Weiner's Wiener Ironies

Weiner's Wiener Ironies

Let’s admit it. We all encounter events in our lives of which we’re not especially proud. I, for one, failed my high school chemistry final and I was once a liberal Democrat before I came to my senses. Still, I survived.

Former Sen. John Edwards couldn’t keep his pants on and hopefully will go to jail, but he’ll also survive, even if he won’t have his hairdresser in prison.

Rep. Anthony Weiner apparently couldn’t keep his pants on, either, but he should survive, personally if not politically–IF he ever learns to keep his mouth shut. He took one, small step for Weiner down that path by withdrawing from a Milwaukee speaking engagement on Friday.

Most of us enjoy at least to some extent such scandalous news and political scandals as those enveloping Edwards and Weiner. That said, the whole, smarmy Weiner-wiener-Twitter tale has gotten very old and is fast becoming less titillating than it is absurd. Weinergate will always have a redeeming factor, though, its multitude of ironies, which make its smarminess interesting, if not palatable.

The latest fillip in the story, Rep. Weiner’s staff calling the cops on a reporter for trying to report, only adds to the irony surrounding the pathetic nature of the story of the congressman who was elected and re-elected on the bases of his liberal creds and made his rep as an outspoken, progressive proponent of all things liberal and is now ultra-conservative in his craving for a return to normality.

Thanks to Weiner and despite his continual blabbering, all the facts of the Weinergate case are still ambiguous but this much is clear: Someone took a picture of someone’s bulging privates in a pair of briefs; someone transmitted the photo to a 21 year old college student on Weiner’s Twitter account; someone ratted out that yet unidentified someone.

The ironies overfloweth and the cop feature only adds to them.

According to the CBS account, Marcia Kramer went to the congressman’s Washington office in hopes of establishing some certitude regarding Weiner’s stated incertitude as to the identity of the privates in question. Kramer announced herself and her purpose, namely to interview the six-term representative from New York’s 9th cd.

Doors slammed, she was ignored, and finally was granted a very brief audience with Weiner’s press secretary, David Arnold, the gist of which discussion was more denial. Kramer left and someone in the office sicced the police on her. (http://cbsloc.al/j99deE)

Weiner has steadfastly refused to officially notify legal authorities of the alleged Twitter hacking/prank, opting instead to hire private legal counsel to investigate and protect his interests, whatever they may be. Yet, his office notified legal authorities over an innocuous request for an interview.

How ironic.

Also bubbling with irony is the Rep. Anthony Weiner-Sen. Chuck Schumer relationship, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4725)

Ironies On Top of Ironies

Ironies On Top of Ironies

“The essential feature of irony is the indirect presentation of a contradiction between an action or expression and the context in which it occurs,” according to Dictionary.com. Put more simply, it’s ironic when things happen that are the precise antitheses of what we would expect or wish to happen.

The world and the nation are awash in ironies today, some salutary, most depressing. A few examples:

Wartime Irony: Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are doing their damnedest to repel and defeat a ragtag bunch of turbaned psychopaths intent on mindless jihad and salivating for those 72 virgins promised by Allah. All they are asked to do is make the ultimate sacrifice and surrender their lives for Islam in the process of killing the infidel enemy.

Yet, though many live in the same primitive squalor in which their forebears lived hundreds of years ago, our troops have been contending with their modern weapons of limited but deadly destruction such as rpg’s, ied’s and other weapons of guerilla warfare furnished by Syria and Iran.

Now, lo and behold, they are upgrading, thanks to the United States. High-tech inclinometers, gyro chips, field-programmable gate arrays and GPS systems developed by our own military to battle their foes are being employed to more effectively cause havoc and kill our soldiers: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=49354.

And why is that? “Technology that is legal to buy and sell within the U.S. but is illegal to export because of its potential military applications has been used to build weapons deployed against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan because of loose export controls,” according to a GAO report.

So, because of lax enforcement of our laws and greedy exporters, the United States painstakingly and expensively develops technologies which are then illegally sent to our enemies to enable them to prolong the conflict and exact more punishment on America’s military.

Clintonesque Irony: Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds, campaigning on a relative shoestring when contrasted with his chief opponent, Terry MacAuliffe, trounced the former Democratic National Committee Chairman and Clinton confidante in Virginia’s gubernatorial primary contest.

Despite his meager funding, a mere $3.7 million, half of fundraiser-extraordinaire McAuliffe’s haul, Deeds was able to whup the former Clintonite and an extreme leftist, Brian J. Moran. He scored almost 50% of the vote in a primary in which only 6% of registered voters bothered to make their voice heard. Deeds was so strapped for cash that he drove himself to campaign appearances in order to save money for television spots.

The wealthy late-starter McAuliffe was considered a shoo-in earlier in the race and stumped the state with his ace in the hole, former President Bill Clinton, hoping that some of Bubba’s charisma would rub off. Instead, some of Bubba’s dirt may have rubbed off as Dems showed once again that they have no loyalty to the past and especially to the Clintons and their henchmen.

Deeds, a middle of the roader, will face conservative Republican Bob McDonnell in 2010, to whom he had lost in 2005 in a run for Virginia attorney general: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=49377.

His win over McAuliffe and Moran this time around is testimony to the fact that money and contacts count for little when it comes to Virgina voters. Those voters will have another shot at returning the state to the Republican column after 8 years of wild spending and wilder tax increases under Democrat Governors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.

More ironically relevant, the Clintonistas have been handed their walking papers at the top of which it reads, “Your era and charisma have come and gone.”

Israeli Irony: The Jewish website Haaretz.com was almost giddy in its report on November 5th, 2008 that about 77% of American Jews had voted for Barack Obama over John McCain, according to exit polling. Alleging two years of smears, Jeremy Ben-Ami of the J Street lobby group said, “Surrogates and right-wing political operatives in our community stopped at nothing in their efforts to sway Jewish voters against Obama.” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1034574.html

Well, obviously, any swaying was ineffective at best and Jeremy got his wish in the election of Obama with the help of a near-record number of American Jews. Jewish voters . . .
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com)