Metro

Liar, liar, big boob’s pants ARE on fire

Congratulations, Anthony Weiner. You are now officially the Twit of the Millennium.

It was once said of Weiner’s mentor that the most dangerous place in Washington was between Chuck Schumer and a camera. Yesterday, it turned out the most dangerous place for Tony Weiner in Washington was in front of a camera.

Even in the depth of his disgrace, at his astounding press conference, the man who “sent a Twitter that I regretted and I lied about” couldn’t shut his yapper.

A rational person would have fled the stage after his apology and a few choked-up answers. Not our Twit.

As the event progressed, Weiner acknowledged he couldn’t be sure of the ages of the women — he said six in all, but who really knows now? — with whom he engaged in online sex chat. Then he said he couldn’t deny he had sent “X-rated photos” of himself to women who might potentially have been underage.

Last Wednesday, in these pages, I called the congressman a “bad liar” for the risible sequence of claims that his Twitter account had been hacked even though he couldn’t say “with certitude” that the anatomical part clothed in gray underwear in a photo appearing under his name wasn’t the one attached to his body.

The use of the word “liar” in that column was somewhat bold at the time. No one in the mainstream media was using it. Now it looks like a ridiculous understatement — and a mischaracterization of sorts.

Being a liar turns out to be the least of it, at least when it comes to having a political future. It’s one thing to be a lowlife; it’s another to be a stupid lowlife.

Go ahead, take crass and tasteless pictures of yourself if you insist. Send them to women if you insist. Then apologize for it. But if you’re a public official, it seems simple prudence that you should be especially cautious not to post them on a public Web site.

People tell me Weiner is a smart guy. But unless he unconsciously sought to get caught, which I doubt, what he has done over the past week should forever retire the notion that he is anything but a colossal boob of the highest order.

Let’s be honest. Many elected officials the world over are colossal boobs. But here’s the thing: Most colossal boobs in politics tend to comport themselves with a certain surprising modesty.

There’s a reason you probably hadn’t heard of Reps. Chris Lee and Mark Foley or Sens. Larry Craig and David Vitter before their careers were derailed by sex-related scandals that suggested a comparable degree of idiocy. You hadn’t, because they kept a low profile.

Not Weiner. He is as allergic to a low profile as he is, evidently, to boxer shorts.

Being a colossal boob isn’t a crime, of course. Nor is being a liar. Nor is being a 46-year-

old man who sends suggestive photos to a woman 25 years younger than you — a crime against elementary decency, of course, but not a violation of statute. (Assuming she was, in fact, the youngest . . .)

He says he’s not resigning. We’ll see about that, too.

The only thing we won’t have to see is whether Weiner will be representing his district in January 2013. Because either he’ll be gone or the district will be rezoned out of existence. That will give him time to prepare for his run for the mayoralty.

Don’t laugh.

OK. Laugh.

johnpodhoretz@gmail.com