Weiner Says He’s “100 Percent” Done With Sexting

New York Mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner says he’s done sexting:

Anthony Weiner tells NBC 4 New York he is “100 percent not” having any type of online relationships with anyone now, and says for the first time he has not kept any records of his past lewd affairs.

“I don’t have any of the records,” Weiner said in an interview Friday. “I deleted everything.”

A woman came forward last month with explicit photos of Weiner and messages from him, revealing that the married mayoral candidate’s affairs had continued long after he resigned from Congress in 2011. Since then, the embattled Democrat has sought to turn the conversation back to the day-to-day issues of campaigning.

He has been trailed at every appearance by reporters and photographers, and gave a series of interviews Friday in what appeared to be an attempt to close the door on the conversation.

During his 15 minutes with NBC 4 New York, he grew weary of the topic, insisting at one point that the details of his illicit affairs, which he says ended about a year ago, didn’t matter.

“The behavior that people know about, I did, over an extended period of time, with more than one person,” Weiner said. “I just think at a certain point, OK, I think people know these embarrassing things about me. I think at a certain point now we have to have a conversation that goes to, alright, what else should people know?”

And yet he can’t seem to get away from it.

FILED UNDER: 2013 Election, US Politics, , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. al-Ameda says:

    People will quite often let the first transgression ride – nobody’s perfect, that kind of thing, but …. Well, why would anybody believe him this time?

  2. James Pearce says:

    For reals this time!

  3. rudderpedals says:

    He promises to pull out too…

  4. JohnMcC says:

    Y’know, I can enjoy the embarrassment of someone who’s often been a horse’s patootie just as much as the next fellow. And there is a universal human response to seeing those in elevated positions turn out to have feet of clay. OK. Got that.

    And I haven’t been following the story all that closely. So maybe I’m sticking my neck out too far.

    But what, exactly, did Mr Weiner do that was so horrible? “Sexting” seems to me like something that consenting people — in this case everyone was an adult, yes? — do. Presumably they have some expectation of privacy (there we go again with the ‘privacy on the internet’ theme). There is no intent to be disgusting or unfaithful to any third party. No one seems to have been victimized or cheated out of money or held up to ridicule by the two people involved. If I understand it correctly this is simply a digital version of ‘you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.” Which most of us outgrew before the 7th grade but maybe not everyone did. And — well, to cut this off short: Who gives a f*ck?

    The more this goes on, the more I feel sorry for Mr Weiner. And very very sorry for Mrs Weiner.

  5. legion says:

    @rudderpedals: Just the tip!

  6. rudderpedals says:

    @legion: I don’t always do tips but when I do, I use a mohel.

  7. bill says:

    weiner maybe, but what about carlos danger? speaking of which, a rev from the bronx was upset that he chose an Hispanic identity to perpetuate his sleaziness! didn’t get much press though for some reason.

    ” Rev. Erick Salgado, who hails from the Bronx and is of Puerto Rican descent, claims the name is insulting to Hispanics. “For Anthony Weiner to hide under a Spanish name to do his bad behavior is very insulting to the Spanish community,” Salgado said yesterday.

    “I believe he have [sic] to apologize to the Latino community. Every time many people do wrong behavior [sic], it’s always a Carlito, a Pedrito, a Miguelito. But behind that name, it was really not a Carlito. It was a ‘Anthony Weiner.’ You have to apologize to the Latino community. It’s an insult,” Salgado said.”

  8. stonetools says:

    Well, I’m certainly going to take his word for it!
    I mean, what could go wrong?

    But then, the good, Christian, family values state of Louisiana take Diaper Dave’s word that he would be only his wife’s baby from hereon in and that apparently worked out for them, so….

  9. JKB says:

    …again

  10. Andre Kenji says:

    @JohnMcC:

    But what, exactly, did Mr Weiner do that was so horrible? “Sexting” seems to me like something that consenting people

    ,

    1-) We don´t know whether the women involved requested or expected to see Weiner´s junk.

    2-) Weiner is not a teenager, he is a married family guy that wants to lead the largest city in the hemisphere. That´s creepy, something that we´d expect from losers, not from the Mayor of NY. It´s more creepy than horrible.

  11. Pinky says:

    @bill: There’s some poor guy out there named Carlos Danger whose reputation is ruined.

  12. Grewgills says:

    @Andre Kenji:
    Given the tone of the conversations and that she was sending pics back, I think we can safely assume she wanted the pics.
    As to your second point, true enough, but I don’t much care if someone’s sexual preferences seem a bit oogie to me, as long as they aren’t lecturing me on and trying to legislate my morality.

  13. michael reynolds says:

    @JohnMcC:

    You mean texting a dick shot is not far, far worse than starting an unnecessary war that gets thousands of people killed and wastes a trillion dollars? Where’s your sense of proportion, man?

    That said, I can only assume Mr. Weiner’s statement means he has moved on to Chat Roulette. (Because I’m totally not above a cheap shot.0

  14. Kylopod says:

    When I saw this headline, all I could think of was the old SNL skit with Dana Carvey as Bush Sr. promising to “never, never, never, never, never….” raise taxes again. (I wish I could find a clip of it, but so far I can’t.)

  15. Andre Kenji says:

    @Grewgills:

    As to your second point, true enough, but I don’t much care if someone’s sexual preferences seem a bit oogie to me,

    i do care. Running a city like New York is a really tough job – anyone that has spare time to obsesse with sending his penis pictures to strangers is not qualified to the job.

  16. Grewgills says:

    @Andre Kenji:
    Meh, he probably spent about as much time at it as you or I spend on SIWOTI. It just seems to suck a lot of air for a sexless sex scandal.

  17. Andre Kenji says:

    @Grewgills: I and you are not running for Mayor of NYC.

  18. Grewgills says:

    @Andre Kenji:
    I’m guessing this or similar activity went back through most of his career or even before. If it didn’t hinder him doing his job (apart from the media circus), then absent said circus I see no real problem.

  19. JohnMcC says:

    @Andre Kenji: I don’t expect I’d vote for the fellow and his recklessness in doing the sexting probably would have something to do with it. He has always impressed me as a self-important horses back-end anyhow. But condemning him for a victimless and childish habit smells to high heaven of hypocracy.