Weiner Nation

Weiner Nation
The current crisis is reflected in the saga of one pathetic man-child.
by John Hayward
06/13/2011

Big Government reported on Saturday that Rep. Anthony Weiner’s staff may be heading for the lifeboats. The lifeboats are standing by, with fully fueled gas tanks and fully stocked mini-bars.

Big Government has learned from a confidential source on Capitol Hill that, starting tomorrow, Rep. Weiner’s DC staff will depart for other Congressional offices. According to our source, staff from Democrat leadership assembled Rep. Weiner’s staff and offered to assist them finding positions in other offices. Finding positions for everyone in Weiner’s DC office could take a week or two.

“Leadership said they understood that the staff had been lied to,” our source told Big Government. “But, they appreciated that the staff had been troopers and wouldn’t be left without jobs. They also made it clear that they didn’t think Rep. Weiner would be back in Congress.”

Weiner had nineteen people on his staff. Their tireless efforts gave him plenty of time to send embarrassing photos of himself to various women, play with himself on-camera at the House gym, and exchange racy text messages with his Internet paramours.

It’s good to know these innocent staffers have no risk of losing their jobs. The rest of us should be so lucky.

The other members of Congress already have equally princely retinues. Where will these 19 displaced staffers go? If Weiner resigns, would they all be recalled to work for his replacement, or does that worthy get to bring in another squad of faithful retainers?

There’s no doubt that the massive, deficit-fueled federal leviathan can whip up 19 new jobs out of thin air. That’s part of the problem in America today. Even as businesses are tightening their belts, laying off employees, and canceling expansion plans, the federal government grows without limit. It doesn’t matter that it’s out of money, and in fact ran out of money a long time ago. Bouncing a group of loyal staffers onto the streets of D.C., just because their jobs are about to disappear, is unthinkable. That sort of thing only happens to the poor slobs out in the private sector.

There are plenty of stark comparisons to be made between the public and private sector in the saga of Anthony Weiner. It goes without saying that any sizable private corporation would have cashiered an executive who displayed Weiner’s behavior long before now. His embarrassing antics would have reflected badly on the company with consumers. The stockholders would be outraged over his appalling lack of judgment. The company lawyers would be wrestling with the ramifications of his extensive lies.

Do you think many private companies would keep his seat warm while an executive like Weiner dashed off to have a few months of "treatment" after embarrassing the company, and lying to management and stockholders? Would they need an executive whose seat could be kept warm for so long?

The truth is that a well-run corporation would have weeded out someone like Weiner a long time ago, not because he acted like a teenager, but because he produced nothing of value. His apologists keep insisting that he was a “brilliant” congressman. Really? Brilliant at what? Giving fiery speeches about how other people shouldn’t be allowed to keep their money, and how families shouldn’t be allowed to hang on to their own estates, because it offends his sense of fairness, and he needs their wealth to fuel his agenda?

Like far too many of his peers, Weiner has never held a private-sector job, and he’s not qualified to do anything that would earn a paycheck approaching his $156k congressional salary, never mind the unbelievable perks and fringe benefits. He’s a bench-warmer with a lot of time on his hands, in a government that would be judged a failure and a fraud by any rational private-sector standard.

Of course, our congressional aristocracy is never held to anything approaching private-sector standards. They routinely walk away from charges of negligence, corruption and incompetence that would see any private-sector career put to an end, probably with a jail sentence. The more they fail us, the more of our money and liberty they take. From Nancy Pelosi’s regal air-travel arrangements to Barack Obama’s incredibly expensive vacations and endless rounds of golf, they reward themselves with leisure and luxury while their mis-managed operations crash and burn.

There are some private corporations that tolerate the kind of professional failure and personal foolishness that characterizes Congress. They don’t usually last for long. They can’t survive business models that lose oceans of money, maxed-out credit card bills they can’t afford to pay, or scandalous behavior that scares off investors.

Imagine a 46-year-old executive hanging onto his job after insisting the half-dozen private messages he exchanged with a 17-year-old girl who was one of less than 200 people he bothered to follow on Twitter were perfectly innocent. In Weiner Nation, the ruling class is rarely held accountable for anything, and they never have to make do with less. It’s not surprising so many of them behave like arrested adolescents. Limitless funding, freedom from consequence, plenty of free time… how is a Congressman’s mindset different from those “adult babies” who are still sponging off their parents and living in the basement, well into their mid-40s?

Fortunately for the ruling class, they can rely upon the wealth created by people who are held to much higher standards, in order to support their lifestyles and agendas. Their continued survival in office depends on opinions, not empirical evidence of sound management or profitable operations. They have lots of time and resources available to shape those opinions, thanks to the army of loyal staffers we taxpayers are funding.