Weiner’s presser

Thomas Bertonneau writes:

Congressman Weiner’s performance this afternoon was a paradigm of self-absorption, phoniness, and evasion. He said repeatedly in his news conference, “I apologize,” as if merely uttering the words were sufficient to atone for his perverse behavior. This, the empty, purely verbal, “apology,” is typical of contemporary discourse. Weiner also employed typical evasive constructions used by people whom circumstances have forced to reveal part of a truth but who continue to conceal another part. When asked whether he had engaged in relations with his “social media” partners other than mediated ones, he did not say, “No”; he said, “I know that I did not.” What does that mean? It means that he is relying on the guarantee of a subjective assertion. The construction contains room for further maneuvering should it turn out that he did, in fact, have other than mediated relations.

He also said that he assumed that his Facebook colloquists were adults and not underage. Notice how this evades the issue. A normatively moral person, married, would, first, not engage in sexual badinage with strangers. The question, whether the recipients of his messages were adults or otherwise, is therefore irrelevant to any objective analysis of the issue. He also repeatedly stated that his actions “did not violate the Constitution,” as if that were the objection to his behavior. All in all, an instructive performance: It revealed the continued vitality of the old Gnostic precept that the elect cannot sin; that whatever they do is excusable because they are the elect.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 06, 2011 05:33 PM | Send