Lee versus Weiner

*Note: I wrote this post before Anthony Weiner resigned, but didn’t get it posted until now (that’s why it reads like he hadn’t resigned). Such is the plight of a once-a-week (or so) blog.

Part of me can’t believe I’m actually doing this post, but I’d like to do a little compare and contrast exercise. We’re going to look at the sex scandals involving a pair of New York politicians, namely former Congressman Chris Lee, a Republican, and current (though potentially soon-to-be-if-not-already former) Congressman Anthony Weiner, a Democrat. This is not meant to extrapolate some kind of moral high-ground to one party or the other and this isn’t usually what I like to write about, but I think this could actually be an interesting exercise nevertheless. I feel that the two situations are similar enough that they can be reasonably compared to one another.

Lee, a husband and father, sent some pictures to a woman over Craigslist. I’m sure we can find them easily online. The picture was of him flexing shirtless and was fairly benign by internet standards.

Weiner’s also married and they’re expecting their first child. Weiner sent pictures and sexted with several women over Twitter. He also talked to a minor over Twitter, but as of this writing, nothing inappropriate (or illegal) took place there. Weiner had a Lee-like pic of shirtless flexing, but that was the most benign of them. He also had a picture of his underwear-covered guy parts and pictures of him posing suggestively in a towel in the House of Representatives gym.

So two Congressmen from New York got caught sending naughty pics. I think it’s clear that Weiner’s actual conduct was far worse in terms of number of women involved and how far he went. You just can’t seriously make a case otherwise. But, what I find intriguing is how radically different the two situations played out.

Chris Lee resigned within hours of the story breaking, no questions asked. He resigned so quickly that the story of his resignation seemed to hit the wires before we learned why he was resigning. It wasn’t until after we learned of his resignation that the reason why emerged. I found this fascinating.

Weiner, on the other hand, played it very differently. The initial defense was that his account was hacked when the underwear picture was sent. He kept referring to his office’s press releases and was at times fairly combative with the media. Weiner also tried frequently to change the subject in a, “There’s nothing to see here,” sort of way. Then, he changed his approach and started opening up to the media, at which point he said that he didn’t send the pic, but he, “Couldn’t say with certitude,” whether or not the pic was of him. Weiner finally came clean after several days of intense scrutiny and the evidence building against him was too overwhelming to continue his evasion and deception.

It has since been unveiled that he had such correspondences with multiple women and other pictures surfaced, most recently pics of him in the House of Representatives gym. Also, he was talking with a minor from Delaware, but apparently nothing inappropriate and/or illegal took place there. Weiner has now taken a leave of absence from Congress to seek treatment.

We established above that Weiner did far worse than Lee prior to getting caught. We’ve also now established that Lee did very little to cover up his actions and resigned almost instantaneously. It’s possible, but not likely in my view, that we’ll learn that Lee did more than this and he didn’t want it all to come out. By contrast, Weiner has been caught lying repeatedly, engaging in other evasive and/or combative behavior, and has taken a leave of absence from Congress versus resignation.

Note that, in this context, yes Weiner was lying. He was willfully, intentionally, and knowingly making factually false statements to the press. This is simply not one of those cases of a person being sincere without being truthful in which a person makes a factually false statement that s/he believes to be true. Being sincere, but not truthful, is not the same as lying to someone, even though the end result is the same in that the person receiving the message receives factually false information.

Am I the only one who sees a ridiculous double-standard here? Lee came clean and resigned almost immediately because of one shirtless picture, yet Weiner remains in office on a leave of absence after more numerous (and racier) pictures (including a shirtless pic) with more women followed by evasive, combative, and deceptive behavior. Also, note that (for once) I’m not being critical of the media because, from what I’ve seen, I think they generally did a pretty good job being persistent with the Weiner story once it emerged.

We’re thus left to conclude one of two things, or perhaps a combination of them. Either Lee resigned prematurely and should have tried to weather the storm as Weiner is attempting to do, or Weiner should have taken his cue from Lee and resigned by now. Regardless, I find it fascinating to compare and contrast the two somewhat similar situations.