Time obviously is hanging heavy on the hands of cyber-flasher Anthony Weiner — once a morning-line favorite to succeed Mayor Bloomberg and now a national joke.
And a not particularly funny one at that.
The Post’s Annie Karni reported Sunday that Weiner — scarcely a year after resigning from Congress for tweeting lewd crotch shots to several young women (none of them his wife) and then lying about it — is apparently plotting a comeback.
Maybe he’ll run for mayor after all.
Or maybe public advocate (no real improvement over his current circumstance, come to think of it).
Once upon a time, convention would have required someone like Weiner to take the proverbial long walk off the short pier.
But the flip side of the 15-minutes-of-fame trope is that the time-out for shame doesn’t even last that long.
As Bill Clinton demonstrated by defining deviancy so far down that Weiner probably still doesn’t understand what he did wrong.
(Or Eliot Spitzer, for that matter.)
Granted, there seem to be other factors at work besides Weiner’s near-sociopathic need for personal attention.
He’s got $4.5 million in his campaign accounts and stands to collect an additional $1.5 million in taxpayer-furnished matching funds by the end of next year.
Then there’s the fact that both offices almost certainly will be opening up next year — and if he doesn’t run then, he may have to wait eight years for another opportunity.
Weiner certainly must be tempted by the lighter-than-air collection of current mayoral candidates — those who have quasi-announced, anyway.
Indeed, his what-might-have-been moments must be very painful, indeed.
After all, just last month he told a local radio show that he’d “paid a very high price” for his indiscretions — though what he no doubt really wanted to say was “too high a price.”
So, is it too soon for a Weiner comeback?
Well, he’s been off playing Mr. Mom for a while now, and the Republic appears to have survived his absence. And no doubt it’ll get along just fine if the former congressman decides to make it permanent.
So that makes it all about Weiner.
Get over yourself, Tony.
Go find a real job.