Anthony Weiner’s wiener and the left/right divide

Everyone needs something to brighten up their day. And Anthony Weiner has once again come up with the goods.

Readers will recall that the Democrat politician had to resign from the US Congress two years ago after a technological mishap meant he sent a photo of his penis (or ‘wiener’ in American slang) to all of his Twitter followers instead of to the one woman he had meant to. Initially claiming that his account had been hacked (see here) Weiner then had to admit that the wiener was his (as were a string of ‘sexting’ conservations with young women) and humiliatingly stood down from office (the attempted cover-up being significantly larger than the offence).

After the compulsory brief period of absence and some soft-focus interviews alongside his wife (Hilary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin) Weiner came out of retirement in May to announce that he was running for Mayor of New York. It was an astonishing moment – so brazen, so filled with chutzpah that you couldn’t help thinking ‘You can’t be serious’ and ‘Only in New York’ at the same time.

But now Weiner’s wiener has got him into trouble again. A set of new photos and sex-messages have emerged which Weiner sent to another woman. The conversations seem to make it clear that he carried out this set of exchanges after his last resignation and during or after the period in which he claimed all this was behind him. Now he and Huma have had to do a humiliating press conference about this new set of exchanges and he has said that he is just asking the people of New York for a second chance – although it is actually a third by my count.

Although this sort of thing doesn’t usually interest me, there is something about the Weiner case that is grimly fascinating. Firstly