Anthony Weiner's Bad Day

A lot has been written and said and repeated and trumpeted and blathered about in regards to the shenanigans of Representative Anthony Weiner. I was trying hard to resist writing about the incidents involving him, believing that there was little more I could add to the general cacophony. Yet, as days have passed, as new information has come out, and as the import of the events that have transpired has sunk in, I am left wondering: what does it all mean?

I come to the unalterable conclusion that this is the ultimate teachable moment for our society in regards to many things: morality, the Internet, government, humanity, duty, honor. Within the tangled skein of these events, lie the truths we seldom wish to confront or take action toward. It is a tableau of the virtues and vices that both ennoble us and plague us simultaneously.

I won't pass judgment on Rep. Weiner. As the Biblical admonition from Jesus goes, "may he who is without sin cast the first stone." I may not be a public persona, but I have done many things of an indiscreet nature that I am not proud of. Many of us have, and whether we admit it or not, we know it in our heart and our soul.

I have no reason to believe that we can populate our government with angels and saints; we will have to accept that fallible humanity will be led by fallible leaders, and that hopefully personal failings of honor are not symptomatic of deeper failings of morality and duty toward humanity. We must take each of us as we are, and hope that those we elect to represent us can truly represent our best interests, as well as those of our state, our nation, and humanity as a whole. we cannot ask of them to become paragons of virtue, though we would wish them to, perhaps to salve our own conscience.

So let this moment be a warning to us: the world is more complicated by leaps and bounds than it ever has been, and our personal failings are magnified by the environment we now inhabit. We must turn away from our sanctimoniousness and turn toward each other, if we are to survive. Let that start now, and let Anthony Weiner have been the one to lead us in the right direction.