The Anthony Weiner Situation: Priorities are crooked.

So by now, most people probably know that Weiner came out and said that the pictures were of him.  Now, he is facing opposition by the public, his opponents, and even his own party.  One tweet could ruin the career of a very hardworking and committed politician.  Is it fair?  Which matters more, what someone does with their personal life, or their overall competence in their job?

I think things should be judged based on the quality of someone's performance.  I get how the whole situation has "embarrassed" the part, but Congressional scandals aren't new and they certainly don't always end in people being forced out of office.  The closest to that was Mark Foley and he resigned before they could investigate fully.  Why is it that the Dems want to force out Weiner?  Its possible they feel like they are losing the american people and want to make a statement and a scapegoat to gain back voters.  Is it ethical and fair to do this and play god with someone's career?  Why is it that people are trying to force out Anthony Wiener, but all of the members of the Keating Five kept their offices?  For those who don't know the Keating Five were a group that were involved in corruption that was part of the S&L crisis of the '80s/'90s.  One of the Keating Five is still in office (McCain).


I guess the question up for debate here is what matters in a politician?  Should they follow the strictest morals and not do anything wrong, or should they be able to get the job done?  Shouldn't they be judged like all other employees?  Generally employees are judged on how well they get the job done.  Generally, bosses would only care about your personal life if it could be detrimental to your work.  How is sending a text of your underwear detrimental to proposing bills?  Possibly that people wouldn't vote on it, but its hard to control that and often much of the voting done in Congress for or against is just an argument of semantics anyways.  

Perfect example: Bush vs. Clinton.  By objective standards, Clinton was an okay president.  Bush on the other hand seemed to do no right.  His legacy will be better once the dust clears but most historians (except those whose views are far to the right or those who try to be contrarian) will rank him up there with some of or worst presidents (Buchanan, Harding, Nixon).  Clinton was impeached but Bush was not, why is this?  Clinton lied about getting a blowjob, but Bush lied about the reasons we sent thousands of soldiers across the sea to die.  There is no way what Clinton did comes even remotely close to what Bush did, even when you include the fact that Clinton perjured himself.  The blame does not just lie with the people we elect, but the people themselves.  Impeachment is done by the House and the House tends to listen to their constituents and vote for what they want.  The fact is, many people would rather have the incompetent saint, than the competent sleaze even if his sleaziness only is in his personal life.  These people control our country, I want them to be competent.  The incompetent saints are often able to keep their seats for years.


This has been brought up in front of the House Ethics Committee which brings up another point: Is this really unethical?  It depends on how you see ethics, but I would say no.  It could definitely be immoral, but not unethical.  Ethics are pretty absolute while morals are relative and there is no absolute answer to whether what he did was truly evil or not.