Max has a good post up commending Senator Ron Wyden. Wyden deserves praise for standing strong on the 4th Amendment and against government spying on and collecting data on the whole of American citizens without probable cause.
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| Anthony Weiner |
Not exactly in the same vein, because Anthony Weiner's problems go beyond political disagreement, I appreciated the
New York Sun's editorial remembering Weiner's courage in standing up for American citizens born abroad--specifically those born in Jerusalem
Guess who turns out to be at the center of the
great Jerusalem Passport case that is going to be appealed for a second
time to the Supreme Court. This is the case that determines whether the
president must obey a law passed almost unanimously by Congress,
granting to Americans born in Jerusalem the right to have a passport and
other official documents listing their place of birth as Israel.
It turns out that the measure was introduced in the Congress by none
other than Anthony Weiner. This was back in 2001, when the current
candidate for mayor of New York was a member of Congress from Brooklyn.
. . .
Mr. Weiner didn’t have to pick up this issue. He would have been
handily re-elected if he had not. But he did because he and his
constituents believe profoundly in the issue. So the law to require the
state department to honor the request of an American born in Jerusalem
to have the proper birth documents, this was a creative and admirable
demarche. It bespeaks the kind of creativity and gumption that are the
good side of Anthony Weiner.
4 comments:
It's unfortunate that his apparent mental disorder has destroyed an otherwise promising person. Nobody will ever take him seriously again.
Interestingly, were it not for the advent of instant information transmission, his transgressions wouldn't matter - his crime involved sending sext posts; certainly nothing approaching what his fellow Democratics, such as Porkland's Neil Goldschmidt, Sam Adams, and Jeff Cogen did. It pales in comparison to what the Lyin' of the Senate got away with, and even what Dem rock star Bill Clinton did.
Sam skated because homosexual is cool. Cogen is trying to follow Sam's playbook, but it's unlikely to work out as well for him. Goldschmidt and Kennedy did their things back before there was a widely accessible Internet, and Weiner never has managed to internalize the fact that once you hit "send" - it's out there forever.
Good remembering, Max. You're right. People who have done much worse have gotten lots better defense and hardly any consequences. They even jumped on the woman who outed John F. Kennedy in the last year or so for having her as a teenage "release" for him and his buddies. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/inside_my_teen_affair_with_jfk_FGF4aS7OdoQozP4tyySsmK
It's almost like Weiner is being treated like Republicans Mark Foley or Larry Craig by some in the media instead of like a Democrat.
Ack. It appears that JFK's still getting the Camelot treatment. Wow.
It's hard to say that what JFK did was other than perverse and sickening. Which is why they criticized the woman for revealing it now and tarnishing JFK's image.
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