letter of the law and I intend to prove it.’ But more the kind that says: ‘I know how I’ve betrayed people who believed in me, and I’ll submit to whatever punishment you want to mete out, and when it’s over I vow to make use of the talents I’ve been given with whatever days I have left.’”

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