Tony Weiner is a lot of things: arrogant, a conniver, an Internet flasher, a caught-out common liar — and a moral sociopath who is monumentally contemptuous of the city he now seeks to lead. God forbid.
Yet curious he is not.
Certainly not about the shower of dollar bills that fluttered down on him after he slunk from Congress two years ago and then quickly re-emerged as a below-the-radar “strategic consultant.”
Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, recently disclosed some $500,000 in joint income for 2012 — most of it, they said, accruing from Weiner’s “consulting” activities.
Nice work if you can get it — but, alas, so few can.
It’s certainly an arrangement that needs a long second look, given subsequent disclosures that Abedin provided “consultant” services to private-sector clients while a publicly paid top aide to then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Weiner himself expressed bemusement at his good fortune, acknowledging in a New York Times interview that, for some, consulting is less strenuous than, say, high-steel construction.
“I didn’t have to do very much or work very hard to drum up business,” he told the Times. “Things kind of came over the transom.”
As for consulting itself, he added, “I found I am pretty good at it.”
Giggle. What a kidder, that Anthony.
Now, it would seem that Weiner is just trying to polish the same old poop. Everybody knows that the first stop after leaving Congress is, for most, a long ride on one gravy train or another — lobbying, consulting, whatever. And no doubt that explains some of Weiner’s good fortune.
But then there is the curious case of Mrs. Weiner, an exceptionally influential aide to Hillary Clinton and a close friend of the Clinton family in general.
Last week, it was disclosed that Abedin provided consulting services to several private clients, including the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, while also on the public payroll as a — drumroll — “consultant” to Hillary Clinton.
All sides applied the usual Jesuitical jiujitsu to justifying the arrangement — while, tellingly, declining to reveal any significant financial details. Very nice work — if you can get it.
So here we are: A man who aspires to the mayoralty and a potential first lady of the city, awash in dubious cash — and nobody seems either startled or distressed by it. Or to know what’s going on.
Well, here’s a clue: Hillary Clinton is better positioned to become president of the United States in January 2017 than any other politician in America. Nothing’s foreordained (even Secretariat was beaten once), but should it surprise anyone to find sleaze-mongers lining up to make a down payment on a potential friendly ear in the White House?
Or her husband?
So: This question.
Does New York, already subsumed in sleaze, really need a first family with that kind of a cloud hanging over its head?
Yet there Weiner was yesterday, stumping the city with that sly, Peck’s Bad Boy glint in his eye and the usual banalities rolling off his forked tongue: “Hi! I’m Anthony, and I promise to be good this time.”
Not bloody likely.
The moral myopia pervading Weiner’s return to public life — his virtual prediction that more sexting partners will emerge to vex the campaign; the blithe dismissal of the flagrant lies that informed the original scandal and his sudden “success” as a “consultant” — suggest strongly that he has very much not learned his lesson.
If Weiner were truly penitent — if he were a decent human being — he’d understand this. And he would spare a deeply troubled, scandal-plagued city the further indignity of his presence.
What a pity that he is not that man.