As our friend Robert Stacy McCain knows, I vigorously dissented from the media horde’s dogged pursuit of Rep. Anthony Weiner. His online flirtations with women, no matter how tawdry and titillating, are simply not a matter for public consumption, I think. Regrettably, though, L’affaire Weiner is now a bona fide political matter — and it threatens to seriously undermine the Democratic Party, and especially House and Senate Democrats. Indeed, the fear amongst an increasing number of congressional Dems is that Weiner will become the face and image of their party, legislatively (though not presidentially) in the 2012 election: loud, brash, arrogant, clueless, selfish, self-absorbed, and sexually deviant. For this reason, as Stacy notes , serious-minded Dems, such as Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA), Tim Kaine (D-VAa) and Niki Tsongas (D-MA), are now urging Weiner to resign. In their view, the New York Democrat has become politically toxic and damaging to their party. They should know. Schwartz heads up candidate recruitment for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Kaine is running for governor of Virginia. And, come November 2012, they don’t want Weiner to be the lingering image in voters’ minds. The problem is that political parties ain’t what they used to be. Campaign finance “reform” laws have weakened the parties and pushed money and fundraising onto independent, outside groups. Thus, pols such as Weiner are mostly political free agents who are beholden to no one but themselves and their independent campaign committees. Maybe the Dems still can pressure Weiner to resign; we’ll see. But I suspect that if the scrappy and angry New Yorker really doesn’t want to leave office, he ain’t gonna leave office. Of course, it used to be, as Spock said, that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Unfortunately for congressional Democrats, that’s now a quaint and old-fashioned notion.
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Congressional Dems Resist Being Weinered
German chancellor Angela Merkel will visit the White House ( Wall Street Journal ) Two new polls put Romney ahead of or even with Obama in a hypothetical matchup ( L.A. Times ) Obama’s top economist, Council of Economic Advisers chair Austan Goolsbee, to step down ( Atlantic Wire ) Ben Bernanke will give a speech on the economy at 3:45 p.m. in Atlanta, as Fed watchers look for hints about possible QE3 ( MarketWatch ) Pawlenty set to unveil economic plan in Chicago ( Fox News ) Rep. Anthony Weiner comes clean: On the main site: Palin Ponders Third Party Paradox by
What to watch for:
And that’s not the only problem : Japanese officials struggled on Sunday to contain a widening nuclear crisis in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and tsunami, saying they presumed that partial meltdowns had occurred at two crippled reactors and that they were facing serious cooling problems at three more . The emergency appeared to be the worst involving a nuclear plant since the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago. The developments at two separate nuclear plants prompted the evacuation of more than 200,000 people. Japanese officials said they had also ordered up the largest mobilization of their Self-Defense Forces since World War II to assist in the relief effort. Robert Stacy McCain has been energetically aggregating the news, and has eschewed any partisan extremes, neither wringing his hands in panic, nor (as some have done ) rushing to declare everything is OK in advance of the facts. He has been appropriately suspicious of official reports and entertaining as usual. You could do worse than to pay close attention to his blog for the rest of the weekend, as well as my perennial favorite Hot Air . Understand that “partial meltdown” does not mean “deadly plume of radiation headed for U.S.”: A meltdown occurs when there is insufficient cooling of the reactor core, and it is the most dangerous kind of a nuclear power accident because of the risk of radiation releases. The radiation levels reported so far by the Japanese authorities are far above normal but still too small to pose a hazard to human health if the exposure continued for a brief period. The fear was that more core damage would bring bigger releases. The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that as many as 160 people may have been exposed to radiation around the plant, and Japanese news media said that three workers at the facility were suffering from full-on radiation sickness . Viewed in perspective, this is hardly the biggest problem to come out of the double disaster, by a longshot. At least so far. The casualties of the earthquake (now upgraded to 9.0 ) and tsunami have yet to be measured, but will certainly be in the tens of thousands. Nobody has died as a result of the likely meltdowns. And again: nothing is definite in a situation like this. Saying something is “presumed” does not mean it is true. As always, appropriate skepticism is the watchword.
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N.Y. Times: Japanese Officials Presume Two Partial Meltdowns Have Occurred
While I am pleased that Robert Stacy McCain has seen fit to keep
