SALON

Wednesday, Jun 8, 2011 10:09 PM UTC

A pregnancy changes everything

Dragging a pregnant wife through more slime is unthinkable. Weiner has to resign

By

Topics: Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.,

A pregnancy changes everythingFILE - In this July 10, 2010, file photo provided by Marie Ternes, Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., poses with his wife Huma Abedin, close aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, for a formal wedding portrait at the Oheka Castle in Huntington, N.Y. Weiner confessed Monday, June 6, 2011, that he tweeted a bulging-underpants photo of himself to a young woman and admitted to "inappropriate" exchanges with six women before and after getting married. (AP Photo/Barbara Kinney, File)(Credit: AP)

(Updated below)

If Huma Abedin is pregnant, as the New York Times is reporting, I think Anthony Weiner has to resign — and I actually expect him to. That news changes everything.

I’ve resisted calling for Weiner’s resignation, even though I’ve deplored his reckless behavior. Since I’ve defended the “victim” of the mess all along, the 21-year-old college student who received the photo unwillingly on her account, and who was slimed by conservative bloggers, I have to acknowledge that Weiner brought about her sliming. And now he’s apparently done the lowest thing most of us can think of: Humiliate not just his wife, but his pregnant wife.

If that’s true, deciding to hang tough, weather an ethics investigation and fight the coordinated right-wing effort to run him out of office becomes an act of cruelty. Already the naked photo Andrew Breitbart said he wouldn’t make public (unless he had to protect the women involved) became public, when two conservative shock jocks happened to snap a photo of it on Breitbart’s phone, and posted it online. Breitbart issued a statement saying he “regrets” the unauthorized photo of his photo by the scampy shock jocks. It reminds me of Condi Rice saying, “No one could have predicted” terrorists would use “airplanes as missiles,” after she’d already been briefed on just such plots. Showing the photo to right-wing shock jocks, and believing it would stay private, is either unbelievable, or unbelievably stupid. But hey, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.

There are almost certainly more photos, more women who could come forward. He admitted to six cyber-affairs; we’ve only heard from three of the women, so far. The harder Weiner fights, the more likely he is to face more shaming. I argued last night on “The Ed Show,” along with Bill Press, that so far we don’t know that Weiner’s done anything illegal — and if we had let right-wing slime plots derail Democratic politicians, Bill Clinton never would have been president. And I still have to say: Who’s next? Because there will be another takedown.

But this news is impossible to parse on a political level; the default reaction for most people is going to be personal. It was bad enough that he cyber-cheated on his wife, and behaved so recklessly that the whole world found out about it. Dragging her through any more humiliation, while she’s pregnant, would be cruelty. He can’t do it. Weiner has to resign. He owes it to his family.

Abedin may be through with him; she hasn’t spoken about the news, and admirably, she left with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a trip to northern Africa today. Still, she’ll have more peace and privacy if Weiner puts this mess behind him, and she deserves it.

Update: I’ve heard several people suggest that Weiner shouldn’t resign if his wife wants him to fight. If that turns out to be the case, I might feel differently. Others have suggested that her pregnancy should change nothing at all; it’s a private matter. That’s all fine. I’m personally not capable of saying: Cyberinfidelity: fine. Tweeting naked photos idiotically recklessly. No problem. Lying about it, and making reporters complicit in your coverup? AOK. Doing all of that when you have a pregnant wife (who has rather conspicuously failed to come out in your defense)…I can’t go there. But if the details change, you won’t hear about it from me. I’m getting out of the muck. As many people are arguing, correctly, this is a lurid distraction from real news.

 

Joan Walsh

Joan Walsh is Salon's editor at large and the author of "What's the Matter With White People: Finding Our Way in the Next America." More Joan Walsh.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 282 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
216 points217 points | 7 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
161 points162 points | comment
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
103 points104 points | 30 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
47 points48 points | 8 comments
vote
With the help of Photoshop, artist Yao Lu has made shanshui — traditional ink paintings — of China's landfills
26 points27 points | 1 comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations