The real story of Weinergate is the tale of conservative bloggers who kept the story alive until enough Democrats decided that they could use it to take an upstart down. The reason that CNN and so many other major media outlets decided to push the story, instead of continuing to dismiss it, is not because conservative bloggers made them do it, but because of the ambition of some Democrats.
Weiner is more than just another congressman and MSNBC favorite. He's the likely successor to Bloomberg. Or he was until this came along. He already has a war chest of almost 5 million. Which meant the job was his for the asking.
Now I enjoy the fall of a Democratic pol as much as the next guy, but this isn't a victory for Republicans. Lee's scandal helped give the Democrats a district. But does anyone think Weiner will be replaced by a Republican?
It's not impossible. Weiner's 9th district is mostly white working class. McCain picked up 44 percent of the vote there. Which means he might have actually won the white working class vote in that district. Turner put up a decent fight in the last election and picked up 40 percent of the vote against Weiner in a district where elections are usually a formality.
But the state Republican party couldn't care less. And neither could the national party. Without that the odds of NY-9 going red are very low. Which makes this a pointless exercise but for the schadenfreude. It makes it worse than that too.
Weiner was another slimy Democrat. But he's not nearly as bad as the mayoral candidates the Democratic party has put up in previous elections. Throwing Weiner out, would mean that whichever Bronx Borough president runs and gets backed by Al Sharpton will win. That's even ruling out a real nightmare like radical leftist John Liu. And that means he likely death of New York City. It puts the city back on the road to turning into Atlanta or Detroit. The road we hopped off when Dinkins lost to Giuliani. A crime ridden hellhole with no economy so deep in debt that there's no way out.
Weinergate may have a ripple effect that goes well beyond what is happening now. The state of New York City in 2014 may revolve around it.
Predicting all that is tricky. Weiner dropping out may mean that we need to say hello to Mayor Adolfo Carrion, head of Obama's White House Office of Urban Affairs, who's not averse to some kickbacks. It may however means that police commish Kelly runs on the Republican ticket and beats whichever Bronx Borough president decides to take a breather from ruining one borough to ruining the whole city. Or it may just mean saying hello to Mayor Scott Stringer or Mayor Christine Quinn, the city's first lesbian mayor.
None of the possibilities including Weiner are appetizing. But then we've had a three term mayor that everyone despises, just because he's somewhat competent. Because the alternative is the Sharpton candidate.
So the future mayor of New York City will either be a man with all the impulse control of Bill Clinton, a lesbian or the president of the city's own version of Detroit.
Don't you wish you were a New Yorker?
Daniel Greenfield is a New York City writer and columnist. He is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and his articles appears at its Front Page Magazine site.
