Let’s suppose for a second that the most embarrassing and deviant portions of your life had been plastered on the front page of every newspaper, the slimy details had been the lead story on every newscast, and you’d been forced to resign your position before the whole country.
Such is the case of Anthony Weiner.
Moreover, the man’s name has been fodder for late-night talk shows, an endless source of material for stand-up comics. And based on the man’s name and behavior, even the most innocent discussion of this incident ends up sounding like it was meant to be some kind of a dirty joke.
That is why I have chosen to only refer to the man by his full name in this column, so as to escape the accusation that I am only using the man’s name as a cheap joke.
Suppose for just a second that this had been you.
But after all enduring all this public shame and ridicule, a little time passes and you decide to run for public office again.
Why would a normal person do this?
Before we begin, we need to understand one thing: a “normal” person would do.
A normal person would move to a small town, somewhere in a sparsely-populated area of the country. He would grow a full beard and change his appearance. A normal person would only go to town a few times in the year and those would only occur when he was absolutely desperate for supplies.
That is how a normal person might respond.
There are any number of reasons why people like Anthony Weiner would choose to run for office again. I have not chosen to list these reasons in any particular order and they are in no way exhaustive.
First of all, why have we chosen to assume that Anthony Weiner is normal or that he is in any way embarrassed by any of these public details?
Maybe Anthony Weiner actually likes it.
Only a person who absolutely thrived and delighted on this level of coverage would enter a race for public office and tell the world in a news story that he had changed his behavior, at the very same time he was also continuing the same behavior which drove him from office the first time.
If you look up the word “narcissist” in the dictionary, it will probably say: “See Anthony Weiner.”
