National Affairs: Angst In The Nation's Capital...No Sex Equals Scandal...Scandal Lite...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor of The Tribune

AUSTIN, Texas - It's been a wild and turbulent week for Democratic U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner, what public relations handlers call his naked moment in the "Nuclear Winter." Weiner being caught in a sexting scandal is not the worst side of the mess; he's a married man with a rather exotic-looking woman most men would say was enough to go straight forever.

Huma Abedin is her name. She is the woman in the photo atop this story, standing alongside her husband in what had to be better days.

Weiner's story of absolute stupidity has played across the national geography since late last week, when news surfaced that he'd been sending lewd photographs of himself to 21-year-old Genette Nicole Cordova, a college student across the country in Seattle, via his cellular telephone. She is shown wearing a striped top in photo above.

According to Weiner and the young student, nothing actually happened between them, but that did nothing to save him from the humiliation of a press conference he held yesterday in which he admitted being part of the the playful game after denying it for days.

Weiner is not alone in any of this. America's politicians have made extra-curricular sexual flirtations and couplings a national art. Former Republican U.S. Senator John Ensign of Nevada took his obsession with a married female staffer all the way to the bedroom, even as he also employed her husband. To wriggle out of it, Ensign had his wealthy parents slip a check for $96,000 to the woman. It didn't play as he expected. Ensign resigned ahead of a Justice Department investigation and he still lives under a cloud of the coming indictment.

Weiner wil survive if his party colleagues wish him to survive. He won't if they don't.

A respected politician from New York's 9th District, he represents a section of New York City that includes the Queens borough. In his plans, say those who know him, was a run at the New York City mayorship in 2013, when current Mayor Mike Bloomberg presumably would step down.

Who knows what will become of Anthony Weiner. Literary giant F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that there are no Second Acts in America, referring to the stage and to the country's distaste for re-runs. It'll be interesting to see how the next few weeks unfold for the congressman. Much will depend on other news hitting the airaves and newspapers. Democratic Congressman Gary Condit endured a few years in office following the disapearance - and murder - of his young aide, Chandra Levy. But he lost the ensuing election, after what many agreed was a positive career in Washington, D.C. Condit did acknowledge he'd had an affair with the young woman, however.

Weiner says nothing happened in his case, although one is led to conclude that perhaps that was his mission all along, his goal, his wanton desire, which is too bad for his wife of barely one year.

The list could go on and on about these guys. Both major political parties have had their scandal stars. Both parties have for the most part found ways to ease them out of office. It'll come for Weiner, but that could be the last of his worries. His wife is a former aide of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a woman who herself went through a mess of her own with her husband, the former president, and his dalliance with a bubbly young intern, Monica Lewinsky. Clinton stayed with her man in a however-guarded manner. Perhaps she is counseling Mrs. Weiner.

The story will have its legs for the next few days, fall off the national psyche, and ultimately re-surface when either Weiner resigns or is served divorce papers.

That's the Second Act we've come to know in these matters...

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