Leave the Weiners alone

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Weinergate just won't stop:

Rep. Anthony Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, returned to Washington early Wednesday from a trip abroad, setting off a new round of speculation that the New York Democrat's resignation could come soon.

Friends of Weiner have said he would not make a decision on whether to quit until he had a chance to talk to Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who returned to the United States from a trip to Africa with Clinton that began early last week.

Weiner and Abedin are expected to meet on Wednesday, and she was spotted driving into the garage alone at their northwest D.C. apartment building in the early morning hours. She has not yet been seen leaving the building.

Anthony Weiner is a public figure, behaved idiotically, and deserves the public scrutiny that comes with the job. But I refuse to excuse the media, salivating profusely, for its lascivious and sensationalistic coverage of what is essentially a sad, if not tragic, story.

Will he resign or won't he? Okay, it's fine to speculate. It's also fine to talk about what he did. But staking out his apartment, pulling his wife into it (as if she doesn't have enough to deal with), and trying to publicize what is, and what must be, inherently private? Disgusting, even if it's what the media always do.

No, invasive reports like this aren't as bad as the moralistic bullshit spewed by the likes of Andrea Peyser and other right-wing smearmongers, but they're nonetheless deeply irresponsible.

Leave the Weiners alone. Let them deal with their relationship in private. We'll know soon enough what the Congressman plans to do.