The Deacon's Bench
If anyone wonders what it’s like having the Anthony Weiner circus playing in your backyard, I can tell you. Check out this week’s column, “All Things New”:
Suddenly, a lot of us in the area are uncomfortably aware that some of the nice folks who sweep their sidewalks and water the azaleas and smile sweetly at the deli counter in Key Food may have a secret penchant for artless photography on the office BlackBerry. Anthony Weiner, after all, looks normal enough, doesn’t he? You wouldn’t run screaming if you saw him on the street. (Okay, maybe now you would. But last month? Probably not.) But now . . . you just have to wonder.
I guess there are a lot of lessons in Weiner’s Woes—about pride, and arrogance, and sheer stupidity. Around the neighborhood, too, we’re being reminded that we may not always be what we seem, and that ivy-covered brick walls can cover some pretty kinky stuff.
We all have things we’d prefer to keep hidden (and, maybe, should keep hidden.) It’s been this way, of course, since the dawn of time, when fig leaves were first found to be convenient fashion accessories. But nowadays scandal can lurk anywhere, and I’m starting to think that no one has any shame. My congressman thought nothing of proudly going to pick up his clothes from the dry cleaners—accompanied by a flotilla of journalists, of course—hours after the world had seen what, exactly, those clothes were covering. He smiled impishly through it all. Just another Saturday in Queens.
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